queen for a day

     I noticed the other day that someone else remembers the old game show "Queen For A Day". I can still remember watching that show with my grandmother in the 1960's. The contestants, all women, told the audience why they need a new refrigerator, a washing machine, or something like that. The competition was decided by awarding the prize to the woman with the sorriest tale of woe. Still one of the sickest things I have ever seen on television.

a speedy and a public trial

     If a case has been tried in "private" in the United States, according to our constitution it may not have been tried at all. 

and let who will be clever

     This is supposedly a bit of Irish legal cleverness: if someone  runs over a farmer's pig, paying to replace the pig is not adequate compensation, because the pig would have had piglets, which would have had grandpiglets, and so on, so the farmer should be paid for all of these, as well as compensation for the original pig. Never mind that paying for a replacement pig would also restore the piglets and grandpiglets, Irish courts supposedly upheld this logic. Would the same courts, by the same logic, tell us what adequate compensation for the wrongful death of a person would be?

guns

     According to reports in the press, nearly everyone in the United States has at least one gun. I don't know whether that should make me feel nervous about possible gun violence, or secure that our citizens could protect our country if necessary.  It probably depends on what I've been reading or watching.

legal fees

    The Old Testament is some of the oldest written history on Earth. It describes the growth of a society, from a fairly simple group of herdsmen to a more complex arrangement of government. It was permitted to have an advocate to speak for someone who was being prosecuted--but it was not permitted to pay the advocate. This was considered an unfair advantage to the wealthy. Hundreds of years later, Alfred the Great of England promulgated the same idea--advocates were permitted, as long as they weren't paid.
     Next time you hire a lawyer, try telling him or her it's against your religion to pay legal fees.

crime and punishment

     The prison system has been called by several euphemisms over the years--the criminal justice system, the penal system, the penitentiary, the department of corrections--but most of them are awful. The names given the prison system show the philosophy current at the time they were introduced. The penal system is where we punish wrongdoers. The penitentiary is where criminals may repent of their crimes. The criminal justice system is where "justice" is meted out. The department of corrections is where behavior, and, to some, morals, are corrected. To me, none of these really describe or define what's needed if criminals are ever going to be a part of law-abiding, tax-paying, self-supporting society.  We need something more like a bureau of restitution.  While it's popular to say that criminals in prison are "paying their debt to society" this does not actually happen. Crime costs society money, and so does the prison system--along with  the probation and parole systems. Criminals might walk out of prison ready to lead law-abiding lives if they knew that they had, in fact, paid their debts. I'm suggesting a system in which prisoners or probationers are made to work, and some of the money goes to restitution for their crimes--including murder, as in the ancient legal custom of the wergild.  The wergild was a set price on the murder of a person, paid to the family of the victim. In medieval times the price was determined by rank, which we could alter to age, perhaps. A higher price could be set on the death of a child, with no notion of rank.  Burglary, larceny, and property damage  are obvious--the criminal would be free when the debt is paid. For other crimes, we could start out with what they cost--hospital bills, lost wages, and disability payments. A system like this could actually work--for society and for the criminals.

new copyright laws

     I don't understand why we need new copyright laws. The copyright laws we already have should cover the internet--without any alterations. Is there a set of people who don't want to admit that the internet is the same as the rest of the real world?

group morals

     If you could talk to a member of a criminal gang about philosophy, you might be told that no member of the gang is individually responsible for any action committed as a member of the gang. It's as if the gang members were officers or employees of a corporation, who cannot be held responsible as individuals for corporate wrongdoing. A person wronged by a corporation has to sue the corporation--not an officer or employee. In this sense a corporation is a legal person. Unfortunately, law enforcement officials have never managed to successfully prosecute a gang as a corporate entity.
     A gang is not a legal corporation. Someone who joins a criminal gang, or perhaps any organization, is not only responsible for his or her own actions as a member of that gang, but is also responsible in part for all of the gang's criminal activities, since each member has in some way profited by every crime. A member of a gang who does not personally profit through a particular crime still trades on the status gained by being a member of the gang, just as every employee of a corporation profits through the business of his or her employer. The same gang members who imagine no responsibility for themselves because they have abdicated all individual responsibility to the group, would be quick to blame any employee or agent of a corporation caught polluting, or using unfair hiring practices.
   

teacher quality

    There has been a lot of ink spent on teacher quality lately. There is supposedly an indefinable quality that makes someone a good teacher. The lack of this indefinable "something" supposedly makes a bad teacher. What actually makes the difference is education--the teacher's education. A well-educated teacher can explain things in a way that makes them interesting--because he or she understands them. A well-educated teacher knows when he or she is not well-versed in a particular aspect of the subject being taught, and spends time learning more about it before attempting to teach it to students. A poorly educated teacher does not seem to know that what is lacking is a thorough knowledge of his or her subject matter. We have a national exam for teachers, but not every state requires that prospective teachers take this exam, and they should.

the millenium

For those who are still waiting for winged beings with harps, or superheroes with capes and tights, to make a paradise on earth--it's going to be a do-it-yourself job--bring a bucket and a shovel, or something else useful.

blood drive

     I have been seeing a lot of commercials for the Red Cross blood drive recently. The Red Cross should try to capitalize on the current popularity of vampires and have a yearly Halloween special blood drive. It would work. Maybe some Hollywood vampires would help.

presidential debates

     Sometimes the candidates from the two major parties debate one another on television before a presidential election. Why don't we have a televised debate with every election? One that includes questions from the audience, or from viewers at home?  Nearly everyone has television available--the debates could be re-broadcast for those who might have missed them. Public debates should be a standard part of  elections--for president, governor, senator, congressional representative, and perhaps more local offices. Speaking in public is what those running for election want to do for a living, so it really shouldn't be considered a burden to be asked to speak in a debate neither candidate would be "running".

got logic?

     If you get up early in the morning when it is still dark, and want to find a pair of matching socks without turning on the light, how many socks would you need to pull out of a drawer that had ten red socks and ten blue socks in it?














three

school buildings

     Too many teens and tweens have no place to go and nothing to do. Why not leave the school buildings open until 9 or 10 o'clock at night, with facilities available to students? The gym, the library, the cafeteria--closed or open for business--could be left open and staffed by parent volunteers, if necessary. The kids would have someplace to go, and they just might find something to do.

"F" for faith-based

     If faith-based education means no form of logic, evidence, or persuasion can convince the student that he or she is in conflict with reality, then you may take  the "F" for failure grade to mean "F" for faith-based. This isn't about God, and whether or not God exists, or what God does and does not do. It's about grammar ( including whether to use its or it's ), word usage ( including do words have meaning, and is their purpose communication ), geography ( including the roundness of the Earth ), science ( including is learning genetic ), and math ( including does 1+1=2, every time ).

# what was the question?

      A long, long time ago, a six-year-old once asked me--"Mommy, where did I come from?"  I spent a half an hour carefully explaining in terms a six-year-old could understand how babies get here, when they weren't here before, and thought I had done a pretty good job. The six-year-old in question gave me an odd look, and said "but where did I come from?" . The six-year-old had expected to be told the name of the town in which she was born, because someone had mentioned it in school.

there are two kinds of people in the world

     There are two kinds of people in the world--the people who are sure that there are two kinds of people in the world, and that they are of the superior set, and the people who are sure that they are wrong.

that door swings both ways

     The young people who sneer at the elderly who can't keep up with all of the changes in technology should stop and think before deciding they are "smarter" than their elders. Some of these same young people make odd mistakes in writing that show they have no understanding of older technologies and ways of life--even those which are still in use. They don't seem to know what a check is, or a print newspaper. Some cannot read a dial clock, and don't know what the mail is for. So, young people, don't forget that old people have been here longer, and may be able to tell you something that could be useful to you.

let's make a deal

     "Let's Make a Deal" was a popular game show, on which contestants might win a new car, or pick the wrong door and win a cow.  Unfortunately, this is often played out in court, and not just on weird escapist television shows. Prosecutors make deals with those accused of crimes--plead guilty to a lesser offense ( lesser than the original charge ) is a common offer--when the defendant pleads guilty, the court has already promised leniency.  Turn state's evidence is another offer, and often misused-- by prosecutors hoping to catch a bigger fish with the testimony of so-called "small fry". For all such deals made by prosecutors, they don't seem to catch very many "big fish". But all this is really beside the point--the point being that the laws were passed by the representatives the people elected for this purpose--and no one elected the prosecuting attorneys. It just isn't their place to rewrite the law.

another modern fable

     One of the fables currently popular is that people are smarter now than they were in the past. The main evidence used to support this belief is that we now have computers, something people in the past weren't "smart" enough to invent. When this "past" was seems unclear. Another piece of evidence used to support the belief that people are smarter than they used to be is evolution, believe it or not. Since people have evolved, we must be evolving all the time, and must be smarter than people in the past, is how the reasoning goes.
     Sorry, but you'll have to show me. That's right, show me. Get along better--stop war, crime, poverty and disease, and I'll count this generation smarter than the generations who did not correct any of these problems.
An invincible ego, firmly grounded in ignorance, is not "smarter" than anyone, or anything.

let's make it a group effort

     Those of us who believe that the Earth is round need to make more of an effort to persuade those who disagree. They ( the flat earth society ) have a web site. Maybe we could have one, too. I found one list of the top ten reasons people believe the Earth is round, but I had already tried them. There's geometry, but people who believe that the Earth is flat may not be persuaded by a geometrical proof. There's my grandpop, who spent most of his life afloat as a merchant ship's officer, but he's dead now. Grandpop never actually circumnavigated the globe in one voyage, but even if he had, the flat-earthers have a theory for that--the theory being that he was only sailing around in circles on a pancake-shaped earth. The pictures of earth taken from space haven't worked, either, although some flat-earthers now concede that the Earth may be a two-sided pancake. The people on the underside are Australians, or trolls, or maybe hobbits.

resolutions

     I don't make New year's resolutions, but many people do. Soon there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. As with other promises to reform, New year's resolutions are an all-or-nothing idea to some people. If you fall off the diet wagon and eat a doughnut, why not the whole box, as long as the diet is "broken" anyway. If you fall off the temperance wagon and have a drink, why not go on a three day toot? If the resolution is broken, all bets are off, or so it seems. No wonder these don't usually work. The approach is extremist, and comes with built-in failure. Perhaps something reasonable--to try to eat more vegetables, or to avoid going to clubs or where "drinking" friends go, would work better. Something with a built in plan for what to do in case of a lapse--for instance, if you eat that doughnut, okay, but now you have to have a cup of raw vegetables. Make a deal you can live with.