ARE HUMANS REALLY HUMAN?

7-23-13

The Boy Scouts are an odd lot. They provide us with training for young men on the cusp of adulthood; I was one and remember learning about porn, getting a merit badge in carpentry, learning that masturbation is evil and learning to hate overnight camping. Others do better than that but it is clear their outcomes are a mixed bag. Now that a person's sexuality becomes more open, they had a problem with their no-queer policy. Neither a gay boy or scout leader could scout with the rest of the crowd. Recently, they had a meeting to determine if they might change their policy, essentially to get rid of their noxious rules. Brilliantly, they said no. I say “brilliantly” because against all odds, they stuck to their guns. Are they heroes … or what?

They never offered an explanation, but clearly they believe that LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexul, transgendered) folk are morally and behaviorally impaired. LGBT folk have always been besmirched with such nonsense and further, the calumnly that they would always try to seduce the innocent into their culture. There are ugly parallels. When eighteen, at school in Florida I tried to visit a schoolmate in the private home where he rented a room. At the door, when I rang the bell, was a truculent woman who refused me admittance because she knew I was Jewish and would steal from her. And surely, African Americans and Latinos belong on the list. Or, the wisdom of the plains: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” There are many more examples around the world but time and space limit me to just a few.

Some people just know the capital T Truth and act on it. They know that those people, whomever, are not properly human. Even our god given constitution defined African-Americans as three-fifths of a white person and so justified slavery. Oh yes, they also quoted the bible as evidence that god was on their side.

Knowing the Truth is half the equation. All one needs to add is rage. Do lynchings come to mind? How about killing abortion doctors? How about, as in Norway killing people because the Muslims were infiltrating Norwegian society? How about Columbine and our latest, the Batman killer.

Make no mistake. Whether or not he is legally insane, he surely has a loose screw. There is no way he could have planned and executed his mayhem without defining people as lesser beings who deserve death. Rage and anger and the freedom to purchase killing devices were all he needed. He even turned his apartment into a killing machine, what a guy.

It is very likely that such people have a brain disorder though I doubt there is yet sufficient evidence to make that point. I knew a man who was convinced that the whole of humanity was divided into two warring camps and he was the only neutral extant. Of course, that made him fair game for anyone so he became violent with anyone he met. Nothing like knowing the Truth … it shall set you free to kill.

It is almost impossible to identify such before their vicious acts, but we surely can make their weapons impossible to get. The NRA says no! What do we say?

If you want to have truck loads of fun

Nothing better than a quick-firing gun

The minute you shoot

It goes rooty-toot-toot

Bodies fall - fewer lives in the sun.

WORDS: Are we coarser?

7-9-12

You know the old conundrum, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, has it made a sound?” As a kid, my friends and I pondered the deep philosophical significance of that question; but of course we found no solution. Now that I am older, the answer is obvious: No! What happens when a tree falls is that in the process air is disturbed, and that's it. Only if there are ear-drums present can the organism find meaning in the event. The disturbed air is called a sound and the brain makes a guess about what caused it. So, this obviously tells me that I am smarter than I used to be. Huzzah!

Now that I've established that point, I can segue on to the gist of this essay. The other day, in the Post, there was an article which described the reality that some of our elected officials have publicly used so called foul language. Even though the offending words were exed out, from the context I deduced the word, shit. The author decried such use and quoted some experts, though in what I have no idea (perhaps they were ethicists, a bogus enterprise at best). The consensus, to quote one of them is that such language is “evidence that our society is “coarsening.” Absurd!

When I was a lad, certain words and situations in movies were absolutely forbidden by the notorious Hayes Committee. That idiot organization appeared because movies til then were thought to be too ribald for the general public and, heaven forfend, a child might get to see one! The words virgin, pregnant and damn could not be used in polite company and the twin bed industry got a boost because husband and wife never ever slept together and they wore, not quite coveralls but highly opaque garments. And, when two people kissed, always a man and woman, the screen faded to black. When young, I assumed they then had a snack or listened to music.

A movie, “The Moon is Blue,” broke the rule when one character called another a “professional virgin.” I had no idea of what that meant, but I knew something worth an oooh had occurred. By the time Rhett Butler (Gone With the Wind) said, “Madame, I don't give a damn,” I was a jaded fifteen year old who knew and understood every thing in the world. How long did it take for women on TV became pregnant?

George Carlin, that magnificent humorist had a list of taboo words which he used in his act and by and large, they remain somewhat proscribed. Still, the word fuck has become more prominent. Most don't want their children to use or even know the word but almost any movie will teach it to them.

What am I getting at? This: Spoken woerds have no intrinsic meaning. They are like the falling tree, agitations of the air; it takes a listener who interprets the agitated air and has a reaction. I suppose everyone reading this has some reaction to fuck, but there is a good chance that each one had an idiosyncratic response. And, we are each responsible for our own interpretations. Let me repeat, we are each responsible for our own interpretations. When that fellow said that a politician using the word shit coarsens our society, what he said has no objective meaning. Do you live in a coarser society now that virgin and pregnant are publicly acceptable? Is it coarser because married people in the movies sleep in the same bed or wear somewhat scanty clothing, if any? I don't think so.

Those who pontificate about such miss the reality that the Greek philosopher who said you can't step into the same river twice was right. Everything always changes. Our acceptance of such language simply means that things have changed. We used to laugh at the Brits because the word bloody was not permitted. Why did we laugh? Because that word, absent British meanings, sounds benign; what's the big deal? And even the Brits have figured that out.

Life would be a lot more interesting if people were willing to assume personal responsibility for their reactions. The accusation, “you made me love you” would change to I love you because I love you. Now, isn't that nicer?

If you beg the heavens above

To strike you with feelings of love

Keep clearly in mind

You never will find

That the heavens can give such a shove.

WORDS: Are we coarser?

7-9-12

You know the old conundrum, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, has it made a sound?” As a kid, my friends and I pondered the deep philosophical significance of that question; but of course, we found no solution. Now that I am older, the answer is obvious: No! What happens when a tree falls is that in the process air is disturbed, and that's it. Only if there are eardrums present can the organism find meaning in the event. The disturbed air is called a sound and the brain makes a guess about what caused it. So, this obviously tells me that I am smarter than I used to be. Huzzah!

Now that I've established that point, I can segue on to the gist of this essay. The other day, in the Post, there was an article that described the reality that some of our elected officials have publicly used so-called foul language. Even though the offending words were blanked out, from the context I deduced the word, shit. The author decried such use and quoted some experts, though in what I have no idea (perhaps they were ethicists, a bogus enterprise at best). The consensus, to quote one of them is that such language is “evidence that our society is “coarsening.” Absurd!

When I was a lad, certain words and situations in movies were absolutely forbidden by the notorious Hayes Committee. That idiot organization appeared because movies till then were thought to be too ribald for the general public and, heaven forefend, a child might get to see one! The words virgin, pregnant and damn could not be used in polite company and the twin bed industry got a boost because husband and wife never ever slept together and they wore not quite coveralls but highly opaque garments. And, when two people kissed, always a man and woman, the screen faded to black. When young, I assumed they then had a snack or listened to music.

A movie, “The Moon is Blue,” broke the rule when one character called another a “professional virgin.” I had no idea of what that meant, but I knew something worth an oooh had occurred. By the time Rhett Butler (Gone With the Wind) said, “Madame, I don't give a damn,” I was a jaded fifteen year old who knew and understood everything in the world. How long did it take for women on TV became pregnant?

George Carlin, that magnificent humorist had a list of taboo words that he used in his act and by and large, they remain somewhat proscribed. Still, the word fuck has become more prominent. Most don't want their children to use or even know the word but almost any movie will teach it to them.

What am I getting at? This: Spoken words have no intrinsic meaning. They are like the falling tree, agitations of the air; it takes a listener who interprets the agitated air and has a reaction. I suppose everyone reading this has some reaction to fuck, but there is a good chance that each one had an idiosyncratic response. And, we are each responsible for our own interpretations. Let me repeat, we are each responsible for our own interpretations. When that fellow said that a politician using the word shit coarsens our society, what he said has no objective meaning. Do you live in a coarser society now that virgin and pregnant are publicly acceptable? Is it coarser because married people in the movies sleep in the same bed or wear somewhat scanty clothing, if any? I don't think so.

Those who pontificate about such miss the reality that the Greek philosopher who said you can't step into the same river twice was right. Everything always changes. Our acceptance of such language simply means that things have changed. We used to laugh at the Brits because the word bloody was not permitted. Why did we laugh? Because that word, absent British meanings, sounds benign, what's the big deal? And even the Brits have figured that out.

Life would be a lot more interesting if people were willing to assume personal responsibility for their reactions. The accusation, “you made me love you” would change to I love you because I love you. Now, isn't that nicer?

If you beg the heavens above

To strike you with feelings of love

Keep clearly in mind

You never will find

That the heavens can give such a shove.

6-13-11

TWO WEEKS IN MY LIFE – YAY!

In the two weeks that you last saw me, I was struck by a veritable whirlwind of irksome changes. I might not have complained about myself in the past, but now”s the time. At first, I thought it was a tornado of life changes but in calm contemplation I have concluded that irksome does not qualify; whirlwind suffices. What follows is in chronological order.

Part one: I have known that my hearing has slowly deteriorated, that it has become harder to understand discussions in restaurants, that TV dialogue often degenerates into a series of mumbles and that I keep asking people to repeat themselves. “Say again,” had almost become my mantra. My daughter, in particular, speaks to me while engaging in tasks and I often have to ask for a repeat and she, in her sweet friendly way says, “Will you please get a hearing aid.”

The truth is that I knew the day was coming because of prior hearing tests and so, reluctantly, I scheduled another one; the chart showed that my high pitched hearing ability is essentially lost. I no longer have the capacity to hear upper registers; in other words, I am half-deaf. Kaiser has a hearing aid shop and there I went and after much fiddling with this and that I ordered a pair. I gathered from the woman who helped me that two hearing aids are astonishingly superior to one so that's what I did, I ordered two one for each ear.

When they arrived I learned about batteries that last a week, domes and wax traps, all possible sources of malfunction. There was also the problem of sticking the thingies into my ears. For the first week, they kept falling out. Batteries died and the wax traps trapped wax and now I carry around a supply of each. I had to learn when to adjust the volume: raise it in noisy places but not so high that it sounds like a tinny when breathing.. She explained to me that wearing them trains the brain and that sounded exotic until I realized that the brain learns to ignore the oddness of the sound. I often forget them; I have not yet integrated them into my life style. Having them, caring for them is a shlep. I am still in the try-out period but I think the benefits marginally overwhelm the irks. Remember when I told you I had lost interest in music? I turned the radio on as I usually do at breakfast and heard glorious sound; I can hear what I've been missing and music is back in my life.

Part two: As part of my body existing through time, certain changes occur of insidious onset and that has happened to my kidneys. Over the years, they have slowly been losing their capacity to filter my blood and finally my doc figured it was time to check with an expert, a nephrologist. OK, I saw him and he told me that I have kidney disease of unknown origin, told me to give up dairy products,chocolate and nuts and so it goes, a bereft lover of milk chocolate and other such. There are some sacrifices too terrible to contemplate except if my kidneys get worse I become a candidate for dialysis, a much more terrible outcome then changing my diet. So, you will no longer see me scarf down almond filled kisses. But, worse, much worse, he said that one of my diabetes meds is bad for sick kidneys and must give it up. OK, says I to my PC doc, what's plan B?

Part 3: Plan B is sticking myself with an insulin laden syringe every night.

Now, that's fun. I was given a hundred of the stickers, a bottle of insulin, shown how and where to do it and sent off to be more or less healthy. Now mornings and bedtimes are devoted to fiddling with hearing aids, glucometers and syringes as well as ingesting the multifarious medicines that keep me ticking.

As noted above, it is all somewhat irksome, particularly for a young man. Still, it is doable and has to be done so it shall be.

(This was written about a year ago and all the above has become so routinized that I hardly notice the talks. Yeah.)

My hearing has grown pretty bad

Like my diabetes and kidneys, so sad

Am I now become old?

Do not dare be so bold

That I breaths still makes me feel glad.

CHAOS: What fun!

June 25, 2012

Evolution created us to be hunter-gatherers. Homo sapiens lived in caves and traveled around looking for game and searching for whatever flora fit for their needs. The women stayed at home taking care of the children and sweeping the floor. I suppose there were those who were more successful than others at finding food and it is at least plausible they survived and passed on their genes; the less successful didn't get here.

What does it take to be a successful hunter-gatherer? There are the usual attributes such as courage, skill and strength in the face of uncertainty. Where would the food animals and vegetation be found? What seasons made certain ones more likely than others. How to anticipate the appearance of sharp teeth and claws and adjust accordingly? Obviously, such information would favor survival; absent such information they lived in a chaotic environment. Everything would seem unpredictable, chaotic and most of life is like that.

Chaos is the bug-a-boo, the destroyer the cause of much misery. Chaotic events must be transformed into time-lines, after this, that, and patterns. Our ancient forebears understood cause and effect and did their best to get control. Absent control, they accounted for events with supernatural explanations . . . and denial.

Dear friends, the reality is that most of life is chaotic; but most of the time it moves in slow-motion providing the facade of stability and predictability. But, all too often it rears up and maims or kills us, or our loved ones. I know a young man who, while sitting in a car with a friend was shot by a random gunman. Was he killed? No but he became a quadriplegic. The police never found the shooter nor have they established a motive. He was quite religious before the event and now he is profoundly religious. God's plan is simply a denial of reality. Viet Nam veterans said, “Shit happens.”

We have medical science, laws, police, a military, politics and greater comprehension of the universe all designed to get chaos under control all under the under the illusion of at least partial success. But the core understanding is that all things are probabilistic. The young man was unlikely to get shot and surely unlikely to become quadriplegic. Pedophiles are unlikely to assault your child, The airplane is unlikely to crash. We are embedded in such improbable events and clamor for greater sophistication and better laws and, in truth, the appropriate people try hard but the reality that probability statements are the best we can do belies most of their efforts.

If we accept that our lives dangle from a thin thread how shall we find comfort in living? There is no certainty we will live long in comfort and die peacefully even though we strive for some version of that hope. What seems most reasonable is to accept the reality that the universe is not designed with our preferences in mind so that when chaos crosses the moat around our defenses we do not react with surprise and rage or mourning. Accepting what is bad is a pretty good way of making things better . . . until you die.

“The moving finger writes and moves on.

nor all thy piety and wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line

nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”

All of us want to be certain

To live well before closing the curtain

Our motives are pure

But, we cannot be sure

That chaos won't provide a demotion

DRONES AND THE ART OF WAR    

It is important to understand that war kills people. There may be some exceptions but my impression is that every country has the ability to go to war; surely, the international sale of arms makes that point. For each country buying arms, the crucial question is what sort and how many. A bit of a jaunt into history will provide some context.

The ancient Romans, in their prime were by all odds the masters of warfare, at least so it seemed until they ran into the Parthians. The Romans marched in with their invincible legions but were stopped cold. It was a clash of military philosophy; the Romans fought on foot in well-ordered ranks and had tactics to deal with whatever situation they faced. The Parthians, following Asian tactics were horse archers who avoided hand-to-hand combat; they swooped close, launched volleys of arrows and skipped away to avoid the Roman military machine. When retiring from the field, they would turn in their saddles and send a final volley known to us now as the Parthian shot. The Romans had archers, but they were wedded to infantry so ceded the conflict to the Parthians.

The west, in its crusades used heavy cavalry to smash into their enemies. In essence, the side that weighed more would win. Except that they took Jerusalem, they lost every time. The Muslims, have you guessed it, were horse archers and the battles were pretty much like the Romans v. the Parthians. Some military thinkers approached a French king urging that he equip the invasion force with bowmen. The king refused. He asserted that the bow was the devil's weapon and not appropriate for god's army. You can figure out what happened.

Back before Joan of Arc, when the English decided they owned France, it was by then a pretty monotonous story. The French army, consisting of heavy cavalry along with inconsequential footmen would routinely charge well-prepared English defenses. They disdained the bowmen who shot arrows into them and got shot to pieces as a consequence. It happened over and over again. All the English had to do was find some high ground and invite them to come. The French, declaring honor obliged.

The Prussians consistently beat the French in the Franco-Prussian wars. They had the needle gun, an effective breech-loading rifle that could be fired in a prone position. The French held on to their muzzleloaders requiring they march into battle and remain upright so they could load. Guys lying down shooting at guys standing up … no contest.

In Italy, during WWII, the Germans occupied a church on top of Monte Cassino. Our air force was not permitted to bomb it because it would hurt Christian sensibilities. Many American and British soldiers died because of that idiocy.

There is a multitude of such quirks. Pre-Pearl Harbor, our Secretary of the Army refused to read Japanese intercepts because gentlemen did not do such things. (Perhaps apocryphal but you get the picture.)

The Northern military knew about breechloaders but refused to equip the union army with them because it might lead to profligate shooting. There was a time when armies did not fight on Sunday. And on and on and on.

The United States now has a weapon, which is quite different and extremely effective, the drone. That is an unmanned airplane (a drone could be a boat or a car) that is driven by a person at a computer in this country. Using on the ground intelligent, they can kill our enemies. To be sure, with ICBMs we could do the same but with overwhelming collateral damage. It would cost zillions of dollars to kill one of the baddies, huge numbers of people would die and property values would seriously go down.

Such tactics cause a great hullabaloo. Of course, the recipients of such attention call it immoral, but so do so many on our side. Innocent people get killed and sometimes that is true (still, what are they doing hanging with our enemies) and it is immoral to target specific individuals. And, besides, our enemies would become madder at us than they already are. And, heavens, sovereignty is violated.

Surely, when non-combatants are casualties it is a tragedy. As a general rule, in warfare it simply happens. When we invaded France, what do you suppose happened to the civilians living there on the beaches? Hell, we flattened the place with our bombs but hoped only Germans were hurt. Yeah.

Somehow, it is immoral to kill specific individuals, yet the history of warfare is to do it if you can. There was a time when American officers went into combat wearing their rank on their shoulders. German snipers shot them to pieces; pretty soon, American officers wore innocuous identifiers. Of course, we did the same to the Germans. It was a great coup when we shot down the premiere Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, he who designed the Pearl Harbor attack.

And, they will become angrier? Of course, that is how the losers usually feel. But, such tactics have decimated both the El Queda and the Taliban leadership and that pleases me.

Drones are a new form of warfare. Not only are there no counter-measures but they raise questions about sovereignty. We violate Pakistan every time we take out an enemy on their soil because they let our enemies take action against us. In the not-so-long-ago days, our enemies could snicker at our protests to their host country as they did in Afghanistan. Perhaps, perhaps if we had drones in those days we could have dealt with them with less fuss. Think of how many lives that might have saved.

There is no doubt that other countries will get their own drones and for certain, there will be developed effective counter-measures but until that day, we have the edge and that is important.

Are we in any danger? Yes, but not from external enemies. It is the boobs who think that the more surveillance of our citizens the better. If we put up with such nonsense, the slide into fascism becomes steeper.

Drones are a dandy machine

They help us become much more mean

They kill lots of bad ones

For sure, we want re-runs

In such warfare, our hands are quite clean

MONOTHEISM: Causes and Consequences.

This is another exploration. I really don't know what's on my mind unless I write and find out; this is an attempt to understand why monotheism, the Abrahamic invention, took over much of the world. Earlier I have written about the purpose of the ten commandments. Clearly, establishing one god enabled all the Hebrews to become united. The pantheistic religions had followers of specific gods, they would propitiate them as best they could but this led to some sense of social isolation. Monotheism provided a way for individuals and tribes to become united. Still, while it served a political purpose, how is it that monotheism seems so much better?

As I have noted earlier, societies earlier than the Hebraic attempted written codes of behavior, the most noteworthy that of Hammurabi. The Egyptians had a few rules as did a some others but they all had exceptions. If your ruler is a god, rules of public conduct do not apply and their leading citizens were somehow exempted.

But, with one god for all, differences in social class disappeared. To the creator of the universe one god, omniscient and omnipotent, all people looked pretty much the same. All could be assured, no matter what their station in life, they each were the same in god's eye. In a socially stratified world with no hope of breaking free, life for most was drudgery. They could see their “betters” but could not emulate them. However, one god had no competitors and provided equality for all; all men and women were eligible for the goodness of the lord, all could aspire to heaven. No wonder Christianity exploded.

Judaism made it tough to join the club what with the demand for circumcision and dietary laws. Many non-Jews attended services because they admired Jewish perspectives but most would not take the necessary steps to be full-fledged members of the tribe. But, they valued the one god concept because it made all Jews equal. Paul made a significant change. Now Judaism, as exemplified by Christ let everyone join; everyone could be equal. Monotheism became the core of a profound transformation; it became possible foe all to be close to god.

This was such a satisfactory consequence that earthly distress was of less importance. Though Athens had a version of democracy, monotheism did not lead to a notion of political equality; it was sufficient to know that god loved us all and perhaps the poor the most.

Religionists, mostly I think in this country, tell us that the Judeo-Christian religions were part of the establishment of our constitution, offering the commandments as evidence. Without the right to vote in that list it is not clear how they make their point. Of course, it does not. The equality inherent in the commandments is not political and is clearly antithetical to our democratic ideals.

Rulers were either declared gods or were ordained by god; such surely quashed the notion that humans have equal rights in the eyes of men. There is nothing in religious doctrine which makes democracy a spiritual value. Democracy in religion is anathema. Religious leaders, no matter how chosen know the Truth and may not be challenged; received wisdom is not open for a vote. This is certainly in contradistinction to “all men are created equal,” embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Everyone knew that all men are equal in the eyes of the lord, but political equality, a child of the enlightenment is a new kid on the block. Religious leaders may not be questioned and the more fundamental the greater the restriction; religionists cannot tolerate that their received wisdom is dissed. Most Jews, for example, disregard the dietary laws. Catholic women use birth control but in the face of such realities religionists become more dogmatic.

It seems it is not a matter of live and let live but an ongoing struggle which, if we do not destroy ourselves first will be a triumph for humanism. With the reality that the religionists have lost much of Europe and that in this country those who check “no religion, are increasing in numbers at least we may be at the beginning of the beginning of human equality, at least in western civilization and, as we go so goes the rest of the world.

One god makes us all quite equal

Though to this there is a neat sequel

In politics it don't work

And you feel like a jerk

'Cause what they tell us is over-sweet treacle.