New Year's resolutions

     If I resolve not to make any New Year's resolutions, have I failed from the start, or succeeded ?

a day without shopping

     Try choosing one day of the week to "not shop". It may be good for your finances. It may slow down or correct any bad shopping habits you may be developing, on the internet or elsewhere. And it may improve your resourcefulness--you will learn to get along or make do without running back out to the store every time you want something. Your ancestors survived the weekly closing of the shops, and so can you.

edubabble

     The phrase "teaching to test" is repeated as if it were a bad thing to test students on what has been taught. Wrong. It would be a bad thing to test students on what has not been taught--for instance, to spend weeks talking about what everyone did on vacation, and then test students on material that should have been covered during the vacation discussions.
     As for teaching just to improve scores on standardized tests ( achievement tests ), this is probably not possible. The teacher might drill students all day in vocabulary and basic math skills, and that might, or should, improve standardized test scores. But since the teacher doesn't know what the questions on the standardized test are going to be, this could not really be "teaching to test". Drilling in vocabulary and math would be a vast improvement, anyway, on drilling in "imagination and creativity"--which are not covered on standardized tests.
    The emphasis a teacher places on "imagination and creativity" may be meant to hide the teacher's own lack of basic skills--especially when "imagination and creativity" seem to be taking the place of education.

has anyone read "The Autobigraphy of Benvenuto Cellini"?

     Many people are familiar with The Autobigraphy of Benvenuto Cellini--it is republished every time there is a new set of the classics of western literature. My parents had a copy of it, but I didn't read it. I read some of the other "classics", but not that one. As a young woman, I bought a copy of it--but I didn't read it. I eventually gave it away. When my daughter, now grown, was in school, I bought a copy of it again, in case she wanted to read it--she didn't. I have recently come into possession of yet another copy,  but I haven't read it--yet.
    Considering how often the book has been published, it is surely very little read, despite the good intentions of those who mean to read it--some day. We might form an un-book club, and perhaps even read the thing one day. Or we might save The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini to challenge those who claim the ability to read through osmosis, psychic power, or other forms of mystic divination. If no one has read it, no one could give them the answers--through the ectoplasm, or with cell phone vibrations, or the like.

generic holiday greetings

     Generic holiday greetings aren't new. Many cards simply said "Happy Holidays" years ago. Everyone who gets days off with pay gets a day off with pay. Anyone who works gets extra pay. That will have to do for a generic, all-purpose, garden variety holiday. May yours be merry.

a TV childhood

   TV is so violent and gory these days. When I was a child, we watched more wholesome fare. There was a western nearly every night, with cowboys out in the fresh air ( this was before the movies felt a need to impress upon us with everything but smell-o-rama that cowboys didn't bathe regularly--the "bad guys" just needed a shave ). The cowboys came to town and visited the saloon, where the good guys were always polite to the dance-hall girls, and never, ever cheated at poker. The good guys were always good shots, and won the weekly gun fight every time.
     

my grand theory of history and some other things

Stuff doesn't happen--people do stuff. 

imagine

       "Imagine a world where there isn't any work" may be the longest-playing commercial for crime. I can't imagine a world where there isn't any work--and neither can anyone else, because such a world cannot exist. We all eat the food others worked to grow, process, transport, sell, and perhaps prepare. We wear the clothing others worked to make. We drive cars others worked to manufacture. We drive them on roads others worked to pave. We live in houses others worked to build, lit by electricity others worked to produce. Other people work to bring our mail and take away our trash. There can't be a world without any work. We live in a world made of work--no one can live in a pipe dream. The only place where no one works is jail.
     If you'd like to imagine an earthly paradise, why not imagine a world where everyone works?

in the name of freedom

     Too many young people--one would be too many--have a very strange concept of freedom--particularly freedom of expression, but the attitude covers more than one kind of "freedom". For example, some of these young people have learned that it is unacceptable to use government property for a religious display. So far, so good. But some have decided that this means that all religious displays are "bad", and that no one may put one on the front lawn. This is a new, and growing concept of "freedom" that we all need to notice when we see it. The new intolerance is clothed in robes of righteousness.

what to say to holiday visions---

"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato".

scriptural authority

     People who cite scripture at others--meaning that it applies to the victim of this verbal barrage, but not to the speaker--can be maddening. There are worse things, however--people who cite pop songs, giving them the same scriptural authority. I originally thought they were just being clever--but I have since learned that they believe that many pop song lyrics are from the Bible. You know, "imagine there's no heaven"-- "only love can break a heart"-- "I can't give you anything but love.." -- and many more. This, too, is actually being taught to students at a school, somewhere--perhaps a religious school, or a set of schools. Any pop song that actually takes its lyrics from the Bible ( remember Turn, Turn, Turn? ) only seems to produce consternation.

too much of a good thing

     It's encouraging to know that someone is out there teaching people not to be superstitious--but some of their students take it too far. No one can mention: the moon; King Tut; Henry VIII; a rainbow; farms; magnets; lead,  and perhaps dozens of other things or ideas--without being consigned to the hopelessly superstitious file. No argument, no discussion, no intake of information--just a complete mental block protecting the erstwhile students from the superstitions to which school might expose them. Nothing penetrates this block. King Tut is something fortune tellers dreamed up. There is no such thing as a rainbow--it's just  a myth from the Bible, or something little children like to paint. Food doesn't come from farms--that's ignorant and old-fashioned. Lead protects Superman from kryptonite--so it must be pretend. Only an idiot would believe that pencils have lead in them. These students know that "lodestone" means magnet, so there is probably no such thing, since it is connected to medieval philosophy on some level--in their minds. A demonstration using magnets causes silent consternation, and is then dismissed as a "trick".
     Movies don't teach these students anything--someone got there first, and taught them that everything in the movies is pretend. Every time Hollywood makes a new historical epic, these students think even less of history and history teachers. If a teacher tries to tell them that a historical movie depicts real persons or events, the same blank wall goes up.  If anyone has ever succeeded in moving the minds of these students, I would like to hear about it. I would have students move in the other direction, by refusing to impute superstition to any idea without thinking about it rationally first. We have all been told that ancient and medieval people believed in sea monsters, for instance, and are agreed that this was hopelessly superstitious of them--unless--they were actually talking about whales--in which case we have only ourselves to reproach.

flim flam

     One type of fraud made easier by modern technology is the good old-fashioned flim flam. You have probably noticed that a modern cash register quickly shows the amount of change to be given. Older cash registers displayed only the amount of sale, and the cashier made the change while looking at that amount. The flim flam artist counts on being able to confuse the clerk or cashier as to which is the amount of the sale or purchase, and which is the correct amount of change. If a flim flam artist spends thirteen or fourteen dollars, for instance, the amount of change should be five or six dollars and change. The flim flam artist wants the clerk to give him or her the amount of purchase instead--thirteen or fourteen dollars and change--so the flim flammer makes a profit, including what he or she has bought, of about eight to ten dollars--every time, in all kinds of stores, all over the country. That's a lot of money.

it took me forty years

     More than forty years ago I first tried to explain to a fellow-student that America had never been at war with Russia. I patiently explained that Russia, or the USSR, was our ally in both WWI and WWII.  My adversary remained unconvinced. I further explained that the United States had fought two wars with England, but none with Russia. Still nothing.
     Forty years later, while arguing on the same subject, the opponent finally gave up the source of her misunderstanding --she had decided, on the strength of two words, that America had fought a war with Russia, and that it was called the Cold War.
    If you're reading this and wondering how it could happen that I didn't know about the Cold War, I did--but it wasn't a war. Teacher told you to pay attention, didn't she? The "Cold War" is the name given to the years after WWII, during which the United States refused to speak to the Russians--or the Chinese. It was a description of diplomacy, or the lack of it--not the name of a war.
     There are probably other misunderstandings that I don't understand. I hope they don't take forty years to solve.

school lotteries

     Instead of having an annual lottery to decide which public school students get to attend a charter school and which will have to remain in a troubled public school , why not just give each child a lottery ticket, and the winner, if any, can attend private school?

fraud that doesn't make the front page

     When someone steals millions of dollars, it makes headlines all over the country. I think most fraud, if you add it up, is done by hundreds of thousands of people who regularly steal hundreds or thousands of dollars. Take something as simple as employee paychecks, for example. Tens of millions of paychecks, every week of the year, every year. What if some of those paychecks are actually in the name of "dummy" or "ghost" employees? Employees who don't really exist. This could be done using the identity of anyone who doesn't actually work for the corporation involved in the fraud. Perhaps people are being paid every week without ever having been employed by the firm signing the paycheck.

the purpose of bail

     This is your social studies teacher speaking. Unreasonable ( excessive ) bail is unconstitutional, and subverts the entire system of awaiting trial while released on bail. The purpose of requiring bail is to assure the appearance of the accused at his or her trial. There is no other reason to set any amount of bail. If protecting the public from a potentially dangerous criminal is the excuse for multi-million dollar bail, it's worse than ridiculous. A person presumed to be dangerous can be denied bail, and should be. Even though innocent until proved guilty, he or she may await trial behind bars. That is the law, and the reason behind the law. Setting bail at millions of dollars does not alter it. If the voting public decides that the law is unjust, they can petition their representatives to change the law.

good fences make good neighbors

    "Good fences make good neighbors", or so the saying goes. Some would have all fences and boundaries removed, now, in the interests of friendship and "sharing". These may be the same people who occasioned the building of the fences to begin with. People may have erected "fences" to remind the thoughtless of limits they failed to recognize. 
    Popular wisdom now has it that fences cause conflicts--instead of conflicts causing fences. Remember the story of the first murder among humankind, from the Book of Genesis? Cain slew his brother Abel because Abel's cattle had been eating his grain. This started a conflict that ended in murder. A fence would have been a better solution.

print or digital?

     Is it surprising that there are still paper clipping services? I'm not sure. Not everything that is published is online--some of it is still printed on paper only. Many online publications are not printed on paper at all, and never were. Some publications are both online and in print ( paper ). If you really wanted to follow a news story or a set of stories, you would need to subscribe to a paper clipping service and an online clipping service, if you wanted to make sure that you had the news from all of the relevant publications. The other option would be checking social media, as people who read the paper-only publications might mention them on social media sites. In the opposite direction, print media often report on what is available online. Confused?  It seems like a hall of mirrors sometimes, each reflecting the other reflection.

inside jobs

     Fraud--I believe we are all surrounded by so much of it that we can't detect it any more. To notice all of the fraud around us would be like noticing the air--we can see the effects of the wind, but not the air itself. Every time I read about a lawsuit or court case I suspect fraud. I suspect that most fraud is an "inside job"-- that there is a willing participant employed by the corporation being sued. Someone who works for the defendant  gets part of the money when someone wins a fraudulent lawsuit, in plain terms. The accidents are real--and real people are injured--but most of the people who sue just have someone else's medical records, and a willing accomplice "inside"--one who can decide to pay a claim, and how much to pay.
     These aren't "victimless" crimes. Fraudulent lawsuits make everything more expensive, particularly insurance.

mumbo jumbo

     At the somewhat advanced age of 54, I am encountering people so ignorant that they imagine mumbo-jumbo will work on me. Mumbo-jumbo is a useful expression. It means using a long word, after which other people are supposed to back away bowing, or do a great salaam on their knees as an act of worship in front of such other-worldly erudition. Well, antidisestablishmentarianism* to you. When I was about 10 years old, I was told that "antidisestablishmentarianism" is the longest word in the English language. If you mean to use mumbo-jumbo on me, you are 40-some years too late.  Like all good con artists, those who would practice mumbo-jumbo should get to know the "mark" before starting on the con. Maybe I'm brighter than I look. Or mumbo-jumbo practitioners have a poor grasp of reality. Lots of people know long words. Some of us are not ignorant enough to imagine that they can be used to work magic spells.

* Yes, I do know what this means, and if you ask, I'll gladly explain it to you.

farming never-neverland

     I watched a video about farm life the other day, hoping that it could help to explain food production. It couldn't. Some people do not believe that food comes from farms--and when told, deny it, as they already "know" better. They "know" that farms are pretend, or out of the past--we get food by some more modern method now--factories, or machines. I have spent hours on the video clip site, trying to put together a set of films that would show plowing, planting, tending, harvesting, transporting, processing, and distribution. I found a lot of videos of combines and harvesters, but I couldn't arrange the set I wanted.  I'll have to try again, or contact an educational video service. I'm looking for a video that will show that farmers are real, not  fantasy characters. The video should show that farms and farmers are modern, not a historical re-enactment. The film should explain what "factory farming" means, as the same people who don't believe that food comes from farms have "decided" that this means food comes from factories. Any suggestions?

the death penalty and religion

     I have read a lot of different arguments both for and against the death penalty over the last thirty years. The one argument I find insupportable is the religious conviction that we, as a state, are acting out the will of God, or instituting divine justice of some kind, through the execution of criminals. I, as one of "we the people", do not consider myself a god, or an agent of God. I do not believe in the Jungian "oversoul" God--the God made up of all the people together. Although I am not a Christian, the "pot cannot be greater than the potter" certainly should have warned any Christian away from this view. If God is the creative force behind all the life in the universe, that God does not reside in the minds or the sex of human kind, except to the extent that it has created humankind.
     The religious view of the death penalty also denies the redemptive power of God--and I do believe in redemption. For a Christian, it also denies the redemptive power of Jesus--something I though all Christians believed. I believe that any human being can be redeemed at any time, although I do not belong to a religion that requires this belief of me. I believe it because I have seen it, and I know that it is possible.
     If this argument is based on a tenet of faith, those making the argument ought to be able to state plainly just what that tenet is--and they don't seem to be able to do that.

hippopotamus, hippopotami, hippopotamuses?

     Ever meet one of those people who manages to arrange a chance to display his or her so-called erudition at every opportunity by working words like "hippopotami" into everyday garden-variety conversation?
     Resolved: I shall never write about more than one hippopotamus at all. If there are two or more, someone else will have to tell the story.

old books

      One of the things cyberspace hopes to accomplish is to scan every book ever printed. At least one copy of everything would be in a computer file somewhere, even if the file is not available to share. People are also working on projects to transcribe old written records into typescript--as computer files. There are still mountains of old court records, church records, government records, diaries and manuscripts--all written on paper in old-fashioned script. Some of these records are available to the public, but to see them you would need to visit the building in which they are housed. Photocopies are sometimes available, but that only works when a researcher knows what he or she is looking for. No one would take on the job of photocopying an entire set of records just so a researcher could look through them--and if they did, at 10 cents or 25 cents a page, the cost would be enormous. The internet can someday make all of these records available to anyone who wants to look at them--they are public records, after all.
     The internet could also make rare books available, or books long out of circulation.  Libraries do have a system of loaning books to one another when someone requests them, but the internet could make that much easier. The book has to be put in the mail, which takes time, and someone has to pay the postage costs. It has cost me as much as $10 to borrow a book. Even with an interlibrary loan system, some books are too rare and valuable to borrow. People are sometimes permitted to look at them in person--by visiting the library that owns them. A trip like this might  not be possible for everyone who might like to look at a rare book--making rare books available online would solve this problem. Many of the rare books  belong to public libraries, and the public that supports the libraries ought to be able to use them.

government by the people

     Why government by the people? Because nothing else works--not because it's an ideal we may never reach, or a high-sounding notion--because it works. When people know they have made the decisions by which they live, they make better decisions, and are much more likely to abide by them.

bring back Mighty Mouse

     Tomorrow Philadelphia will have its Thanksgiving Day parade. Santa Claus will come to town, welcomed by marching bands from Florida shivering in the cold--but Mighty Mouse won't be there--again. I miss Mighty Mouse.

theocracy

     Many people argue that a theocracy--a government in which the church is part of the state--can't be democratic, because everyone would have to belong to the same church. That much is true. Consider England, the theocracy with which Americans are most familiar. As long as the monarch of England is the head of the Church of England, and Anglican bishops sit in the House of Lords, England remains a theocracy. At one time its citizen-subjects did not have the same civil rights, according to religion. It was considered impossible to be a loyal subject of the crown and not belong to the Church of England, as the head of state was also head of the church. This is the same tradition that made of dissenters, pilgrims--those same pilgrims who came to America in search of religious freedom.
     The other "side" to this argument is that we now supposedly believe in the "right to the self-determination of peoples"--that is, that other people have a right to have whatever kind of government they want, without an exception for theocracy. The British seem to have solved this problem in their own country--everyone votes, with no test of belief. But for other purposes, Church of England membership counts. Anyone who wants to know more about theocracy should look at the history of the church and state in England.

don't try this at home

     Don't worry, I ran this through legal. One more high school story. When I was in high school, I became involved in a nefarious plot to blow up the school--and get us all a few days off.  A fellow student informed me of a conspiracy to flush all the toilets in the school at once--which would supposedly blow up the plumbing, make a mess if not a real flood, and get us dismissed for the day. I was a quiet honor student, by the way--one of 3 out of 732 who was never called to the disciplinarian's office through 3 years of high school. So an obvious choice, as no one would have suspected my involvement in such a scheme. Or they might have imagined I was brighter than this.
     The plot failed. We were all supposed to be stationed at the toilets at noon--so some careful planning was required, to make sure we were actually in place in each lavatory. Nothing happened. We spent several days trying to find out who didn't flush. I wonder if teens have been told this story since the invention of indoor plumbing. All in the interest of science, anyway.

# play by the rules, #2

     In high school, back in the 1970's, we had the opportunity to play intramural softball--meaning anyone could make a team, and the school would arrange a time and a place to play a game. I was drafted by a team of my fellow "geeks" ( as they came to be called later ), and we were particularly bad ball players. Most of the team wore glasses, or needed them, and probably took them off to play.  "Anyone could make a team" meant just that--teams were made up mostly of kids who already knew one another--including a team of serious ball players, who usually played on the varsity baseball team. We played this team. Our poor team of geeks was losing by  40 runs, and it was still the 6th inning.  Our outfield was terrible, and it took a long time to arrange the 3  "outs" required to end an inning.. The varsity players were getting tired, and said so. Very tired. They wanted to go home. Enter geekdom. If they went home, wouldn't they forfeit the game? Why, yes, they would. They still wanted to go home, and it was agreed--so we won the game by forfeit. We wore them out.

how to commune with the dead

     Communing with the dead is easy. Learn to read, and read what they left in print, or in writing. Or visit a museum, and look at what they made. An old building will do if you don't live near a museum--although there are a lot of museums available to visit on the internet.

malapropisms

     A malapropism is using the wrong word--particularly a long and "fancy" word that sounds something like another word, but means something completely different. A character in a play, one Mrs. Malaprop, gave her fictional name to this type of error. One place you can hear malapropisms is TV. I mean the reruns currently playing of the 1970's "All in the Family" series. Archie Bunker, the bigot who learns to get along with people, uses a lot of malapropisms--and is rarely corrected by the other characters on the show. The creators of the show obviously meant to display just how ignorant a bigot can be--but this has misfired, at least for part of the show's audience, who miss the malapropisms and think that Archie is intelligent because he uses long words.
     Another 1970's show, "Sanford and Son", has also been playing recently. Fred Sanford, also something of a bigot, uses malapropisms, too. His errors are usually corrected by another character. Perhaps the creators of this show had already learned that this might be necessary, as some of the "All in the Family" audience had missed the point.

# told you there's a God

     When I was about seven years old, my mom took me downtown shopping, with an acquaintance of hers and her four or five year old son. The child was obnoxious in every way. We had to stop and deal with his balking, yelling, and tantrum-throwing several times--right in the middle of Wanamaker's department store. That lovely turn-of-the-last-century old store, where voices always seemed to be hushed. The day brightened up considerably when we were visited by the hand of God, or karma, if you will. It happened like this--we were all going up the escalator. The brat sat down on the escalator, with his behind on the step going up. My mom and the other woman were talking, and didn't notice. I tried to get their attention, but hesitantly, as interrupting was forbidden. When we got to the top of the escalator, the brat's pants got caught in the teeth of the moving steps. He let out a howl. The step seemed to have whacked him right on the behind. The next step did the same. And the next. It took a minute for the store manager to shut the thing down and extricate the brat. Meanwhile the brat was having a well-deserved spanking. He wasn't harmed, but his pants were torn, and I suppose his backside was bruised, along with his mighty little ego. What a satisfying end to an awful afternoon. I still love that old store.

public school

    I'm a great believer in the idea of public school--that we should have one set of schools, all of them functioning well, and that all children should attend them. I would go as far as to support the banning of any kind of private school altogether, and all home schooling. Education seems to be moving in the opposite direction, with home schooling now backed up by the federal government, and more schools being "privatized" every day.  If the "privatized" schools are an improvement, that's all to the good. They have attracted a lot of attention and support. But I have to wonder--where was that support for the public schools--before they became privately operated? Do we have so few citizens who believe in the idea of public schools? And if we do, is that part of what has been wrong with the public schools?

millenial ideas

     One of the millenial ideas popular now is that the world would be a better place without borders. These poor lines on the map are now blamed for starting wars, oppressing people, and worse. According to the new groovy, without borders we will all live in peace and brotherhood, with free cat food. This is very naive, and on more than one level. Borders are constructs in human minds, They don't "do" anything--as history, psychology, and economics don't "do" anything. Blaming them for human problems is silly.
     If we erased all the borders on the Earth, within a matter of days the people on one side of a river would want to talk to the people on the other side of the river about water usage, or something. Each would find a representative to talk to the people on the other side. And it would look very much as before--a "government", or something like it, formed because people found it useful and necessary.
     Making governments is a natural function of humankind.  It's one of the ways we try to get along with one another. Two people may make a deal--three or more form a government. The solution to corruption in government is not abolishing governments, but making better governments.
     The solution to arguing over borders is not abolishing borders, it is offering solutions to the problems that caused the argument--the problems that will not magically disappear if we erase the lines on a map.
    

# play by the rules

     When I was in high school I was a member of the World Affairs Club. We participated in a model United Nations program, for the purposes of which each school was a country. Our school came late to the game, and the larger countries were already assigned. We were the Maldive Islands one year, and the Seychelles another. Our team had to think up a speech that these countries might make to the United Nations, and deliver it. Since we were representing such a small nation, it was assumed that we would have time on our hands ( we did ). Some of us were made part of the sergeant-at-arms staff, responsible for keeping order in the assembly.  Our speech, based on research into politics and economics in our "nation" was already written, so I had time to read most of  Robert's Rules of Order before our next "session".  According to the rules, the sergeant-at-arms and his or her staff are responsible for note-passing--permitted in the UN, if not in school. Power! We found it. The "United States" couldn't pass a note to "Russia" unless we would handle it for them. We tried to get political and economic concessions from them before we would pass their "notes". That is how the "Seychelles" became a contender in the game for world domination. Or something like it.

don't blame the computer

     For all the talk about artificial intelligence, the truth is that a computer doesn't "know" anything. A computer is an electronic innocent--it only knows what people tell it. So don't blame the computer--blame people.

a curious parenting incident

     When my daughter, now grown, was about 14 years old, I looked up from reading the paper at the dining room table one afternoon to see a police car stopping in front of our house. My daughter was still in school, or should have been, but I was worried--perhaps something had happened to her. I was surprised to see a young woman get out of the police car--a teenager I had seen in the neighborhood once, but whom I did not know. She matched my daughter's description pretty well--tall, fair, big, brown shoulder-length hair. There was no real resemblance. I started to go outside, but the police car was gone. The police officer had dropped off a teen at my house, apparently after being told by the teen that she lived there. I went into the back yard, where there was a drive cutting through the backyards of our block, to see if the teen went that way. The police car was at the end of the drive--several houses away--and the teen had stopped to talk to the police officer. I assumed that the matter was settled, and that the girl had been caught giving the police a false address--but was it? I never knew, nor did I find out who the girl was. This must happen a lot---I wonder how often? And does the flip side of it happen, too? When teens are in trouble, does an adult go to court and claim to be the teens' parents? Unbeknownst to the real parents?

where Wall Street could lead us

     Someday, perhaps every square mile of the earth will be the site of some business selling shares of stock--a publicly-owned corporation. As the public that invests in the stock market becomes more international with every passing day, soon everyone may be invested in some way in nearly everything. Every war or disaster will directly affect everyone--not just those injured or ruined. No one will be able to drop a bomb without blowing up his own investment--or the investments of his family and neighbors.

a lost tradition?

    Remember what a "snipe hunt" was? When the new guy ( or female co-worker, club member, etc.) was sent to find a left-handed toilet seat, or a counterclockwise screwdriver? Where do the old traditions go?

word question

If I say that something is repetitive and redundant, is that repetitive, or redundant?

voice lock

    One of the security measures that was tried in the past was the voice lock. It opened only at the sound of the voice of the person (or persons) whose voices were used as "keys".  The lock seemed to work very well. It could recognize a person's voice, separate and distinct from any other voice--even if the person had a cold, or a sore throat. The problem was that it worked too well, in a way. It could be opened by a recording of that same person's voice--the voice which had been used as a "key". So the use of the voice lock was discontinued. This all happened in the 1970's. Still, the device could be useful for identifying the voices of people on tapes and recordings.

what was the question?

    When my daughter, now grown, was about 10 years old, she once looked up from her homework and asked "Mom, is the answer 4?"  What a cosmically weird question. 4 is the answer to so many things. According to the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", 4 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything--oops, spoiler. 4 is the answer to-- how many legs does a cow have? or a table ?(usually) or any quadruped? --what is 6-2?, and infinite mathematical variations on that theme-- how many years between Olympics? or leap years?  4 may be the answer to how old are you?--or how many pieces of pizza are left? It can be the answer to so many things. I began to see what Douglas Adams saw in 4 as a universal answer. But what was the question?

death penalty

     When a trial is being arranged for a capital crime ( one that may result in a death sentence ), potential jurors are asked if they believe in the death penalty as a "qualifying" question. If the potential juror states that he or she does not believe in the death penalty, the potential juror is "disqualified". The jury will be made up only of  people who have agreed in advance that the death penalty is an acceptable criminal sentence. This not only undermines our entire jury system--wherein twelve citizens decide the facts of each case, and the guilt or innocence of the defendant--it also undermines the base of democratic government itself. We supposedly have representatives to pass laws to which the majority of the citizens have agreed, since it took a majority to elect each representative. But when selecting jurors for capital cases, more people may be turned away than accepted. In other words, more people disapprove of the death penalty than approve of it. I would like to know what the exact numbers are--that is, how many potential jurors are considered unfit, according to this test of belief, compared to the number who qualify. Two for every one?  A lawyer once guessed it at ten people turned down for each one accepted--hardly evidence that a majority wanted this law enacted.

health benefits and insurance

     People who work, but who do not have any insurance benefits from their employers, are paying taxes to provide insurance benefits to others. They are paying for insurance benefits for every state, local, and government employee. They are paying, one way and another, when they pay for the services, or buy the products, of any business concern that does provide health insurance benefits--it's part of the cost of goods or services. They are even paying, through taxes--federal, state, and local--for health insurance benefits and health care for all of the people in prison, on probation, and on welfare. When they need to go to a doctor themselves, they may not be able to afford it.
     Health benefits should be universal. They could be provided by every employer, and the cost of some goods and services would go up--reflecting more realistically the actual cost of those goods and services. Or, health benefits could be provided by the government, as in some other countries--a national health program that would probably put private health insurance out of business.

the UN and the USA

     Someone wrote in a letter/comment that the United States should get out of the United Nations because we shouldn't have to be the world's policeman. The writer completely missed the point--of the United Nations and why the United States should remain a member. The United Nations was founded to represent all of the countries (nations) in the world, and to help countries settle disputes with one another. When the United Nations decides on armed intervention in a conflict, member states are asked to contribute troops. The troops will be under the command of United Nations officers. The United States has refused this more than once--our country would not put American troops under UN command.  The United States has instead fought foreign wars on its own, without the help and direction of the UN. When the United States decides to let the UN make the decisions, and to send troops only as part of a UN mission, we will have stopped trying to be the "world's policeman"--or the world's superhero--and become a part of more mature group decision making.

home schooling and vaccinations

     One of the things that the public school system accomplished was making sure that all children had their vaccinations. When every child was assumed to be enrolled in school, we could assume that each school was checking on the vaccination status of every child. Most school districts required that a student be vaccinated before attending. Now that so many people are home-schooling, many children will never be vaccinated for diseases that may still become a threat to public health.  When enough people lack vaccinations, we could see epidemics of diseases we thought were "under control"--because the diseases were "under control" only with the widespread use of vaccines. We need a public health system that actually has the clout to insist on vaccinations for everyone. There are enough diseases to fight for which no vaccine exists.  Resources that might be used to find a cure for cancer, for instance, may be used to fight diseases for which we already have a vaccine. A waste.

where are your papers?

     We have all seen this in old movies--particularly World War II movies--a soldier or guard stops everyone and demands that they identify themselves. Many Americans think this is terrible, but in most other countries the citizens are more used to the idea. They all have to carry identity cards of some kind, and may be asked to show them to a police officer or some other government official. When people in other countries move to a new town, they may present themselves at the mayor's office or town hall, where they will introduce themselves and offer letters of recommendation ( from their former employer, or from business or personal connections).  This is strictly a voluntary custom--it's the way the people who introduce themselves at the town hall think life should be. They are not used to the idea of anonymity, and would be uncomfortable with the idea of moving from place to place as a complete unknown.
     The debate over proposed laws requiring voters to identify themselves (which they already have to do when asked)  should lead to a broader discussion of identity cards--what kind of identity cards people should have, and under what circumstances they should have to produce them.
    

how to be right or wrong

There is more than one way to be right, and more than one way to be wrong.
You can be right by believing what is true.
You can be right by refusing to believe what is false.
You can be wrong by believing what is false.
You can be wrong by disbelieving what is true.

The disbelieving what is true category causes more problems than common sense night lead you to believe. There is still a flat Earth society (it has a web site) .

name corrector?

     Twice in the past few weeks I have had my name "corrected" by some sort of a program. I was styled "dear oilmen" by one e-mailer, and the other actually changed my name to a more common, but similar, name. These were people who were using my name as I had written it to them on a contact form--not people who heard it over the phone.  To make it more plain, my name is Eileen, and the email called me Elaine. Oilmen may have been a similar attempt to correct what a program--I tend to refer to this as a machine--decided was my own misspelling of my name. I now have to wonder if people who "got" my name wrong in person were also attempting to correct me--as in perhaps I didn't have my own name right. This hasn't happened in some years, but it used to be difficult to conceal how annoyed I was when anyone made an error like this. Spelling my name wrong didn't bother me--but calling a roll and "changing" my name did.
    If this is a program, it is not a useful one. I cancelled "Elaine's" subscription, and "oilmen's", too.

the proverbial reasonable and prudent man

     A concept used in lawsuits involving negligence is a "reasonable and prudent man".  The idea is that if someone gets hurt doing something that a reasonable and prudent man would not have done, he is at least partly to blame for his own injuries, and the lawsuit is settled accordingly. No one has ever produced this reasonable and prudent man. Maybe he was taken up in a spacecraft.

more free advice

Never trust anyone who never says "I don't know."

illiteracy, yet again--a challenge

     A well-known piece of scientific research purports to prove that alcoholism is hereditary in males. The proof consists of brain scans of acknowledged alcoholics and their eleven-year-old sons. The scans differed from normal brain scans in the same way. The conclusion of the researchers was that alcoholism is hereditary--and that nothing can be done about it. I believe the experiment was very sloppily done, perhaps intentionally, to prove a hypothesis that won't stand up to real scientific scrutiny. I believe the researchers should have tested both fathers and sons for the actual physical presence of alcohol in their systems. I do not think that thy did this, but I'm not sure. Even if they did, they might have been merely looking at how alcohol consumption alters brain chemistry--as we know that many drugs do--and nothing more. The supposition that there was no alcohol in the children was both naive and unscientific.
      Researchers have used similar evidence to conclude that the brains of the illiterate are genetically different from the brains of those who can read. It's nonsense, and worse than nonsense. I have a suggestion--let's get some volunteers who are completely illiterate. We scan their brains. Then I teach them to read. Then we scan their brains again.  My prediction is that the brain scans will alter radically.  Learning matters.

recaptcha

     I don't know if this is the best forum for this, but it seems to be the only one. Yesterday I was offered a recaptcha with Hebrew characters in it. I have been offered a recaptcha with Greek characters in the past. I reloaded the page with the Hebrew character recaptcha, and that solved the problem, although it might have meant that any data I had entered would need to be resubmitted. A waste of my time, in other words. When I was offered the recaptcha in Greek characters, since I couldn't type in the Greek characters, I simply typed what seemed the most similar--and my submission was accepted--a possible security flaw in the recaptcha process, as well as a nuisance.
     The recaptcha website explains that recaptcha is mining old books for words.  Many older English works will have quotations in Greek, which was once commonly taught to anyone with academic credentials. Quotations from the Hebrew, or at least citations containing the originals of  translations from the Hebrew, are fairly common in religious works.
     If you are not familiar with characters from other alphabets, see the dictionary end pages, or the entry for "alphabet"--or search "alphabets". There are several of them in use around the globe.
     I don't know how the makers of recaptcha will learn to filter out the characters from different alphabets. Using pictures of words that cannot be read by a machine is the whole point. But someone certainly needs to work on it.

the "qwerty" keyboard

     The "qwerty" keyboard is the keyboard you see before you on typewriters, word processors, and computers. The arrangement of the letters, I once read, long ago, was meant to slow typists down. That's right, to slow them down. A really fast typist, in days of yore when typewriters were mechanical, could cause the keys to jam. The typist would need to stop typing to unstick the keys, and might have typed an error directly onto the paper. For a serious letter this meant starting over from the beginning with a fresh sheet of paper--time-consuming , expensive, and wasteful. So a new keyboard was designed that would make it more difficult to type rapidly enough to jam the keys. I didn't pull this story out of thin air--I read it in a newspaper years ago. I suggest that it's worth the time a technical person might want to spend on it. Experimenting with new keyboard configurations would be easier now than it has ever been, and there are no mechanical limits to how fast anyone should type.

cain and abel

     The scriptures shared by Christians, Muslims, and Jews have a story of the first murder ever committed in human history. According to the story, Cain, a farmer, slew his brother Abel, a herdsman. The argument began when Abel's cattle trampled and ate Cain's crops. This argument still goes on today. The farmers fence off land that cattle herders want to pass through to get to a river or other source of water. Or a river or stream is diverted to irrigate farmland. In the American West, small local wars were fought over water rights, and they are disputed in courts today. 
     How little things change.

thirteen

     Did you know that there is no thirteenth floor in most buildings in America? Buildings that have thirteen stories or more, that is.They go from the 12th floor to the 14th floor--take a look next time you're in the elevator of a tall building.  It's not really the fault of the builders--people don't want to rent rooms or offices on the thirteenth floor. And even if they did, they might lose a lot of contacts or clients--who might not want to do business with a firm on the thirteenth floor, or associate with someone who lives on the thirteenth floor. A little superstition goes a long way.

it's all a plot

     Crime, war, disaster, romance, intrigue--these all do well at the box office. Making them seem boring in a history book is a crime--or a diabolical plot of some kind. Hollywood does a better job making history interesting than many authors of textbooks. Unfortunately, many people believe that if Hollywood puts it on the screen, it must be pretend. That's right, they believe that Hollywood invented Henry VIII as a screen character. So the movies can't teach them history, since they believe it to be a fantasy.  How to teach them that history was real is the problem.

why we have animals spayed or neutered

     Someone suggested recently that people have animals spayed or neutered simply to be mean. Not so. We have animals (dogs and cats) spayed or neutered so that they won't have any kittens or puppies. Isn't that mean? No. Kittens and puppies are very cute, The problem is that no one wants all of the kittens and puppies we have now. Animal shelters across the United States kill them by the millions every year--because nobody wants them, and they can't be left roaming the streets--they would quickly become a health and safety hazard to people. So if you really like kittens and puppies, have your dog or cat spayed or neutered. Then some of the kittens and puppies in animal shelters will get a home the next time someone wants a kitten or puppy. If you really just have to have a houseful of kittens or puppies, ask your local animal shelter if they need anyone to foster a pregnant animal. Fostering means keeping the animal until it finds a permanent home. You can enjoy a houseful of kittens or puppies, and help shelter animals at the same time.

the internet--part 1--satellite maps

     The internet is a wonder. It may someday do what some people thought television would do--teach everyone.While we're working our way up to that, there seems to be a large set of people who believe the world was created the day the internet was first switched on.  Many of them don't seem to understand that the real world, and the print world, are merely accessible through the medium of the internet. I watched a video on maps the other day. A person starting out with the idea that maps were created when satellites sent the first images back from space would have been left at the end of the video with the same impression. So I had to wonder--have the satellite images done much "correcting" of the maps made the old-fashioned way?

health food

Health food-- I eat it every day. There's coffee--a legume, I think. The sugar in my doughnuts is made from beets, a vegetable--and good for you. And the doughnuts are fried in vegetable oil. Tobacco is my favorite leafy green. When I do drink whiskey, I make sure it's whole grain.

are "manners" hypocritical?

     Someone suggested to me recently that manners are hypocritical.  That it is emotionally "wrong" in some way to be polite to people one does not "like", or to offer what was once called common courtesy. This person so completely missed the point that I was somewhat befuddled as to how to answer. Manners aren't about your emotions, or about what you think about other people. Manners are a code of behavior people have worked out over time. The code of manners is  meant to avoid conflict with strangers, particularly, and to facilitate movement in public places. When people abide by this code, they have little or no conflict.
     Anyone insisting that they have some sort of emotions connected to perfect strangers is on very shaky ground, anyway. They may not need mental health counseling ( which is probably where they are sent after displaying "emotions" to strangers in public places ), but they need some serious re-education.

yet more probation

     You can move into an apartment in our fair city, and your neighbors may be serving a prison sentence under a form of house arrest. You may be watched and monitored by the people whose job it is to watch and monitor your neighbors. Your neighbors may be serving  a term of probation, after having been convicted of a crime. They may actually be serving a kind of prison sentence. Your address can become the address of a jail, in effect. No one seems to have any responsibility for informing tenants or householders that their neighbors may be on probation or serving sentences. A speedy and a public trial ought to mean just that. We don't owe anyone convicted of a crime a rehabilitated reputation. No one can legally be tried in secret in the United States, so how is this happening?  We would need to change the US Constitution to make it legal to try people in private.I suggest that you take an interest. It might be your neighbors, too.

probation, again

     We have a probation system that pays people, basically, for being on probation. They may get a weekly check, medical and dental care, their rent and utilities paid, and an allowance for transportation and job related-expenses. This stops when their term of probation has ended. For some, the way to continue to get along is to commit another crime that will probably get them another term of probation as a sentence. Many of these people do find jobs--but the probation office is paying their wages. Some employers are getting free employees--and don't want them anymore when they are not on probation. If they want their jobs back, they have to commit a new crime, and get sentenced to probation again.

Suggestion--look here for the source of a lot of crime

illiteracy, again

     People spend years in jail, and when they get out, they are illiterate. This is outrageous. There isn't anyone who couldn't learn basic literacy skills in six months or less. What are they doing in there?

how to be a genius

     Want to be a genius? Work harder than anyone else.

a useful proverb

"He who knows not and knows that he knows not is ignorant--teach him
He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep--wake him
He who knows and knows that he knows is wise--hear him
He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool--shun him."

misplaced compassion #1

     One of the things still being perpetrated in the name of compassion in the United States is permitting babies to be born in prison, and to remain there--perhaps for years. They are citizens who have not been convicted of any crime--and even an instant spent behind bars by an infant is a travesty of justice and worse. Suggestion--pregnant inmates be removed from the prison to give birth, the child to be restored to them when and if they leave the prison. No exceptions.

a bicameral UN

     In the United States, we have a bicameral legislature. Some countries have unicameral legislatures. Bicameral means having two chambers--in the United States, the House of Representatives and the Senate. When the young United States was arguing over the form its government should take, some people wanted a legislature with proportional representation--the more citizens, the more representatives in the congress. Others wanted each state to send the same number of representatives to a national assembly or congress, so that each state would have an equal say in passing new laws--no matter whether the states were large or small. Each plan left many people disgruntled, and sure that it was unfair. A compromise was reached--the United States would have two legislative bodies. One would be the Senate, with two senators from each state. The other would be the House of Representatives, with each state having a number of representatives determined by its population--the more people, the more representatives. A bill must pass in both houses to become a law.  The Senate confirms presidential appointments and ratifies treaties with foreign nations. Money bills must originate in the House of Representatives. There are few other differences.
     Suggestion--the United Nations could solve its large state/small state problem the same way the United States did--by having two chambers--one with a delegate from each country, the other with delegates apportioned according to population. 

trial in absentia

     A trial "in absentia" means conducting a trial when the defendant is not present. Some other countries do this, but not the United States. In the United States this would be unconstitutional, because every defendant has the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him or her. This means he or she must be present at the trial. It means any evidence against him or her is made public at the trial. No one can be convicted "in absentia" in the United States. This should be argued in the United Nations, with the goal that it become a worldwide standard.

how not to pray

"Dear God, please change the laws of the universe for my convenience" is one way not to pray.

how it's done elsewhere

    An ancient right of the people that still exists in some monarchies is an appeal to the crown for a new trial. That's not something that a chief executive can do in the United States, and it might be a good idea. In some countries, anyone who could make their way into the presence of a member of the royal family could be granted a new trial--the fairness of the trial monitored by the royal family. Perhaps governors of states should be given the same capacity in America--or the president for federal crimes.

Stand By Me

     Most "teacher" movies make me want to yell, or start writing letters. "Stand By Me" was no exception. The principal locked the fire exits of the school. because troublemakers were using them to enter the building. Every time I try to work up some sympathy for his plight, I think of hundreds of students dying in a fire--and I can't do it. Hollywood should not have tried to make a hero of him for this--no on should have. He should have been jailed--and should still be in jail as I write this. Some rules you just don't get to break--and making it look "cool" when you do may be worse.

do we still need handwriting?

     My guess would be that less and less attention is paid to handwriting as a needed skill, as more people type whatever they have to say--or "text" it.  It certainly will still be useful to know how to put things on paper with a pencil, but the ability to write attractive and legible script (now called cursive) will probably become a thing of the past. I spent laborious hours on this as a child, and I'm not sure I'd wish the same on today's children, especially as there seems to be no need for it. As an older student and a young woman, my ability to write script improved--when I wrote at a normal pace, my script was (and is) attractive and legible. When I was in a hurry, I became one of the fastest pens in the East--you need a good rollerball for that, a ballpoint can't keep up. Being able to type rapidly and accurately is now important for everyone. Some help (and how to help) should be given at younger than high school, where many students first encounter it.

time is life

     The older I get, the more I resent people wasting my time. Sometimes it seems as if they do it intentionally--perhaps they are scoring points somewhere, in a great cosmic time-wasting game. No one can give back an instant of it, or add any more to my days to make up for it--if they could I'd be very old, anyway, which wouldn't answer for wasting my time when I was 30 or 40 years old. Other people are "spending" my time--or they are deciding how I should spend it. I wonder how they spend their own time?

peer pressure?

     A young person said to me recently that every decision is a moral decision. I'm inclined to think that this is obsessive, and that a lot of decisions are fairly neutral--but that could be because I am much older, and have already excluded anything that bothers me from any options I might consider.
    I have heard the idea that all decisions are moral before, as most people have. Something that I think is being lost is the idea of a decision being social--as in "how would this decision affect other people?"  This got a bad reputation among the hippies in the 1960's and 1970's, and is still frowned on today by many--wondering what the neighbors think. But a considerate person and a good citizen ought to wonder what the neighbors think. The neighbors  wouldn't, or shouldn't be thinking of your decisions unless they are living with the consequences of them--as something they can hear or see.  As my grandmother and Kant said, "what would the world be like if everyone did that?"

citizenship

     I have encountered adults who do not understand that there are separate nations,  each with the right to make its own laws. When taught about an American law or concept, they assume that it is something worldwide. The same people, when asked if they are American citizens, generally answer no--without a question as to the meaning of the term. These people are obviously Americans--they have no accents, and no notion of any foreign country. Did they attend very bad schools? I believe they didn't attend school at all.

Suggestion--truancy may be America's #1 problem.

democracy

     People who have been raised in what was once considered a "standard" American fashion ought to have a fair "grounding" in democratic processes.  Growing up with at least some brothers and sisters,  parents who taught them to take turns, neighborhood kids who decided as a group what to play, and school "group" experience, the idea of decisions made by a majority should be familiar.
     The offspring of a particular group of parents have a difficult time with the concept of democracy. Their parents taught them to take turns, of a kind, but they took turns being the king or queen of the household for a day--everyone had to do everything their way. Another day someone else had a turn to be king or queen of the house. These people have no experience with group decision-making or shared power. The only experience they have of going along with someone else's decisions is based on the idea that they will have a turn at "commanding". Without this "turn-taking", they resist being subject to anyone else's will--even if anyone else means everyone else.

Suggestion--we identify and re-educate these people.

"Dixie" and the "stars and bars"

     I attended a professional sporting event many years ago in Atlanta, Georgia--a former "confederate " state.  Here in the North, and in the rest of the country, the national anthem is usually played before a professional sporting event. In Atlanta they played "Dixie" instead. I was with several other northern people--we may have been the only people in the stadium not standing up for this performance. This is still outrageous to me, even after more than thirty years.
     I don't remember seeing the "stars and bars" flying when I was in the South, but it wasn't as much talked about as it has been since. People have sued to have it removed as a racial affront. This shouldn't be necessary--it's a political affront--and not merely because the South lost the Civil War. It shouldn't be necessary because it should be prosecuted for what it is--treason. The people flying that flag made war against the United States and its people. End of story.

original sin, part 2

     As long as we're on the subject of original sin, I'd like to share how this was taught to me, many years ago. The "original sin" for which humankind were cast out of paradise was excuse-making.  That's right, excuse-making--along with lying and blaming someone else--anything but accepting responsibility for one's own wrong-doing.  Also hubris--wanting to be as gods. Read the story if you don't believe me. God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of a certain tree. They ate it and God caught them.  Eve promptly blamed the snake by way of explanation, and Adam promptly blamed Eve. No apologies, but plenty of excuses. No offers to right the wrong, or to do better.  Just excuses, lies and irresponsibility.

original sin

     If, according to the popular doctrine of original sin, we are all born sinful because it took sex to get us here, was the test tube baby born without original sin?

the meaning of life

Why, yes, grasshopper, I do know the meaning of life.

1. the condition that distinguishes animals or plants from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
2. the sum of the distinguishing phenomena of plants and animals, esp. metabolism, growth, reproduction and adaptation to environment.
3.  the animate existence or term of animate existence of an individual.
4.  a corresponding state, existence, or principle of existence conceived of as belonging to the soul.
5. the general or universal condition of human existence.
6.  any specified period of animate existence.
7.  the term of existence, activity, or effectiveness of something inanimate, as a machine, lease, play, etc.
8. a living being.
9.  living things collectively, whether animals or plants.
10.  a particular aspect of existence.
11. the course of existence or sum of experiences and actions that constitute a person's life.
12.  a biography.
13.  animation; liveliness.


There's more, grasshoppers. Check your local dictionary. This is from  Random House .

quantity/quality

apple orange apple orange apple orange











How many apples?












I usually use  a picture for this. You'd be surprised how many people answer "6".

another koan

If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it crash, does it make a sound?












Yes, but no one can hear it.

where does food come from?

     There are still people who insist that they have never eaten "a cow"--although they eat hamburgers. There are people who insist that they have never eaten anything that came from a farm--because that would be stupid and old-fashioned--or even pretend, as in Old MacDonald. I might have assumed that this was taught by ignorant parents, or that these people had never been to school, which is more common than anyone can imagine. Recently I began to suspect that perhaps some of the more outrageous notions of this kind are being taught in some school, somewhere. My suggestion is that we find out, and soon.

a koan

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?












Positing that you went to the market and bought a chicken, and it laid an egg, the chicken came first.
Positing that you went tot the market and bought an egg, and it hatched into a chicken, the egg came first.

make me an app

    Would a technical genius please make me an application that will alphabetize a list for me?

when I run the world

     When I run the world everyone will be able to read, write, and cipher. Everyone will also eat vegetables and sweep their front walks. What I would like to see happen, seriously, is an independent commission to find the illiterate in the United States. I believe that millions are profoundly illiterate. Meaning they can't read a printed two digit number, or read even the alphabet. Tens of millions may be what is usually called "functionally illiterate"--which means they read so poorly that anything in print is useless to them. We can begin with the prison and probation population, as crime is one of the major symptoms of illiteracy. People who have never been to school have learned to make a living--often through crime. Prisons seem to do a lot of "consciousness raising" and group therapy exercises, but they obviously are not effectively intervening in the problem of illiteracy. 
I suggest a trained army of literacy teachers--to beat this in one generation, before another generation is raised without any education at all.

where does the money go?

    A bank transfer from one account to another, in the same bank, has now taken four days, and, according to the bank, may take another day before they consider themselves delinquent. The money disappeared instantly from the account from which it was withdrawn--but has yet to appear in the account to which it was deposited. Where has it been? In hyperspace? In financial suspended animation? For accounting purposes, it has ceased to exist--for days.

Suggestion--the money has been playing the stock market. If this takes four or five days as a matter of course, that may add up to billions per day, every day.

ark

How many of each animal did Moses take on the ark?












Suggestion--think twice.

the center of the universe

     I have asked this of several people--"where is the center of the universe?"--but didn't get the response I expected. The idea is that you are the center of the universe is not exactly philosophical. It isn't religious, either. It's scientific--or logical, if you prefer. Stay with me--the universe is infinite in all directions, correct? So its center, if infinity has a center, would be the observer--that is to say you--to you; or me--to me.
      Philosophy should be practiced with caution.

amateur philosophy

     I have been told, by amateur "philosophers" that crime is the will of God, and that this is God's way of, among other things, punishing the wicked. A "Miracle on 34th Street" moment for you--according to the government and laws of the United States, which can be seen in the workings of our insurance industry, God does not underwrite or sponsor crime.
     Most standard insurance policies exclude from coverage what are legally termed "acts of God'. That is why our government occasionally steps in and offers flood insurance to people living in areas where floods are common--because floods are an "act of God" not covered by a standard insurance policy.  This is because a widespread natural disaster would bankrupt any insurance company, not because the insurers are afraid to thwart the will of God by offering insurance against  divine retribution.
     You can, however, buy insurance against crime. Both car insurance and  homeowner's policies cover theft and vandalism, and life insurance pays if someone is murdered. So, according to our government and legal system, crime is not an "act of God".

the need to reclassify oneself

     Ask a female black student when she would have been first able to vote--in history--and you will probably get the answer "1865". Which is, of course, utter nonsense. She would have first voted in 1920, when American women were given the vote. Look for the "enfranchisement of women", or "women's suffrage". Try to tell your female black student this, and you may get a denial and an argument, even if you tell her to  look for the "enfranchisement of women", or "women's suffrage".  Did these young women need a public school lesson to tell them that not only are they black, with black skin, but that they are also, 1. women;  2. Americans; 3. people., 4. students? Surely they need to learn to reclassify themselves when occasion warrants--as something other than a skin.

hooray for Hollywood

      Hollywood makes some interesting historical epics. But some of the members of the audience believe that everything Hollywood makes is pretend. They may have been taught this at home, by parents who were sure they were keeping them from flying away on flights of fancy.  Unfortunately, they believe that Henry the Eighth, or the ancient Romans, are just as fictitious as tales of dragons and wicked witches. A teacher standing in front of a classroom trying to teach them medieval history may get a roll of the eyes--because they're sure the teacher doesn't know any better.

Suggestion--label movies fiction and non-fiction, or words to that effect.

no ifs ands or buts

     I watched a crime drama TV show recently, in which the detective didn't get to ask questions of the psychoanalyst. In this show the detective was probably trying to get around the psychoanalyst's "blocking" and "defensiveness" by going along with his "professional" refusal to co-operate, but it nearly made the show ridiculous. And at least one viewer wondered how true-to-life the scenario was. I hope it was very fantastic, but perhaps it wasn't.
    As far as I understand it, there are no legal exceptions to the subpoena power--the legal power to force someone to appear in court. No one gets to "just say no". When on the witness stand, we have the Fifth Amendment guarantee that no one may be forced to testify against him or herself (which at one time would have been arranged with torture, or threats to family members). Today this means that as long as a witness makes it clear that his or her refusal to co-operate (to answer a question on the witness stand) is based on a refusal to incriminate him or herself, that he or she will not be charged with contempt of court.
     Suggestion--everyone else who refuses to testify is in contempt of court, just as the law says--be it a priest, a psychoanalyst, a reporter, or anyone else.

where did the "learn" meme go?

     I sat down to read a month's worth of articles on education I had saved for later--these from the new York Times. The word learn wasn't used once.This is part of a trend sorely in need of correction. We have those who believe that children are either "gifted" academically, or not "gifted". We have those who believe that educational success is genetically determined. We have those who believe that answers to factual questions will come to them through meditation and prayer--not because they are trying to calm down and remember what they learned, but as a substitute for the learning that didn't happen. Not the learning they didn't do. The learning that didn't happen.
     The only sense in which education is hereditary is that educated people tend to insist that their children do their schoolwork--and they know that there is work involved. Absent this notion, every attempt to provide an adequate education to every American is bound to fail.

Henry Ford

     Henry Ford founded Ford Motors when most cars were still made as a fine craft. Different craftsmen worked for months making a car none of them would ever be able to afford to buy.  Henry Ford had a different idea. He would mass-produce a simple car, and pay his workers a high enough wage to be able to afford to but what they were making, To Henry Ford, this would create a system that would perpetuate itself--more people making more things because everyone making the things would also be buying the things they were busy making.
     Many people thought Henry Ford's ideas were outlandish. They thought he paid his workers too much, causing discontent in other workers. Henry Ford was very unpopular with many of the wealthier people. Henry's system worked, but unfortunately, this has not convinced everyone that we are all better off when workers can also afford to be consumers. This needn't be "ungreen"--consuming means services and green products, as well as manufactured goods. When other people can afford to buy what we are selling--and we are all selling something, one way and another--cars, insurance, education, technical services, entertainment--we are all more prosperous. Even people living on retirement income see an increase in their benefits when more people are making a decent living.

Suggestion--anyone's poverty impoverishes everyone.

epistemological doubt

Even a broken clock is right twice a day--




but you won't know when.

barbed wire is for cattle

     Barbed wire was invented to keep cattle from straying--so they wouldn't become lost, or ruin a neighbor's crops. Barbed wire may be useful for cattle, or  when running a prison, but it doesn't belong on city streets. What is barbed wire is meant  to do at the top of a six-foot fence? Anyone who wanted to climb over that fence would do it with or without the barbed wire. If a six foot fence is protecting something so valuable the owner feels a need for barbed wire, then he or she already has a problem that barbed wire can not fix. Maybe the valuable goods need to be moved indoors.
     Here in Philadelphia we have something worse than barbed wire--razor wire. It is more common than barbed wire. You may see it on the roofs of buildings or on top of fences. Aside from making our city uglier, it is dangerous and ought to be illegal. Razor wire was at the top of a six foot fence built around nothing but some grass--this on street busy with pedestrian traffic. Any schoolchild could have been sliced up by it.
     The first razor wire I noticed ( in a neighborhood that vaunts itself as hip and stylish) was on top of a high fence built around goods for sale left outdoors. The solution would have been to move the goods indoors. Anyone who wanted them badly enough to climb a high fence would cut through the fence--and avoid the razor wire


Suggestion--razor wire is ugly, nasty, and probably already illegal. If it isn't already illegal as a man trap ( protecting property with a device meant to cause injury or death), then perhaps we can get a new law or ordinance passed to make it illegal.

exceptionalism

     One of the things that defines our society--one of the main things--is that we have all agreed to one set of laws and rules--to be applied equally and without favor or prejudice to each and every citizen. No exceptions, no "case-making", no special allowances or privileges.  Every increase in "exceptionalism" is a decrease in what makes our society a living entity. If some people don't have to send their children to school; if some people are allowed to smoke peyote; if some people aren't required  to have a photograph on their driver's licenses; if some people are allowed to run casinos; if some people are allowed to use speech that differs from that allowed others--it all chips away at the structure of our society.


Suggestion--we need a set of laws and rules that apply to everyone-no exceptions.  If everyone can't live with it, maybe we need a new rule--one that everyone can live with.

going postal

Suggestion--don't say (or write) "going postal"

The writers using the expression "going postal" may not realize that it refers to a real series of crimes that happened  years ago. A "disgruntled postal worker" walked into a post office and shot several people. The crime seemed to inspire "copycats", and  "going postal" became an expression for going insane. This was later the subject of a movie--but the crimes were real, and the victims are dead. So it's not an amusing expression.

heads I win, tails you lose

Have you ever flipped a coin to decide something?  If "heads I win, tails you lose" doesn't sound suspicious to you, try it with another person, and see who wins.

internet voice lock

     One of these days internet security may mean showing your thumbprint to your computer--or talking to it. Most people have probably been asked for a thumbprint at some time. Fewer have been asked to permit their voices to be recorded--to make what was once called a voice lock. My mom worked in a building that had these--years ago, in the 1970's. In theory the voice lock would open only to the sound of the same voice. It worked very well, to a point. the device really could tell one voice from another, and would not open except when it heard that voice. The problem was that a recording of the voice might work as well as a live person speaking.

Suggestion--perhaps a program sophisticated enough to tell a live voice from a  recording could be given a try

thinking, new "Einsteins"

     When people give me a glimpse into how they think I make a note of it. Most of my notes are about errors in thinking. For instance, I have been told that if you say a thing a thousand times, it's true. I have also been told that if more people believe one thing than another, then that thing is true. No room for epistemological doubt.  That means how do you (or we) know that? And, could it be false?  For example, if you say that 2+2=5 a thousand times, does it?  No, of course not. If more people believe that 2+2=5 than believe that 2+2=7, does 2+2=5?  No, of course not. 2+2+4, an absolute truth, if you will, demonstrable through the classic logical argument by definition (as in what is 2? what is 4? what is plus?).
     The same people who expound the above theories of "truth" have been taught to repeat that "all truth is relative"--meaning that there is no such thing as truth, really. Some of them are convinced that Einstein "proved" this--yes, with the theory of relativity. One of the canards that makes part of this set is that Einstein also proved that the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line. If you hear a rumbling, it may be Einstein rolling over in his grave. The "proof" that the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line is said to be that Einstein posited that light may bend, or curve, to go around a large object, such as a planet. The proponents of this theory refuse to see that this has nothing to do with the shortest distance between two points--which is still a straight line. If they would stop spouting pseudo-erudition for a living instant and think--that going around something is not a straight line; that Einstein, and physics, have not redefined "straight line" as the path that light takes, or may take; that the definition of "shortest distance" is not "the path that light takes"; that none of this has anything to do with "the shortest distance between two points is a straight line"--they might take a first step on the road to reality.

Suggestion--Find out where some of this is learned. I believe it is what is passing for remedial education in our prison system.

something stupid

You may be saying stupid things if you are using any of these--

I (we) just naturally assumed
This can't be right
I (we) cannot have made a mistake; I (we) cannot be wrong
I mean; but I meant
There must (has to) be  a
I heard; she (he, they, it) said
I read that into; interpreted that as
Surely you don't think
I can hardly believe
This doesn't make sense to me

whose baby?

      More than one person has insisted to me that a baby can have more than one father. Many people know that this is not possible, no matter how promiscuous the behavior of the baby's parents. No matter how many men a woman has sex with, only one of them is the father of any child she may conceive.
     This may be a way of making more "friends" for the mother and her baby, or it may be the prelude to an attempt at fraud or con artistry. But surely some of it is mere ignorance. 


Suggestion--better sex education.

can history be outdated?

     Someone once asked me if an old history book was outdated. In other words, shouldn't I get a newer history book? My answer was no--but it's not as obvious as I hoped it might be. Any book or document ( paper of any kind) "becomes" history if it gets old enough, of course. A very old diary, newspaper, bill of sale, letter, advertisement---they are all "history".  So an old history book "becomes" history in the same way.  If it contains data like population statistics they will be outdated as current information--but they are still history. History doesn't change much, anyway, even though it is often re-written for style and content. I think the history books we used when I was in school forty years ago did a better job including blacks and women than some of the newer books do. So in the case of using the book in a classroom, and not just for adult scholars, there is no substitute for reading the book with the ideas in mind you hope to see expressed in it. Up to the minute statistics are readily available on the internet. We no longer need the books to be as "current" as we once did for the purpose of statistics on population or economics, for instance.

Suggestion--If the students' books seem out of date to them, an interesting assignment might be to have students update some of the material, using the internet and library.


Suggestion--

paradise lost

     An item on the list, for many people, of what makes a utopia ( a perfect society or world), is surprising to me. It is "imagine a world in which no one had to work". I cannot imagine such a world. We could already have a world with twenty-hour (or maybe ten-hour) work weeks. But no work is not possible. Machines could never do it--we would literally have to return to slavery--no work for some, and a lot of work for others. This is not my idea of a utopia.
      You can hear this idea, or read it, as part of the groovy "counterculture" of the 1960's. I heard it again the other night--it was in a PBS special about Haight-Ashbury.--a quote from a "hippie".
     The philosophical underpinning of this is from the Bible. Adam and Eve did not have to work when they were in paradise.  When they were exiled from paradise, Adam had to earn his living, and Eve had to suffer in childbirth. An entire set of people is still raising children to believe that work is a punishment for sin--and that as long as they do no work they are, in fact, in paradise.

Suggestion--find out more about what other people believe--it may be important to you.

who are you?

        Who are you? Are you what you do? What you say? What you think or believe?  A famous philosopher once said " To do is to be"--or, you are what you do. "What do you do?" was a standard phrase when getting to know a new acquaintance.  It meant "what do you do for a living?"  Of course we are a bit more than what we do--we are all the things we could, or might, do, given world enough and time. We are not simply our past, but also our present and in some way our future--our plans, hopes and aspirations.
      To other people, however, we can't really be much more than what we do. Other people know that everyone has plans, hopes, and aspirations, but they only know the plans of people who have shared their ideas with them. To your best friend or your brother you may be a lot of different beliefs and plans and ideas--to a stranger you are your school, work, legal or medical records.

Suggestion--you may refuse to define yourself by your behavior--but remember that to other people, you are what you do (or have done).

the new gambling math

     Have you ever wondered why someone you know continues to gamble even though he or she seems to lose consistently? You might ask your friend about his or her math. Or accounting system. I have been told by a gambler that she won a couple of hundred dollars--this after losing several hundred. To her, only the winnings "count". The rest is gone with the wind. So while I figured that she lost about $400, she had it figured out that she won $200. Gamblers think this way about gambling all the time. Other people who repeatedly make life decisions that others would call self-destructive or self-defeating do the same--they only count the wins.

Suggestion--I'll ask you. Has anyone succeeded in persuading losing a losing gambler that he or she has, in fact, lost?

half-baked translation

     Perhaps an example of half-baked translation will get the idea across better than an explanation. "Bat"--as in a small furry creature that flies by night-- is chauve-souris in French. Chauve-souris literally means "bald mouse". But this is not properly translated as "bald mouse". It is properly translated as "bat", since this is the equivalent English word or expression. The German expression for the above-mentioned bat is "fledermaus", or "flying mouse", but we translate this into "bat", and not into "flying mouse"--unless we are translating old "Mighty Mouse" cartoons.

Suggestion--learn enough about translation to know how many ways it can be wrong.

more-enlightened-than-thou

    Proselytizing.  Can it claim to be anything but more-enlightened-than-thou?  A proselytizer sees a perfect stranger on the street, and begins to hold forth on the subject of how to be saved, or how to be happy, or of how to avoid an eternity in hell. The proselytizer does this with the blessed assurance that he/she has answers that the perfect stranger lacks. How does the proselytizer know this, or pretend to know it? Why not stop all of the happy-looking people and ask them the secret of the meaning of life, instead of presuming to tell it to them?

Suggestion--Next time a proselytizer tries to stop you on the street, tell him or her how to be happy--like you are.

everybody wants to argue about God

     Everybody seems to want to argue about the existence of God--a fruitless waste of time. What I would like to see them arguing about is responsibility--as in does it matter what you do?  Some people who believe in God also believe that it matters what you do. Other people who believe in God also believe that it does not matter what you do.
      Some people who do not believe in God also believe that it matters what you do. Others who do not believe in God also believe that it does not matter what you do.
     If there is a philosophical battle line, this is it--does it matter whether or not we do the right thing? Or the wrong thing?


Suggestion--give up discussing God for a discussion of human behavior--"the proper study of mankind is man".

creative ignorance

     I'd like to add something to the seemingly endless discussion of helping children to be more imaginative and creative. What too many young people need is not more creativity and imagination, but a  thorough enough grounding in reality (facts, if you will) to be able to tell the difference between reality and fantasy.  I have been told, at various times, that no one eats anything that comes from a farm except for a few survivalist extremists. I have been told (by a standard burger-eating American) that people don't eat cows. I have been told that when movies show people riding horses, living in log cabins, wearing armor, wearing long dresses, or using candles and fireplaces that this is all pretend--because everything in the movies is pretend, even in historical epics. If a teacher stands in front of a classroom and tells the students that people once used candles for light, at least a few of them will think that the teacher is ignorant, and doesn't know that movies are pretend. Their attitude is that the teacher is trying to teach them that there are space aliens about to invade--including eye-rolling and smirks. They have apparently also been taught that it would be hopeless to argue with such a person, so there is little discussion.


Suggestion--find out where students are learning this and intervene--even if it's their parents.

anything goes

     I recently overheard someone say that anyone who does not use profanity is unsophisticated.  @#$%!*&#!  We must have different definitions of sophistication. A sophisticated person can go anywhere and be at ease. He or she can mix easily with all kinds of people without giving offense or making anyone uncomfortable. It goes without saying that he or she would not annoy people just to seek attention. What kind of a sorry person would do that? Hello--are you listening?
       The commenters who cannot refrain from typing in @#$$% under pictures of cute kitty cats are not sophisticated, they are mindlessly spewing, in a fashion a psychoanalyst would label anal expulsive. Sorry to have to miss the sparkling wit and brilliant repartee, but if that is sophistication, I think I want to be a farm girl.

Suggestion-- Next time you see a foul-mouthed person eating--stop and tell a long story about vomit.

circumcision

   I have tried  before to write about circumcision, but it's hard to tell if people understand when you can't be present to answer questions--or when they don't seem to know how to ask them.  Once more, the fact--nearly every man in America is circumcised--Christians, Jews, atheists and everyone else. Circumcision has been standard medical practice in American hospitals for generations. It's one of the things many people thought would come to an end, thirty or forty years ago--and yet not a dent seems to have been made in the all-too-common ignorance on the subject.
    For those of you who believe that you are sure that there is no difference between an uncircumcised male and a circumcised male--you have been comparing circumcised males with circumcised males--not circumcised males with uncircumcised males. If you have been, shall we say, scientific enough to try to compare a gentile ( non-Jew)  and a Jew in this way, your mistake was in assuming that the gentile was uncircumcised. 
     This discussion began with a young man I thought must be outrageously ignorant--who thought himself quite knowledgeable about sex, psychology, and so on--and yet it seems to be the typical mindset. He didn't know that he was circumcised, and had to show himself to a man who could tell him.

Suggestion--better biology classes--we didn't have sex education when I was in school, but we did have biology, including human reproduction--circumcision wasn't mentioned., and it should have been.
  

drug and alcohol testing in children

     A famous psychological experiment was done years ago, in which the brains of alcoholic men and their eleven-year-old sons were scanned to see if they had similar brain patterns.  They did, and the researchers concluded from this that alcoholism is hereditary-passed down from father to son as if it were a mere physical trait--predestined to make an alcoholic of the sons. I believe these researchers were wrong, and that this can be proved particularly in what they didn't test for. They didn't test for the presence of alcohol in the eleven-year-old subjects--or the article never mentioned it. What if the parents had been feeding alcohol to their children?  I believe this is common, and it is rarely mentioned--no on looks for it, they simply assume that the children behave oddly because alcoholics make bad parents. But no one will know until it is routinely tested for. Perhaps alcoholism is being passed down by being taught, and not through inherited genes.

Suggestion--Test children, no matter how young, who become part of the legal system for alcohol and drugs.

minority, what does this mean?

     I had someone remark to me recently that since Obama was elected president, the blacks are no longer a minority in the United States. I do not know how widespread this bit of confusion is, but it is to be found in more than one person, especially among the young. Well, since Obama has been elected, there are not any more blacks than there were before the election--there are still the same number, which is what the word "minority" means.  There are not as many blacks as there are whites, hence the term "minority". What there are more of is termed a "majority".  Minority may mean, in numbers, anything from 1 in every hundred, to 49 in every hundred--which would leave 51 as the majority. We use these terms to talk about election results in this way--"the majority of voters", for instance. 
     You may have read about minorities in other countries--religious, racial, ethnic, or cultural--like the Tibetans in China, for instance. There are very few of them compared to the rest of the Chinese population.
      These two words are also used as legal terms--minority meaning while someone is under the age of 18 or 21 ( a minor)--majority reached at the age of 18 or 21 ( an adult).
     The term minority used to refer to blacks means an ethnic or racial minority--a group or set of people who are fewer in number than the whites, which is still true, no matter who is president.

Suggestion--Define these words in school, until everyone understands the literal meaning of them, not merely their use in a certain instance

probation

     I ought to ask for help from the "wiki" on this one, but here goes--I have been told that many major employers like to hire people who are on probation, because their wages are paid by the bureau of probation, and cost the employer nothing. I have been told that some employers don't like to keep people on after their probation has been served, because the bureau of probation will no longer pay their salaries.  You do the math--yes, I have also been told that getting back on probation is one way to get one's job back.

Suggestion--"A speedy and a public trial" ought to mean just that.

spare the rod and spoil the child

     "Spare the rod and spoil the child" is still standard educational philosophy in more than 20 states. That is, corporal (meaning physical or bodily punishment) is still legal. In some states where corporal punishment is legal, individual school districts have banned it. That's right, you can beat schoolchildren, but not prisoners. Not that I'm for beating prisoners. I'm against beating schoolchildren.
     This subject came up on a blog for teachers, and neither the pros nor cons had a clear majority. This, to me, was surprising. Surely when people find out that schools get to beat kids, they'll object, was what I had been thinking--since my own school days, 40 years ago. Not so. A lot of the comments that were in favor of  corporal punishment explained why--that they believed that their own children--or in some cases other people's children--would not behave if the schools didn't beat them. Schools would be taking their carefully beaten little children and spoiling them--sending them home ill-behaved and undisciplined--because they knew that in school, no one would beat them.
    

Suggestion: When children become a real behavior problem in schools, their parents show up for some parenting classes--to include all the ways commonly used to get children to behave as you would like--and how likely each of them is to work, or not work (compassion aside, beating doesn't work).

Suggestion: No corporal punishment in schools--in no school,  no day care, no private school--the prohibition to include things like standing in corners or sitting on stools--let's leave the 19th century in the history books.