IRISH MIKE DAVIS Partly sage, narrator and rhyme
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My Life is Words

Words and ideas turn on the lights in the brain

CAN WE MOVE INTO THE 21st CENTURY, PLEASE?

6/30/2020

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We are still listening to medieval voices

Modern science has existed for nearly 700 years and has guided us out of the dark ages into the most enlightened time in the history of our species. Yet, we cling to fantasies, fallacies, and folklore older than recorded history, with most of it rooted in religion.

Five major world religions claim the majority of religious adherents. Just two, Christianity and Islam, account for over 4 billion people, more than half the total population on Earth. Each of the religions has shaped our culture for generations. The world religions have influenced art, architecture, philosophy, ethics, politics, and even language. Each has its unique attributes, traditions, and peculiarities.

Thou shalt not kill - that is pretty basic to all the religions, and I suspect that tenet existed long before organized religion. Common sense told our ancient ancestors that they had to (a) survive as a group and (b) stop killing each other. Other rules for societal behavior almost certainly preceded organized religion. Like our primate cousins in the ape family, we instinctively understood the need for societal norms.

As we procreated in ancient times, probably more like wild dogs, and most likely producing some offspring that were not likely to contribute to the advancement of our species, it must have become evident that we needed rules about sexual permissiveness. Again, this was happening long before organized religion became the guardian of human behavior.

As religion evolved from…no one is quite sure what was in its place before recorded history to the advent of various beliefs in multiple gods, we then codified much of what we had learned about governing human behavior into the rules of multiple belief systems. Those ancient ancestors wanted to believe in something. We have found graves of people buried with cherished objects - sometimes other people and animals - suggesting that we had or wanted to believe in an afterlife. We concluded that some higher powers controlled the weather and lightning, floods, etc., and we experimented with multiple gods, often thought to be related to divine rulers, an idea almost certainly promulgated by the rulers. 

Having witnessed over the centuries, these divine rulers behaving like low-lifes, incestuous whoremasters, and bloodthirsty butchers, we realized their behavior was tarnishing the image of our gods by association. We quickly disabused ourselves of that notion that any humans were gods. We eventually winnowed the whole theory down to a single God.

Life for humans, going back as far as recorded history permits and even before that, was, in a word, a bitch. Finding food, shelter, dying from a disease, and avoiding every other danger imaginable, human life was a considerable trial without a lot of happy endings.

As we began to believe in gods, and eventually a single God, it was counter-intuitive to believe in a God who made us suffer so. Why would he put all this pain and suffering on us, if as we were taught, he loved us? If we were to believe in God, we needed to explain why this God, who supposedly created us, would shit on us daily, as seemed to be the case.

Life and death were also great mysteries. We understood that the act of procreating brought about babies, just as every animal on the planet follows the instinct to breed. We had no clue how any of that came about, so God became a convenient explanation for how a child came to be, and with religion serving a dual purpose as keepers of science, the idea was accepted that it was divine intervention.

Death. Whoa! Death! An unsolvable mystery as it is today. We knew it happened to all living things, but it scared the bejesus out of us. Despite the miserable shit-storm, most of us called our lives, we held on to religious teachings with a passion, not wanting to die. But, with religion, came the knowledge, promulgated by our religious leaders, that we didn't die as long as we were true to our faith; we passed on to a new forever life that not only ensured we would be around forever, but we were assured that we would be free of our suffering and pain, and we would be reunited with all the family and friends who had died before us. That's a late-night ad that's hard to ignore.

Another problem presented by a "god" orchestrating all these events on Earth was the notion of evil and sin. A certain percentage of people, no matter how many times they were told the rules of civilization, refused to sign up to and adhere to the rules of life set down, rules that they didn't have a vote in. To put this aberrant behavior in context, we concluded some evil people sinned. Since we had a God to guide us down the rosy path of life, we needed a villain to explain why some of our fellow humans behaved so badly; enter Satan and the notion of evil influences.

All of this evolution of human thought happened over tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. The rules and standards were passed from one generation to the other verbally before the advent of writing. And, those social norms varied greatly from one society to another. With the arrival of writing, people all over the Earth began to record all the myths and stories, many baseless, containing all the fears and presumed answers developed over the millennia to govern human behavior.

Viola'! We had religious texts that could be passed from one generation to another, providing continuity of thought as well as enshrining those who wrote the words. Often claiming input from the divine, the authors ensured their place in history as well as some power in their current life.

All of this was working reasonably well for the better part of 2,800 years. From what some think of as the beginnings of monotheism (one God) in 1300 BCE until around the 14th century CE when some feel modern science began to unravel many of life's mysteries using observations and logic rather than folklore. Before this time, we relied on medieval science, which hailed theology and metaphysics as the pinnacle of scientific knowledge.

For an interesting take on the evolution of religion, you might want to look at this: or, better yet, buy my book.

Much of modern-day religion still holds on to the very same concepts developed during the period of medieval science. When we look at some of the rituals of the major religions, we see this in action.

The taking of communion in most Christian churches with a nibble of bread and perhaps a sip of wine in the belief that you are taking in the blood and body of Christ is a prime example.

Upon the death of a Jew, the eyes are closed, the body is covered and laid on the floor, and candles are lit next to it. The body is never left alone as a sign of respect. Those who stay with the body are called shomerim (guards). Eating, drinking, or performing mitzvot are prohibited near the body, as such actions would mock the person who is no longer able to do such things.

Flowers are not appropriate at a Muslim funeral or as gifts to the mourning family. Men and women sit separately at the Muslim funeral service, and women should cover their heads and arms. No recording devices of any kind — audio, video or photo — are permitted. Some sects mourn officially for 40 days; during that time, the family wears only black. The widow wears black for a year, although the anniversary of the death is not otherwise observed

The Christian ecclesiastical garb first became peculiar in a strict sense when, under the influence of the migration of the Germanic tribes, the costumes, as well as the forms of the ancient world, passed away. The more convenient medieval dress was substituted, while the Church (and for a longer or shorter period, the upper classes and the higher officials also) clung to Roman or Greek fashions.

Dietary laws and customs are based on the prior assumption of social stratification or, at least, of a sense of separateness is provided by Judaism as spelled out in the books of in the Torah. Prohibited foods include all animals—and the products of animals—that do not chew the cud and do not have cloven hoofs (e.g., pigs and horses); fish without fins and scales; the blood of any animal; shellfish (e.g., clams, oysters, shrimp, crabs) and all other living creatures that creep; and those fowl enumerated in the Bible (e.g., vultures, hawks, owls, herons). All foods outside these categories may be eaten.

Many Qurʾānic strictures were explicit in establishing distinctions between Arabs and Jews. Many dietary regulations borrow heavily from Mosaic Law in forbidding the consumption of the blood of any animal, the flesh of swine or of animals that are found dead, and food that has been offered or sacrificed to idols. The most radical departure of Islamic dietary laws from those found in the Torah concerns the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Jews may consume alcohol and wine in many rituals and feasts. The Qurʾān, however, absolutely forbids any such beverages.

There may have been some good reasons for some of these rules. We now know, thanks to modern science, that certain parasites can be ingested from eating both pork and some fish that can invade the body and make us sick. Without the benefit of science, ancient humans may have been able to make a connection between certain foods and humans becoming ill, and these rules were established to protect human health.

Christianity did not develop elaborate dietary rules and customs. This probably grew out of the controversy over whether or not to observe Mosaic food laws. Jesus is said to have declared that any external agent could not cause contamination. 

Hindu food observances help to define a social position. While uncooked food may be received from or handled by members of any caste, Brahmans, members of the highest caste, eat only those foods prepared in the finest manner (pakka). Everyone else takes inferior (kacca) food. Food left on plates after eating is defined as garbage (jutha) because the eater’s saliva has polluted it. Meats are graded according to their relative amount of pollution. Eggs are the least and beef the most defiling; the highest-caste Brahmans avoid all meat products.

Again, much if not most of this knowledge must have come to us before organized religion. We observed what was happening and connecting the dots. So and so ate this mushroom and died. After several such occurrences, we learned not to eat that particular mushroom. That is the definition of evolution; learning by observing and making connections.​
While we cling to many of these ancient notions, we all know now how to ensure we don't get sick from infected pork; it has nothing to do with what kind of hooves an animal has. Shellfish and fish without fins are not only harmless, but many of them are essential to a healthy diet.

We know how our bodies and those of the rest of the animal kingdom work to produce offspring; we know what thunder and lightning are and how it is produced; we understand the tides, eclipses, and the expansiveness of our universe. All this knowledge and more have come to us over the last 700 years, and our knowledge base continues to grow exponentially with each advance in science and technology.

So, why do we continue to listen to the voices of the past, people who, two thousand years ago, thought the world was flat? Five hundred or a thousand years from now, will the world of the future look back on us as we look back on the ancient Greeks and Egyptians and wonder how we could have clung to the old ways?​
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Is White Supremacy The Root Cause?

6/10/2020

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Certainly, the focus at the moment in the US and around the world, is with the various agencies involved in the enforcement of laws and their abuse of their authority, and in particular how they interact with people of color.

The frustration felt by the oppressed, the poor, and people of color toward the police is totally understandable and in most cases properly targeted. But I think we are only looking at one arm of a very large octopus. The police are an obvious target because (a) they are very visible to everyone in our society almost all the time and (b) given their assignment or their perception thereof, they are in fact overstepping their authority in many instances.

To try to address the problems of racism and discrimination, we need to look, both higher on the organization chart, and inward at ourselves, our beliefs, and our actions, and in some cases complacency. We have to review our fallacies about the white supremacy that has become embedded in our culture. To do that, we have to look at how we got here.

The "white man" has ruled over this world for a very long time in most cases. Without turning this into a history class, and I shouldn't have to if we've been paying attention, we white people have ruled most of this planet for centuries. Naturally, in China, Japan, the Koreas, and all of Asia, after the Europeans tried mightily to rule that part of the world, and succeeded for a number of centuries, most of Asia wrested back their autonomy from the Europeans.

In other words, thanks primarily to the Europeans and the birth of navigation around the world, we established the notion of white supremacy worldwide, and I should point out that while we didn't call it racism, but rather colonization, the dominance of much of the world was white male supremacy in action.

​Whether it was Columbus and the Spaniards (primarily, although the French, Portuguese  and English were major players) wiping out millions of indigenous peoples in the New World, or doing the same type of things in Africa and Asia, we white people did take over the world for a very long time and imposed our will, our language, and our culture and governance on the world.

Wherever this was happening, there were undoubtedly some white and people of color who were repulsed by white domination and the cruelty that often accompanied it. From Catholic Priests in the New World to natives in countries around the world, there were people who argued and fought against white domination and in some cases, had success, but more often paid the ultimate price for resisting. For the most part, the caucasians held the power, both politically and economically and forced their will on much of the world, and to a large extent that is still true today.

Until quite recently, the power and the leadership in most western countries was dominated by white males. That would include most of Western Europe, the United States and Canada as well as some parts of South America. To some extent, this is true in Russia, although Russia is almost a study by itself.

Let's talk for a moment about how we are like our chimpanzee cousins, and this applies to people no matter their color. Once we achieve a level of power and influence, or wealth, which very often accompanies power, we are very reluctant to let go of that; no one likes being demoted.

The alpha male, and the alpha female of a chimpanzee troop will fight to keep their position in the troop, as will the dominant males and females a many species of animals and insects, so we can probably conclude that wanting to be at the top of the organization chart is not unique to humans.

To a large extent, while animals continue to engage in some bizarre rituals and behaviors to exert their dominance, occasionally with some blood letting, we humans have evolved a system that seldom requires a physical throw-down between two individuals vying for control.

That doesn't alter the fact that those in charge, predominantly white people in the Western world, do not want to lose power and will stoop to almost anything to hang on to that power. This is just as true in Asia where Asians are in power, but my discussion relates to white people and specifically what is happening in the US today.

Which brings us back to the present. Having overrun the indigenous peoples of most of the continents the Europeans had invaded, they still had millions of these natives on their hands, almost none of whom were white. Add to that, the importation of people of color, primarily from Africa as slaves, we had yet another group of non-whites to deal with and to subjugate. In the US, we also had brown people, millions of them, just south of our borders, people we saw as helpful in terms of cheap labor to build our nation, but people of color nonetheless.

As we colonized all these places around the world, we forced the vanquished to adopt our religions and to learn our language; that meant that we had to educate them to some degree. As that education process took hold, the non-whites began to realize they were being socially ostracized as well as powerless, and because their instincts to be in control were just as strong as the white people, this presented another threat to the notion of white supremacy.

Religion, again almost totally dominated by anglos, saw the indigenous people as heathens and non-believers that certainly disqualified them from any position of authority and in some minds, questioned if they were even human. Religion and government worked together to maintain control and the white supremacy.

In the US, and I suspect around the world, ​those in power also wrote controlling documents like their constitutions and enacted laws to rule their world. They formed various government agencies to operate their society. Whether it was always a conscious intent or more subconscious, those controlling documents were designed to ensure that those in power, stayed in power. They became manifestos to white male supremacy.

Our own Constitution, as great a document as that is, proclaiming that "all men are equal," was written by Europeans who did not consider women or slaves to be their equals. We have tried to expand our definition of equal through a series of amendments, but we are still short of perfection.

We formed policing agencies and various branches of the military, all of which were under the control of the white people. This insidious growth of white supremacy creeped into every corner of governance and became not only the norm, but almost a religion in itself. Because one of the ways of holding onto white power was to diminish people of color, and women, we all were taught and came to believe that something terrible would happen if either of those groups were to ascend to positions of power and influence. Biblical references were often used to bolster these arguments.

As time went on, these agencies grew and evolved. One white person, almost always male, was replaced by another white male who had been indoctrinated in the notion that white people were natural leaders and more capable of that task than either people of color or women. For some, this may or may not have been an evil act; it may have been simple logic or doctrine to them. Either way, it became the norm as it was seen and preached as the way things should be, and sometimes even suggested it was God's will that the world run this way.

Our education system, run by white people, and the school text books, written and edited by white people and taught to generations of young Americans ignored many of the truths about how our nation was founded and run over time. I'm not stating this so much as a criticism as simply a fact of life in a country dominated by the white culture. I have no doubt that the governmental powers in Mexico, China, Russian, anywhere in the world, have done the same thing. They want people to have pride in our country and history and that would be difficult if they were honest in teaching about the discrimination and even genocides that have occurred in virtually every nation on earth.

In summary, as we seem to finally be awakening from this orchestrated nightmare of white male dominance that has produced events like the death of George Floyd, we have to look at the bigger picture. We've been hearing about "systemic racism"; I think we have to get a little higher and look at this whole business from thirty-thousand feet. We have a system design by and developed to maintain white male supremacy. The police are just one part of that; we have to dig deep to root out white male supremacy wherever it exists.

How many corporations have either a person of color or woman as CEO or even demographically represented on the Board of Directors?  Are we convinced they can't find a qualified candidate that isn't a white male? We have had one president of color in our almost 250 year history, and not one woman, and it won't happen this time around, either.

As we work our way through this, and it is a monumental undertaking, we need to understand that it's not just about Black people, although they have suffered more than most and must be a priority, it is accepting that we have allowed white male supremacy to dominate our society, and reforming that judgment should be our ultimate goal.

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Mind Control

6/10/2020

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That term, mind control brings to mind about as many images as there are people on the planet; it means different things to different people, but it is, I believe, the ultimate struggle that each of us wrestle with our entire lives.
Our mind, our intellect, and yes, our egos are the result of an evolutionary process that seems to be unique to our branch of the primate tree and to all life as we know it on this earth. For whatever reason, our brain evolved a multitude of functions and capabilities unlike any other animal that we are aware of. And, along with that, we seem to have lost other abilities that many of our animal cousins still possess. Did we lose them, or was it simply that with the growth and complexity of our new brains that we no longer needed those older elements and instincts?
I'll leave the pursuit of knowledge about our evolution in terms of our brain to the researchers and scientists who have both the education and the time to delve into the topic. What I want to discuss is the programming of our brains as we travel the road of life.

Yes, programming; we are programmed beginning at a very early age and we continue to be programmed and attempt at reprogramming us are not stop through most of our lives. Some of the programs come from outside our minds and some of it is self-imposed.

There are studies that indicate we begin hearing and sensing things while we're still in the womb. I suspect that degree of learning is somewhat limited. First of all, in the womb, you are pretty much consumed with the process of development from a mass of cells to a fully formed little critter with a functioning brain. There's a reason why this all takes place in the womb and not on the kitchen table; we need some privacy and certainly protection during this growth period.

So that my words are not abused or misused, let me hasten to add that this has nothing to do with a woman's right to choose whether or not to be an incubator for what will eventually become a viable being. I am pro-choice and nothing I am saying here is to be misconstrued to argue against that position. Someday, as will undoubtedly happen, we will be able to create a human outside a woman's womb.

That process, just as it happens in a womb today, will initially be a collection of cells with the potential of becoming a viable being, but for a considerable period of time as it lies in a Petri dish, or glass bubble, or whatever medium is used to allow those cells to divide and grow, it is not a vialble lifeform. Early in that process, as things may go wrong, and they will just as they do in a womb, a decision will have to be made whether or not to allow those cells to evolve into a partially functioning human or not.
Enough of that. Back to our collection of cells that now has a brain capable of hearing and sensing at least some information. As the article above indicates, our little brain has the ability to hear words outside the womb and remember those words. Since we can't see yet, we can't associate those words with images, but the words are stored in our brains along with other sounds we may have heard, a barking dog, the doorbell, a sneeze or a cough.

You may have heard or read that playing classical music to an infant in the womb can increase their intelligence. This article suggest there is no scientific foundation for this claim. That doesn't mean the music isn't heard, and that it may well affect the devlopment of the infants brain, but such proof would require a significan number of babies in the womb, preferrably all identical to avoid other mitigating factors, and then a controlled study of playing Mozart for some and not others. Until we have those babies lined up in the labratory, all created equal throght DNA engineering, we're unlikely to know the answer to this question.
This preamble, while a bit long, is meant to get us thinking about mind control. As I stated at the beginning, this is a lifelong struggle for all of us, starting from the time we pop out of the womb until we are popped into a casket, oven, or whatever our end process of choice might be.

We begin in a somewhat controlled environment, at home with our parents and perhaps siblings. This is where we start learning most of what will define us as adults. We eat the family food, laugh at the family's humor, listen to the family's favorite music, smell the family smells, and begin to adopt the family beliefs and prejudices. We are somewhat insulated from the ideas and culture of outsiders. Unless, our parent(s) work and we end up in daycare. Now we are also being programmed by the daycare worker(s) with their particular beliefs, likes, and dislikes. That adds a layer of complexity to our personalities and beliefs.

Near the end of this first phase, we are off to kindergarten or to pre-school. Suddenly, we are surrounded by other little wobblers and babblers, all of whom are walking around in a very different cloud of "norms"; what they like, don't like, etc. resulting from the family they came from. That can quickly bring about conflicts of interests as well as learning about how other people think, eat, and feel about the world as a whole. This is our first real challenge of mind control. We were perfectly happy with what we were taught in that first five years, but now some of that is being challenged by new ideas.

​We may go home after school and tell mommy or daddy about something another child said, did, or ate. Chances are, mommy or daddy will blow that off with an explanation we don't understand. Or, they may, depending on the topic, get quite aggitated and explain that we don't behave, think, or eat like that in our family. In that case, they have just introduced the concept of discrimination to our little minds. We have just labeled another persons likes or dislikes and even their family as good or bad.
For many of us, at some point in our early development, religion enters the scene. This is yet another effort at controlling our minds and how we think. Each religion has its own values, traditions, and culture and they work hard to indoctrinate their followers in that direction. This can cause a lot of conflict. Let's say your best friend in school is from a Jewish family and you are from a Catholic family. While it's not certain, there is a good chance you will begin to hear how different the Christians and the Jews are and all that that implies.

This process continues as we move through life and it becomes exponentially more complex and intense. Moving through grade school and on to high school and college, we are exposed to hundreds or thousands of new ideas, beliefs, and cultures, all of which we feel a need to classify based on our own values.

Once out of school and into the workplace, we are confronted by more efforts to control how we think. Company rules and norms are presented and we are expected to conform under the threat of losing our jobs. Our ego is challenged. We may be highly motivated to succeed, one of the values taught by our family, and even though we don't agree with the company values completely, we conform in order to satisfy our need to succeed, thereby satisfying our ego.

This is not to say that all or any company cultures are wrong. On the contrary, I think many of them are a good thing and provide us with tools that will benefit us through our lives. Ideas like embracing quality, working as a team, and working toward a consensus are all valuable social tools that apply outside of work as well.

At some point, and this starts with your family's values, you begin to adopt a political point of view. There is no shortage of politicians, friends, and family willing to guide you in your thinking. They will use emotional arguments, economic arguments, and social and tribal arguments to entice you to their point of view. Again, this is a battle for your mind, how you think and how your perceive others.

Marriage is yet another mine field full of potential problems for our way of thinking. Two people from two very different families come together. They have a diverse set of values based to a large extent on their family values; they like different foods, music, color of clothes, styles, etc. These two people are now challenged to blend these two cultures into one homogenous new family culture that will be passed on to their children should the choose to have children. This is often a lifelong process of give and take, compromise, and no small amount of frustration. Each person in the relationship is literally battling for control of the other's mind in terms of values.

If we chose to have children, now these children will go out into the world and bring home the ideas of other families and their likes and dislikes and we have to deal with that. We are now in a battle for control of our children's minds.
We often ask the question, "What is life all about?" The answer to that lies in part to what animal group you were born into.

For the lion and lioness and their cubs, it is learning to be the top predator on the Savannah. For the gazelle, it's understanding that the lion is the top predator and learning the techniques for avoiding the lion and continuing on with life. For a bird, it's how to fly, find food, and avoid predators. The fish, how to swim, find food, and avoid predators. Most of the animal kingdom follows a pattern like that; you're either a predator or the prey, and each of those requires skills that will help you survive.

We humans, having evolved as the top predator and for the most part without having to worry about being the prey, our battle has become one of controlling our minds versus letting others control our thoughts and minds. Early in life, what your parents and the adults helping you develop are trying to do is give you what they see as the skills of survival, much as the lioness does with her cubs. They are trying, not always successfully since they may have not had the right influences in their young lives, to give you the tools to not only survive, but to thrive.

Some final thoughts. Along this path of life, some people will want the best for us in their attempts to shape our minds and others will do so in a selfish and self-serving way. Those operating on a self-serving level are generally promoting themselves, not you. They are trying to improve their personal lot in life and sometimes at your expense or at least using you and after your usefulness is over, they will disappear from your life.

We have to look beyond what sounds good, or promises us something that is probably not deliverable. We have to use our minds and our intellect to sort the good advice from the bad advice and in the process, remain in control of our minds and the values that we know are positive and that produce good, not harm. The meaning of life for humans seems to me to be the challenge of maintaining control of our minds and not giving that over to an outside party, no matter how good they make it sound.
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A Hug Or A Hammer?

3/29/2020

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Over the years, I have tried to both explain to my conservative friends what it means to be a progressive/liberal and to also try to understand what drives the conservatives to such draconian solutions to societies issues. I've decided that the basic difference between the two philosophies is whether to reach for someone to give them a hug, or to smack them with a hammer. That may sound a bit dramatic, but let me try to explain what I mean.
With the progressive/liberal - I'll simply use the PL designation for this group - it seems to me that the approach to problem solving typically takes a more compassionate approach. We see most societal problems as human problems requiring a human solution. The conservatives, particularly the so-called right-wing - I'll call them CRW for simplicty - tend to be suspicious of people. When someone is up against it and asking for help, the CRWs tend to think these people are trying to scam the system. The two groups have a very different view of people and the world and how to govern a nation, in our case, one of 330 million people.
These differences are not unique to the United States. The PLs and CRWs exist in every country around the world and are in a continuous struggle to hold the reigns of power to implement their form of government. China, one of the few remaining communist countries and unquestionably the largest is in the control of the CRWs. If you think we have a problem with crime and corruption in the USA, imagine what it must have been like in China before the CRWs came into power. Simply triple the problems in the USA to try to envision the old China. The communists took over and began to tamp down the problems of corruption and crime. Unfortunately, their approach seems to have resulted in the deaths of, and the numbers vary, of around 100 million people. Yet, for all their control, China and their "stability and order" as the top priority of the ruling elite, for the past three decades, crime in China has grown much faster than its economic development. From 1973 to 2002, the increase rate for filed criminal cases by average is 17%. Due to the Chinese government's restriction on information, details are often difficult to come by.

India, on the other hand, is the larges democracy in the world. And, yes, they are struggling with all the problems that come with being a democracy. Major problems in India include various human rights issues, corruption in government, widespread poverty, societal violence based on religion, an overburdened judicial system, so-called "honor killings" and caste bias. The relative importance of each of these issues is subjective and difficult to determine. Conflicts in India between members of the Hindu and Muslim faiths have led to violence in some cases. The rights of women are a serious issue in the country. Rape of women has become the country's fastest-growing crime in the past five years, and yet it is thought to be under reported. 

Governments tend to swing from one approach, CRW or PL, to the other. In the UK, you have the Conservative Party that is generally consider center-right. They are CRWish with perhaps a few moderates. There is the Labour Party, the center-left philosophy that is PLish. We, in the US don't have the equivalent of the Scottish National Party the keeps agitating for independence from the UK; the closest we may have is Texas which from time to time seems to think it could fly solo without the support of the Feds. As I write this, we are in the middle of the COVID-19 epidemic. One wonders how Texas would be faring if they were on their own. And finally, to the left of the Labour Party in the UK, you have the Liberal Democrats who tend to push for social democracy, not unlike what Bernie Sanders is going on about in the US.

Just about every nation on earth is split between CRWs and PLs, save a couple like North Korea where a brutal dictator is in charge, or Saudi Arabia where the royal monarchy has ruled since the formation of the country in 1932. Saudi Arabia is also a brutal dictatorship held together with a coalition of tribes, bribes, and corruption wrapped in a semi-theocracy. Governments like North Korea and Saudi Arabia are like the CRWs on steroids. Inside even these strict autocracies there exists both governing philosophies, but in some of these countries any kind of criticism is stifled, often under the threat of death.
I mentioned that the PL approach is typically based on compassion and trying to understand the "why" of things like poverty, crime, deviations from the norm, and simply the day-to-day struggles of the typical American, be they citizens or immigrants wanting to become citizens.

That compassion can take many forms and, like the CRWs, can lean toward the extreme at times. A simple example of that notion might be animal rights and protections. Generally, you will find the PLs are in favor of animal protection and rights. I personally eat chicken, pork, fish, and red meat in about that order with chicken being the dominate protein in our diet and red meat at the other end of the spectrum in lesser amounts. I am strongly in favor of treating all of these animals as humanely as possible on the way to our dinner table. I do not consider price to be a justification for abusing animals.

On the extreme end of this issue are groups like PETA. While I can agree with some of their approach in terms of treating animals humanely, I find some of their words and actions to be at best, ridiculous and in the extreme, outright stupid. An example of that is their efforts to change some of our idioms such as "be a guinea pig" or "beat a dead horse". Besides being innocuous terms to describe a situation, this is hardly the biggest problem facing the relationship between humans and animals and is a waste of time, money, and casts a whack job image on the group as a whole. Instead of saying "bring home the bacon", they advocate for "bring home the bagels". Give me a break! You are sounding like an SNL skit, now.

So, within our PL group, we do have our own little bell curve that goes from moderate PLs to the whacko PLs. But, generally, the PLs are focused on making life better for everyone including animals and doing so by understanding what drives our actions.
The CRW approach to governing seems to embrace terms like control, rules, and punishment. Their view of the world seems to encompass a general distrust of the motives of anyone but themselves. They view others with a suspicion that can border on a form of paranoia. They seem, at times, to be consumed with conspiracy theories: "a theory that rejects the standard explanation for an event and instead credits a covert group or organization with carrying out a secret plot:"

Consequently, the CRW approach to governing can become draconian in nature. Perhaps one of the best examples of that has been the US approach under the GOP to the issue of immigration. From the Heritage Foundation, the self-ascribed protector of all things conservative,  comes this statement in 2014: "Instead, elected leaders in the House should acknowledge that our immigration system is broken, but put the blame where it belongs—on the executive branch’s failure to enforce the law. The first steps to fixing the system must be taken by the president: securing the border and enforcing current laws." Needless to say, they are referring to the Obama administration and their efforts to address immigration.

To be fair, there is a bell curve within the CRW community just like there is in the PL community. This from redstate.com, "We, as conservatives, want those who are here illegally, to understand that we want those who are law abiding, productive members of our society to fully assimilate into America! This does not mean that they must give up their culture or language of origin, but simply embrace the great culture and language of America (“The great melting pot”), as well.

I say this as a man who is married to a wonderful Bosnian / Muslim woman who came here as a legal immigrant, stayed here as a legal immigrant / resident, and became a US citizen last year. We celebrate her culture, language, and religious holidays as well as ours. I respect her culture and traditions and she respects her new / ours. She also speaks our language better than many who were born here and therefore is able to understand our laws, our Constitution, and our history."

I'm not suggesting all CRWs are AR-15 carrying crazies. If the views of this gentleman represented the majority of the CRWs, we would be well on our way to resolving many of our problems. 
The truth is that immigration, and here I'm talking about illegal immigration, is not a question of criminal conduct, it is a symptom of a very human problem. People all over the world are fleeing poverty, civil wars, drug cartel recruitment, any number of reasons that make life where they were born untenable. They are literally fleeing for their lives. This is a human problem that will yield to human-based solutions. You have to find the root cause for people wanting to abandon their place of birth and work to resolve that, not look for ways to punish them for trying to survive.
Here, I have tried to explain the differences in approaching problem soliving, using real world examples, between a progressive and a conservative, and in our approach to governing. One offers people in trouble a hug, the other often raises a hammer to subdue and subordinate them or sometimes to intimidate them. This has been especially pronounced under the Trump regime. Like the old saw about drawing attracting more bees with honey than vinegar, I suggest a softer approach will have both better and longer lasting results for our nation and the world in general.
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Our Next President

1/11/2020

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Before we decide how to cast our vote, we need to do a little analysis on just what the hell we think we want in a president.

I firmly believe our next president will be a Democrat, assuming none of them are caught paying $130,000 to a sex worker to keep her quiet. Assuming that doesn't happen, we need to ask ourselves a question or two, and we need to perform a sanity check on just what the hell a president can really do.
I would call your attention to the fact that the official seal of the president does not have a Confederate flag or a giant TRUMP sign of any sort. It does not hold an image of an assault rifle, nor is it covered with camouflage. What the seal does have is:
  • The eagle’s right (or dexter) talon clutches an olive branch with 13 olives and 13 leaves to represent peace. The left (or sinister) talon clutches arrows which represent the need sometimes to go to war to protect the nation.
  • The eagle holds a ribbon bearing the words “E Pluribus Unum,” the motto of the U.S., which means “out of many, one.” The number 13 is used to represent the 13 original colonies.
  • A shield in front of the eagle has 13 red and white stripes, again representing the colonies, with a blue bar above, representing both the unity of colonies into one nation and Congress, which makes laws for all.
  • Above the eagle is a “glory Or” or halo of gold. In it are 13 white clouds, 13 white stars, and many tiny stars. The 50 stars on a field of deep blue circle the eagle and represent the 50 states. The words, “Seal of the President of the United States” surround the seal on a tan field.
The origins of the seal are vague, but it is believed to have originated with the seal used by the President of the Continental Congress, a small oval with a constellation of 13 stars surrounded by clouds. It was used to seal envelopes containing correspondence sent to the Continental Congress. There is no documented history of the changes made to the seal over time, although a seal used by Andrew Jackson appears to have been similar: a small, round, red wax seal with a circle of clouds. The rest of the design is lost.
​So much for the history lesson.
The first question, it seems to me, would be, do we want a president who looks forward or one who looks backward? Do we want a president who will take us confidently into the future or one who pines for the past?

MAGA, Make America Great Again, wants to go back to some ill-defined point in our past. The keyword is 'again,' suggesting that we were once great, and now we're not, so let's go back to that mysterious period where we were at our apex of success. Where that might have been, depends on who you are talking to.

I'm reminded of a comment by a woman that was generally disliked and shunned when I was at Boeing. In her ramblings one day about the men in our group - she seemed to find men appalling - she talked about men from various generations and how they dressed and cut their hair. She pointed out that many of them were somehow trying to recapture their youth, a period in their lives where at least they thought they were at their best. Senior men were dressing the way they did in their twenties or wearing their hair in a style that had gone out of vogue decades earlier. I found it to be a profound observation from someone who most of us gave short shrift to and tried to avoid. Nevertheless, it described what many people do as they begin to sense they have passed their prime.

There is a tendency by every generation, as they age, to dismiss the present and long for the past. That seems to be human nature. We forget the difficult times and only remember what we thought were the good times. Consequently, I think we do need first to decide if we want a president who will move our nation forward, maintain the status quo, or go back to some time in the past that they and their supporters believe as having been a better time.

When we talk about change, we need to keep in mind that the presidency isn't a dictatorship in spite of Trump's efforts and the waving about of his Executive Orders that have the permanency of a high school romance. If we assume the winner is Bernie Sanders with all his progressive plans, understand that he can't do that without the Congress behind him. If he were to go to the White House, and we changed the majority in the Senate to a Democratic majority, the Congress won't rubberstamp all of his proposals.

There are moderate Democrats, some who may have been elected in a state that has been historically red (but can't stand Trump). Those Democrats have to keep in tune with their constituents and if they don't like Bernies healthcare or student loan relief, or any other proposal, their representative to Congress had better listen to them if they want to keep their jobs. Regardless of who the next president is, they won't get everything they want. The real question you need to ask yourself is, will they take us in the right direction?
The likely candidate for the GOP would be Trump, and we know he wants to return to the past - not at all unusual for someone of his age. If he stumbles, resigns, or is impeached, the candidate that replaces him is not likely to alter the GOP's vision or lack thereof, so I will focus on the Democratic candidates.

We have four septuagenarians in the race. They are, in descending order of age should they be elected, Bernie Sanders - 79, Joe Biden - 78, Michael Bloomberg - 78, and Elizabeth Warren - 70. While I think it unlikely that Bloomberg will survive to the convention, politically speaking, I wanted to be inclusive.

I have mentioned before that I prefer a candidate who will live long enough once out of the office to answer for their policies. Of these four, Warren is the most likely to meet that test.

Of the four, I think Sanders is the most progressive in trying to restore our democracy to the people. Next up would be Warren, who has embraced some progressive ideas but seems also determined, through a plethora of proposals, to be focused on plans and regulations to correct what she and a lot of us see wrong with the direction our country has been led.

Biden strikes me as moderate to slightly nostalgic for the old days. His old days are not as old as Trump's, but it seems to me that he talks a lot about how it used to be more than he talks about a future vision. Biden has devoted his life to public service, and for that, he deserves to be recognized and praised, but it may not make him a 21st-century president. Bloomberg is something of an anomaly for me. I'm naturally uncomfortable with someone worth $58 billion spouting off about how he's going to help the working class. He changed from a Republican to an Independent and then to a Democrat. I don't know whether to read that as his evolution from conservative to liberal, or simply playing political chess to improve his chances of election.
Next, we have the "others," and I don't intend to demean any of them with that term, only to indicate that the dwindling field of candidates still outnumbers a starting NFL offense or defense. Here are some thoughts on the others.

Mayor Pete - He's 37, so presumably in touch with the modern world, yet he continues to struggle with gaining the support of people of color. I can't decide if his handlers are screwing up, or if the community of people of color is sensing an insincerity in his proclamations. His views, like Biden, seem to be rather moderate, and his stint as mayor of a relatively small town doesn't inspire me in terms of qualifications.

Senator Klobuchar - She is 59, an age that implies experience and wisdom. She is a three-time elected Senator with high approval ratings in her state of Minnesota and is considered a rising star in the Democratic Party. She has a broad range of experience on several key committees in the Senate. She is still battling to get her moderate-to-revolutionary message out and close on the front runners, but she could be a sleeper who comes on late in the primary season.

​I won't detail the rest of the pack; Andrew Yang, Cory Booker, Tulsi Gabbard, Tom Steyer, Michael Bennet, Deval Patrick, and John Delaney simply because I put their chances of showing up as candidates at the convention at something less than 2%. That's not to say they wouldn't make excellent presidents, but we simply only need one to replace the disaster currently occupying the Oval Office.
In conclusion, as I stated at the outset, we all need to think about where we want the next president to take our nation. Do we want to embrace the future or long for the past? I understand that most of us have one or two hot-button issues like immigration or abortion or healthcare, etc., that cause us to look to a particular candidate that we think will solve that problem. Still, we really do need to step back, look at the bigger picture, and make sure we aren't overlooking a dollar to pick up a penny.
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The Philosophy of Government

11/24/2019

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You might wonder if a discussion of government and governing is philosophy; I believe it is. The Cambridge Dictionary online defines philosophy as:
  • The use of reason in understanding such things as the nature of the real world and existence, the use and limits of knowledge, and the principles of moral judgment.
  • A group of theories and ideas related to the understanding of a particular subject.
  • A particular system of beliefs, values, and principles.
  • The way someone thinks about life and deals with it.
It seems to me that most everything we humans do or say is related to philosophy, ours' or that of someone else, and it is what we use to try to navigate through life. Politics, religion, notions of fashion, the best car, TV, or smartphone are all things we have learned. The foods we like and think good for us, dieting, career choices; it is all driven by our understanding of the world and beliefs that are based on what we have learned and how we think about life.
I sometimes think I'm a little obsessed with topics such as politics and religion, and perhaps I am. I don't wake up to think about things; an event usually triggers it, or a news story, or something I've read. When that happens, my brain begins to whir, and I evolve an idea, opinion, or philosophy.
That brings me to the subject of this post, the philosophy of government. At the simplest level, we have two basic philosophies, progressive or liberal and conservative. Both are dominated by a school of thought that is itself founded in beliefs, values, and principles.
Generally speaking, the liberal philosophy seems to be based on the notion that all people are created equal and thus should be treated equally or as close to that as possible. This philosophy is based on compassion and understanding that humans succeed and fail. That those who fail may be entitled to some special considerations to ensure they do not suffer extreme hardships. Liberalism believes in the rule of law but prefers those laws to focus on creating positive results rather than punitive measures. It tries to be a peaceful philosophy that is opposed to war and embraces the idea that we should be able to communicate with each other and resolve our differences. In summary, liberalism is a philosophy of trust, compassion, and progress toward a better world for everyone.
The conservative philosophy seems to take a harsher view of the world and humans in general. There appears to be an attitude that if you are in dire straights, it likely is because you made bad decisions or did something wrong. This philosophy seems more combative and ready to impose penalties on others. Conservative philosophy tends to want to dictate certain aspects of society, often based on religious principles. The conservative philosophy appears to be less tolerant of discussion and reaching a consensus on those issues about which they feel strongly. The conservative philosophy takes a hard line toward foreign policy. It insists on an active military to back this approach to governing. To summarize conservatism, it is a policy based on distrust and on the idea that strict rules and harsh punishment bring about better results than caring and compassion.
Let me remind you that I stated I'm talking in generalities. Both philosophies are on a bell curve with adherents ranging from liberal to conservative within their philosophical curve. We, humans, are nothing if not diverse in thought and deed as well as our physical and cultural differences.
I count myself among the progress/liberal faction, so let me give you an example of how we might resolve one particular problem in society. I'll use the debate over the minimum wage (MW for brevity), an issue that roils emotions from the local to the federal levels of government. This is a complex issue and one I won't try to cover in excruciating detail, but in a way that I hope demonstrates a progressive approach to problem-solving and government. I'll use the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour as an example since the minimum wage is all over the map at local and state levels.
The argument that we consistently hear from the conservative side when talking about raising the MW is the impact on small businesses, and that is true. I think there is a general agreement on this notion of a liveable wage. In a perfect world, everyone would make a liveable wage, if only we could find an approach. So, how do we alleviate the poverty of those in the MW world while not breaking the back of small business people? Here are a couple of ideas.
​The poverty level income for a family of three (two adults and one child) is $21,330 per year at this point. Working a full year is considered 2,020 hours a year, regardless of whether that is one job or two jobs. To reach the poverty level of income, you have to make $10.32/hour. Remember that only brings you up to poverty - that is not a liveable wage. Per the Living Wage calculator, in the state of Washington, and Seattle-King County, that family of three has to make $30.84/hour. The poverty level is $7.91/hour, and our MW stands at $11.50 as I write this. That means our MW is just over 1/3 of what is considered a liveable wage. You can use that calculator to look at any state and county in the country. You will find a broad variation depending on the state of the economy around our nation.
Back to Seattle. I'm now a small business owner. Let's say I have a pizza restaurant that is also serving sandwiches, salads, soft drinks, and beer and wine. I'm working in the kitchen. I have a dishwasher and a server in the front of the house. Remember, I'm trying to keep this simple without getting down the weeds on the cost of pizza sauce, etc. I open at 11:00 am to catch the lunch crowd, and I stay open until 9 pm. My day crew (dishwasher and server) work the 11 am to 4 pm shift, and the night crew comes on and works until 9 pm. So, I have four employees besides myself, who are each working 5 hours a day, and I'm open six days a week (closed on Sunday). My crew is working a total of 20 hours a day times six days for a total of 120 hours a week, and I'm paying them the current MW of $11.50/hour. That puts my payroll for the week at $1,380/week. But...
If you're in business, you know there are overhead costs and state taxes, etc. I ran a pretend set of numbers for my pizza shop on something call T-Sheets (by QuickBooks) to estimate the labor cost with all the other things rolled in; something call the wrap costs. With the numbers I used for rent, insurance, etc., my cost per employee came to $27.99 per employee, and remember I'm paying them $11.50 per hour.
I said the liveable wage in Seattle was $30.84/hour for a family of three. We'll assume all my employees are married and have one child. When I kick the wages up to that number, my total cost per employee per hour goes up to $48.81/hour. That's an increase of $20/hour, and that is hard to absorb. For my crew of four, my employee cost went from $167,940 per year (that's four people working 1500/hours a year and costing me $27.99/hour) to $292.860 or an increase of $124,920 per year. That's not small change.
Any plan has to look out for the employees (trying to get them to a liveable wage) and the small business owners. It should be possible to do a ramp-up to the liveable wage at a rate that get the employee to the liveable level in a reasonable time, while not breaking the backs of small business. The goal is to build something into the taxes that give the small business owner relief for helping our country bring people out of poverty and up to a liveable wage. There could be tax breaks or subsidies paid to the business to ease their burden.
Yes, this all comes out of taxes, but if we straighten out our tax system instead of letting billion-dollar corporations off tax free, it can be done. This is an example of seeking solutions that work for everyone. It moves us toward being a nation that tries to ensure that the working class doesn't have to rely on food stamps and Medicaid to survive. There would be significant reductions in those services, and that money could be redirected to the small business subsidies. As this all sorts itself out, and it will over time, then these programs can be reduced or dismantled.
​These are not simple problems, and there are no simple solutions, but these clowns in DC are pulling down $174,000 a year to find answers. It's time they earned their paycheck. What might the conservative plan look like?
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Loss & Grief

10/5/2019

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Recently, a very close friend lost her battle with cancer and died; she was 76. Everyone probably knew she would likely lose that battle at her age, but it still comes as a shock when it happens. We console ourselves by saying things like, "Her pain is over" or "She's in a better place" if you subscribe to religious philosophy, but no amount of consoling statements will shorten or ease the sense of loss for any of us and some experts caution against those kinds of remarks.

My wife, Gale, and I have discussed death many times over the years. With 80 years of age squarely in our sites, we know people will be making these comments about us one day. There can be no life without death. We neither fear death nor encourage it to come any sooner than necessary, programmed, or ordained depending on your point of view. Neither of us is "religious." Gale does embrace much of the Buddhist philosophy but is not a practicing Buddhist, whatever that might mean. ​

​ As for me, I probably come closest to being a Humanist. I don't believe in an afterlife in the traditional sense. I think that I am made up of elements that were in and around my parents when I was conceived. I absorbed the energy and elements of life from them and the world around me through my mother as I lived in her womb. Throughout my life, I have continued to derive my energy and my being by consuming food, water, oxygen, all the elements of our earth that permit and sustain life. And, when I die, those elements that I really only borrowed for the duration of my life will be released back into the world to sustain other life forms after I am gone. That is my version of an afterlife.

Regardless of what you believe about life and death, when there is a loss, it hurts. Losses can come in many ways. Death is the most obvious, but as a child, your best friend might move to another town, or your family is the one that moves, leaving all your friends behind. Your parents get divorced. You can have a breakup with a friend or partner that results in the sense of loss. Friends at work leave or you change jobs and leave friends behind. You can lose a dog, cat, bird, horse, or any number of non-human friends that you loved, and that leaves you miserable with a profound sense of loss. There are no shortages of losses in a person's life.

While talking about loss and grieving, and trying to understand what is happening, it occurred to me that we are not grieving for the person or animal that is gone - they may or may not be aware of anything - but rather we are grieving for ourselves. The pain we are feeling is that we have lost them in our lives.

If you have followed my writing on several topics, you know I'm a visual person. I see the world in pictures. Imagine that your being, the person that you are, is full of circles that represent the many elements in your life. A partner, a spouse, children, grandchildren, parents, siblings, your closest friend(s), workmates, dog or cat, casual friends, your job, your car, local bartender, server at your favorite restaurant. All of these people and non-people fill your life by being present and filling your memory with an encyclopedia of events, mostly happy ones, we hope.

​Some of the circles are larger than others. The larger circle means that that person is involved more heavily in your life. You interact with them often, and their emotional impact is high. The best example of this is probably the parents of a child. For the parents, the child is an all-consuming part of their life. For the child, the parent is critical to guiding them to adulthood. Others, perhaps a coworker, can also be meaningful, but they occupy less space in your life. Partners and siblings also typically play a significant role.
Picture

The grief we feel when there is a loss is relative to the role the person or animal played in our lives. Significant impact, major pain. When they are lost to us, it leaves a larger or smaller void in our hearts, in our minds, and in our so-called souls. Something is missing from our lives, something that was important to us on an emotional level is gone.
 
I say so-called soul because the soul in many religious, philosophical, and mythological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a living being. In ancient Greek, the soul means "to breathe." It comprises the mental abilities of a living being: reason, character, feeling, consciousness, memory, perception, thinking, etc. As religion evolved, the soul became a central part of religious philosophy, particularly in the Christian-Judeo philosophy, where it was concluded that only humans are permitted to have souls.
 
Another way of visualizing this 'loss' and the accompanying distress is similar to something Gale went through to quit smoking years ago. I had quit cold turkey a couple of years earlier. But, because of some personal trauma in her life, Gale needed help to break free of the habit. We tried a hypnotist that a boss and a good friend of mine, Terry Clow, had tried and enthusiastically endorsed. The instructor of this approach applied self-hypnosis. I had already quit smoking, but I asked to audit the class out of curiosity, and he agreed. In describing the anxiety one feels when stopping smoking, or any habit for that matter, he explained that the subconscious mind manages our day-to-day activities without us thinking about it.
For example, you don't have to think about how to use a fork to eat, or how many times to turn the steering wheel on your car when making a turn. You learned all these things when you were young, and that trained the subconscious mind to do these tasks for you, leaving the creative mind free to create. You learned how to form individual letters when writing and how to spell words. You learned sentence structure and the basics of grammar. Now, when you write something, you do those things automatically while your conscious brain creates the message you want to write.  

 In our case, smoking was a learned habit that the subconscious mind took over after you have learned the habit, and smoking became a part of you. You begin to associate smoking with a cup of coffee, fishing on a boat, after sex, any number of activities that you do while smoking, and enjoying the act.   The teacher, David (the last name is lost), explained that it might only take three minutes to drink a cup of coffee. But, if you smoke a cigarette at the same time, it might take a total of six minutes.

​When you quit smoking, there will be a three-minute gap of unoccupied time in your subconscious (like a gap in an audiotape) as you drink that cup of coffee. The subconscious does not like to sit around with nothing to do, and that gap in your subconscious will make you anxious. That is the panic smokers experience time and time again when they first quit. In time, the subconscious is reprogrammed for all the activities you associate with smoking, and the gap and anxiety go away as the mind reforms around that gap.

I believe grief over a loss of any kind is much like that. The loss of anyone who has played a significant role in your life leaves "gaps" in our lives, in our hearts, and in our minds. Time and interaction with others will eventually fill that void, but it will take a little time. You will never forget the loss or the person or friend, but the grief of loss will diminish as that void in your life is filled with other people, events, and activities.
 
How long that takes will vary with the individual. It will depend on how much support and love you have around you, how interested you are in life, or how engaged or isolated you may be. And, your particular belief system may also play a role in your healing.
 
Grieving is not unique to humans. We have all heard stories about a dog sleeping by its owners grave, or we have seen wildlife shows of everything from elephants to penguins and crows mourning the loss of one of their members or a mate. While we don't know exactly how animals process information in their brains, it seems evident to me, that, like us, a member of their group can become a big part of their life. When that member is lost to death or other causes, they suffer from grief in a way similar to us. In time, other members of the group help fill that empty place in their heart and mind. The mere act of living tends to make us move on.
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Knowing this, and assuming you understand and accept my premise, will not reduce your grief or shorten the duration of that grief. But, knowing why you feel as you do and that everyone, even animals go through a similar process can help understand the experience. And know that, in time, the emptiness will be filled with the love of other people, animals, and activities that lets you know there is an endpoint to the pain.

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What Is A Democracy?

9/20/2019

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​Everyone has their own definition for a democracy. Some want unfettered freedom and others want a security blanket. The fact is that we have both. We have more freedoms than many countries in the world and we have social security blankets but not as many as other democracies in the western world.
 
Over the next fourteen or so months, we are going to hear wild accusations, the gnashing of teeth, and see the wringing of hands as the various candidates for president and their supporters and paid mudslingers work to attract or distract the voters regarding their man or woman. Along with all of that, the blunderbuss currently holding the office will engage in rage-tweets and run-on sentences...make that strings of words that make little to no sense as he attempts to enhance the orange glow of his ridiculousness.
 
There will be shouts of socialism (maybe even the term commie a time or two), fascism, racism, nationalism, nepotism, cronyism, and as the great orange stink-tank cranks up, round after round of name-calling and childish put-downs, like what we’ve grown accustomed to over the last several years.
 
But as a voter, all we need to do is decide whether we’re progressive, conservative, hard-right-or-left, or independent (whatever that means). To assist in making that decision, it seems to me we need to fly over our government at about 50,000 feet and develop a macro-vision of what kind of nation we want to be. The awful details that turn that vision into reality will be the job of those we elect based on their vision of government. If they can’t get it right, we kick their butts out and try again.
 
To explain the next visual aid below (I’m a visual guy), I need to explain where this brain-fart came from. One of my assignments (I was sort of Shanghaied into the job) was as part of a team that was trying to standardize processes around the Boeing Company. I think it might have been easier to train a hive of killer bees to dance the Mexican hat dance than get folks to standardize, but that was my assignment. The basic problem with standardization is that no one wants to do that. We are a bunch of innovative, creative, and to a large extent rebellious human beings. 
 
Using the Boeing example to make the point, you hire a highly degreed engineer to design the next generation of space fighters because he or she is on the leading edge of knowledge, technology, and a seer when it comes to flight engineering. You sit them down, give them all the company manuals and say something like, “Go to work, but do everything according to the standards - the way it’s always been done.” After they stop crying, they are likely to hand you their resignation.
 
Unlike the cow chewing its cud in the field for hours on end, we humans are not like that. We want variety, change (as long as it was our idea), and the liberty to do pretty damn much anything we want. We do not like marching in formation.
 
Something was said in one of those discussions at Boeing by my manager, who will remain nameless because he was, hands down, the worst manager in the roughly 60 years I worked in and around aerospace. He was Trump-like before most of us had ever heard of Trump. 
 
Our task was to standardize those critical processes inside the company to ensure a continuity of results as well as to reduce the overall cost of doing business. My boss’ statement referred to a “level” of standardization that helped achieve that consistency of purpose and cost reduction. He called that line the “critical mass” line. The idea was that the processes above that line needed to be standardized for the benefit of the employees, the customer, and the company (the Big3).
 
Very briefly, in the context of a company the size of Boeing, you certainly want the payroll to be “standard” across the company. You can’t have every organization deciding what day they want to call payday, and each using their own financial institution to issue paychecks, etc. It would be chaos and costly to operate that way.
 
So we drew a pyramid to demonstrate the idea. The line or base of the top section of the pyramid was the “critical mass” line. Above this would go those processes that had to be common and standard across the company. Things like payroll, accounting, company identification badges, etcetera.
 
In the section below that top level was where we still wanted a degree of standardization, but we also wanted to allow organizations the flexibility to be innovative and creative while functioning in a way that was most efficient for them. There might be “company guidelines” to help them establish processes, but they would still innovate. And, where possible, we wanted them to cooperate with other organizations to utilize the best ideas and practices and to standardize where it made sense, again for the benefit of the Big3.
 
And at the bottom level was where the most flexibility existed. Individuals had quite a few choices. If they like a particular type of pen, or computer mouse, or office chairs for back issues, they could make those changes, they were free to flex on many issues. There were flexible shifts where possible. I won’t list everything here, but hopefully you see what I’m talking about.
 
Running a country is very much like running a big company, at least in terms of organization and where to utilize top-down federal control, where to allow states and localities the freedom to innovate, and where to let the people have maximum freedom without upsetting the balance of a functioning society. Here then, is that notional pyramid applied to government.
Picture

​​The ‘A’ level is dominated by the federal government. A few of the functions that would seem to best be managed at the federal level for the benefit of all are shown on the left. In some cases, these may be hard-dictates and in some cases the rules may allow some wiggle room (democracy) as long as the top-most goals at a federal level are being met.
 
Some might call this progressive, others socialism, or who knows what, but I think few people would argue that the military and FAA and similar functions should not be left to the whim of state, county, and city politicians or turned over to for-profit enterprises. It is more a matter of common sense. Our safety and security as a nation demand these be administered at the federal level. At the bottom of this top section, you see the red CM line indicating that critical processes belong above that line. I’ve made that top section blue because it is an important value to most progressives that we do the right thing for and by all the people.
 
Level ‘B’ allows more democracy for states and localities to tailor processes to their needs. There may be some federal guidelines to assist in setting up these processes, but for the most part, it comes under the heading of state and local government rights.
 
Level ‘C’ is what I have labeled as “libertarian”. This is where, like the the company employee choosing their computer mouse, individuals make their decisions based on what is right for them. Things like where to work, where to live, what religion if any they want to follow, who to choose for a family doctor, whether or not to vote and who to vote for, where to buy groceries and gas - it’s a long list of personal rights.
 
This, I hope, is an easier way to look at the big picture of government. Naturally, there will be arguments about where the lines dividing A, B, & C should go and which processes and rights belong in which section. But, again, that is one of the tasks of our elected representatives. 
 
I believe that if you approach it with the goal of identifying those critical processes, then the ones for the states and local governments, and finally the individual, we would find that we probably agree on about 80% and we would have to arm wrestle over the other 20%.
 
Now, all you have to do is pick a candidate. 😁
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AFI

9/20/2019

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PicturePhoto by Stéphane Delval on Unsplash
AFI - Not to be confused with  the Arc-Fault Circuit Breaker

We’ve all seen the old man sitting in the restaurant with food dribbling down the front of his shirt as he slops up some pasta or soup. He seems oblivious to what is happening. Or, another old man on a chilly day sitting there with a wet drop of snot hanging off the end of his nose and again, seemingly unaware it’s there. Fear not, they (we) know what’s happening, we are merely applying the principle of AFI , also known as “Aw, Fuck It!”

​This is a phase of aging that happens with varying degrees of intensity and at different ages; it’s a personal thing. It can come on in your 60s or hang back until your 70s or later. But it will happen. There will come a point where you look at something that’s out of place, or you know you just dropped catsup from a hotdog on the front of your shirt. You don’t have to look down, you know what happened. For a brief moment, you think about grabbing a napkin, dipping it in some water and cleaning yourself up, but then you say . . . Aw Fuck It!

You been around the block a few times. You've seen just about all there is to see in life and you know that you are treading on the thin ice of old age. All one has to do is spend time looking at the obituaries to realize you are walking through a mine field that could take you out at any time, so AFI; what the hell is anyone going to do to you?

It’s a rather liberating feeling when you get to that point. There is no young woman (in my case) that is going to be attracted to you unless your wealth is greater than your wrinkles; they all see their grandfather in your kindly old wrinkled face. You don’t have any job interviews to go to or anyone you’re trying to impress with your appearance. You are free to run (metaphor) through the rest of your life naked if you want. You really don’t much give a fuck.

All those pestering little things that used to bug the shit out of you when youn were young? They don’t matter any more. The concerns that kept you awake at night and sending you off to work with four-hours of sleep have evaporated into thin air. You see the fuzz growing out of your ears and nose and think ‘I should trim that’ but then AFI kicks in - there’s always tomorrow, maybe, and if not, who cares if I look like a Chia Pe when they slide me into the oven?

I imagine that women experience something similar except society has brainwashed them into believing they can’t leave the house without ‘putting on their face’ and donning something fashionable. That, and because they are wired to look after children and husbands, they are a little more particular about the details of life, but I think they get there eventually. I've seen some clown-like women in both dress and makeup in my life. We men just get their sooner, sometimes much, much sooner.

So, just know that as you glide down the path of life that you will almost certainly realize one day that most of your cares have dissolved into the ether and what matters is enjoying the moment, hopefully not your last one, and when confronted with a problem you’ll be overwhelmed with a feeling of AFI. So let the food fall, let the house become a little messy, fart if you need to and vacuum the car tomorrow.
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As The Atheist Turns

9/20/2019

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I guess it is clear to most who have read my ramblings that I am an avowed Atheist. Some people assume that as an Atheist, you don't believe in anything. In my case, that is the furthest thing from the truth. I believe in a whole lot of shit; it's just that it doesn't include God and may not align comfortably with what Pope Frankie believes, and I have a ton of respect for the guy.

This from www.myjewishlearning.com
"While in traditional Jewish thought the subjects of heaven and hell were treated extensively, most modern Jewish thinkers have shied away from this topic, preferring to follow the biblical model, which focuses on life on earth."

This from www.religiousfacts.com
" Islam teaches that there will be a day of judgment when all humans will be divided between the eternal destinations of Paradise and Hell", and, "Until the Day of Judgment, deceased souls remain in their graves awaiting the resurrection. However, they begin to feel immediately a taste of their destiny to come. Those bound for hell will suffer in their graves, while those bound for heaven will be in peace until that time." Hmm, eternity in the grave seems a bit dark and cold.

I think we all know that most of the Christian sects believe in heaven and hell. So what do I, as an Atheist believe? My philosophy lines up pretty well with the modern Jewish belief. Lest anyone be confused, I don't believe there is a God, so obviously I also don't believe there is a heaven or hell in terms of somewhere you go after death; you don't go anywhere after death - you're dead. You life has ended and what ever wondrous deeds you may have achieved or evil you may have pooped on the populace dies with you.

I totally understand that this notion of no eternal life scares the shit out of people. No one wants to die; I don't want to die, but it has nothing to do with living forever or burning in hell. I love life. I am curious about every damn thing going on in the world in which I live and I want to see what the hell happens in the future. That is why I dislike the concept of death, as inevitable as I know it is.

Every religion in history has formulated some form of afterlife. Even the Buddhists who go on about reincarnation and coming back until you get it right or are the perfect human being is a form of an afterlife. The problem is that there is no such thing as a perfect human being which, in affect, guarantees you will live forever because you will keep coming back trying to fix the screwups from your previous live or lives.

I understand the draw of this eternal life thing, and I understand the need to believe that loved ones, especially those who die young, are somewhere waiting for you to bite the big one and join them. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over.

Okay, a little unfair to those of faith. I get the value of this kind of thinking if you have a hard time dealing with reality. Take the example of a young couple who lose their infant child early in life. I can't imagine going through that. If it had happened to one of my three children, I'm not sure what I would have done but the word Jameson comes to mind. But, for those who have faith, being able to believe that their infant child is in heaven and is there because God wanted the kid there instead of living a happy and fulfilling life on earth provides a solace that I guess lets them deal with their tragedy. In that sense, religion is serving a real purpose. But the, Jameson makes me feel good as well.

​As I wrote in my book, Religilution: The Evolution of Religion which doesn't seem to have gained much traction, none as a matter of fact, much of what we believe about life God and an after life is the construct of people thousands of years ago who were afraid of almost everything coupled with a good deal of revisionism about what might have happened or been said two thousand years ago (thus, the King James version of the Bible or this or that version). I would remind you there were no smartphones  recording video or a scribe on Jesus' shoulder writing it all down. So be it.

And that, dear friends, is my sermon for today. I do hope you have a wonderful day and all the days to come.

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    mike davis

    I think and write and talk and then do it all over again. 

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