————————————————————

————————————————————

————————————————————

Most of our choices can be expressed by the phrase; "Well... all right then..."

————————————————————

A deliveryman at DollarGeneral was relating that he had seen a young lady at a gas station pump who, upon inserting and retrieving her credit card got into her car, looked at her smartphone for a time and then drove away without filling up. The deliveryman said that he was very sad that young people now were so stupid and that the future of America was unrecoverable. I smiled in agreement. As I walked home I realized that there may be another explanation. Perhaps she was recovering data from a previously installed skimming devise used to steal payment card information. That would be possible too. Then I became sad that young people were so dishonorable and that the future of America was now unrecoverable.

————————————————————

When thinkling about the sad state America today, it is best to remember in human history how cruel, nasty and violent we can actually be. What we consider to be our expectations today may only be noble goals.

————————————————————

(Seattle Story Here)

————————————————————

Can a mouse be disappointed?

I needed to clean the floor of a closet, so I got out a small wet/dry vacuum which I rarely use. I hooked up the hose, plugged in the cord, got down on hands and knees and turned on the vacuum to reach the required area. When finished, I stood up, turned around and found many sunflower seeds strewn all over my furniture and carpet. I use the seeds in my backyard bird feeder, so it appears that a mouse found my stash of seeds and decided that the exhaust port of my vacuum was a good place to put them for the winter. I have no evil feelings toward the mouse (although I will take steps to prevent a recurrence)… but I pictured the little animal trying to enter the now blocked vacuum exhaust port with the anticipation of a meal, and I wondered; can a mouse be disappointed? I think the answer is no. The Buddhists say that “Life is Struggle”, and the mouse would agree. It is not very interested in where seeds had been, it is unimportant that the seeds are not there (nearly all of the places the mouse visits in a day have no seeds), it is only important to find where seeds ARE. It does not have any inclination to be disappointed, the mouse remains on the hunt.

————————————————————

There is nothing so necessary, so beautiful, so basic that humans cannot screw it up.

————————————————————

At the heart of civilization is the concept of procedure. Whether we call it a state law, a company policy, or a social ceremony, it is a procedure which we have adopted to deal with a certain group of situations or occurrences. These procedures are vital to keep us from anarchy, unrest, and from killing each other. Within groups we have developed ways to institute procedures; legislatures, professional boards, and have selected individuals do this for us. We have different ways to develop, designate and empower those people. We realized a very long time ago that If we all live by our own rules, there is chaos. Within a working civilization, freedom does not mean you can do anything you want.

————————————————————

Training and understanding of effective troubleshooting techniques are not supported by modern American capitalism, since one thing which capitalism does not want is for individuals to identify and repair problems with owned items rather than they purchase a brand new replacement end-product.

————————————————————

Let's actually treat corporations like people. Currently it seems that increasing shareholder value is considered the primary function of a corporation, and perhaps it is. But in the same way, when you strip off everything else, the primary function of organisms, which includes people, is to procreate. So subordinating all other corporate considerations to making money for shareholders is the same as a person being guided primarily by their sex drive. But we expect more from people, and we should expect more from corporations. When we talk about people, we are concerned with their higher functions, what are called emergent properties... those things that only appear when all the parts function together. A corporation is more than its shareholders; it is also management, workers, suppliers and customers. All of those parts make up a whole, it is time we acknowledged that each of those parts is critically important and combine to form an emergent corporate personality. We require people to act not only in their narrow, sex-driven self interest, but in the interests of their neighbors and the community. There are sex addicts and sexual predators, but they are not our most honored citizens; they are not considered good people. A good person is kind, and he is responsible, we know what a good person is. It is time that what we consider to be good corporations control their shareholder greed and became evolved higher functioning organisms; if they are people, they should be good people.

————————————————————

Ownership;

I was just considering an experience I had years ago.  As a surveyor in Alaska, I would measure and record data which placed individual locations and areas within a grid.  I almost said imaginary grid, but that's not right… the UTM grid is an agreed upon system, so is no more imaginary than democracy, math or grammar.  Anyway, we would take the measurements, compile the data and make the computations which accurately specified each location.  One day I looked down from an isolated hill called Donnelly Dome onto an area we had just surveyed and realized nothing had really changed.  Each tree was still where it was when we started, each bear and each eagle still patrolled the same territory, and each moose was being bit by the same number of mosquitos as it was before we started. I had it in my mind that we had been imposing order onto the wilderness, bringing it under human control.  It suddenly seemed like illusion; an illusion of ownership.

————————————————————

I have read a few books recently which seem to have a common theme; "shit happens".

1.  The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall, by Mary Elise Sarotte.
2.  The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England, by Marc Morris.
3.  Phantom Terror: Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, by Adam Zamoyski.

In all cases, very smart, competent people tried very hard to control events; and in each case events got away from them.  The book I just finished, Phantom Terror, ends with the birth of the Second Republic and with French King Louis Philippe fleeing Paris in disguise… frightened that he would follow Louis XVI to the guillotine.  After Napoleon had been shipped off to St. Helena, every powerful leader in Europe had been attempting to quash any remnant of revolutionary thought; and in the process brought about the very thing they were trying to avoid.  It was a nice reminder that no one is really in charge.

————————————————————

No empire or edifice was ever built with each of the participants “following their bliss”.

————————————————————

Motivation is the central problem of society. The web of the society is dependent upon many individuals trying many different things (and, necessarily, most of them failing) in order for a few to move the human experience forward.  The central problem is not how to support those who will ultimately succeed (though not knowing who they will be), but how to keep the great majority of people trying and failing so that those few who will actually impact the human experience have an opportunity to develop.  Thats why money is king, hippy communes are few and drugs are illegal.  We need all those people expending effort day after day until someone among them comes up with something that will make everyones life better.  All the stuff of living; the bonds of family, comfort (shelter, clothes, food), self regard and social status; are simply prerequisites which allow people to expend energy toward improvement of the general human condition.  Having all those people want to expend that significant effort over the necessary time is the central problem; people don't like to fail, and we don't want them to like it.  Therefore society provides them with many irrelevant and rather inane ways to feel successful; fantasy football, watching a TV show knowing how it will end, and video games, to name a few.  Most of the competition we encounter every day does not drive innovation, but does effectively keep us at cross purposes.  Most of us never throughout our lives advance humanity in any way except, possibly, by procreating and increasing the pool of possible innovators.  Although history records only great kings and successful inventors, everyone else who lived are not irrelevant; but just ultimately, inevitably and individually unnecessary… we just can't know that we are. 

————————————————————

Supply and demand is only human-centric if increased demand is NOT driven by corporations hacking into our brains with targeted advertising. Productivity is defined as output per work hour, so increased productivity systematically requires workers with above average natural talents and superior educations, and reduces the need for additional employees; so as productivity increases, what happens to all the average people?

————————————————————

Our refusal to get drawn into the quagmire of Syria perhaps has broken them of the ancient, established tradition of their hiring of (we) infidels to do work which is beneath the Saudis; like liberating Kuwait, removing Saddam, and opposing Iran.

I wrote the above some years ago, and stand by it now that Afghanistan is under Taliban rule for the second time. It is truly a humanitarian disaster that there is no money and no food, but since God gave oil to the Saudis (or the other way around) it is up to them and the UAE to feed the Afghans now.

————————————————————

When hope and ambition smashes and breaks hard against walls of unowned talent and unavailable opportunity, it gives rise to that disappointment and despair which breeds criminals.

————————————————————

Since there are gray areas as to what is child abuse and neglect, I have walked away when I have seen things I personally thought were wrong.  No longer.  From now on, I am writing down the vehicle license number or address and calling ICPS (260-458-6100).  I may be labeled a busybody or a nuisance, sticking my nose in where it does not belong… too bad!  If there is even a chance I can help prevent something like this in the future, I am going to do it.

————————————————————

Guns give us the illusion that we have at least some control over our lives. Between ubiquitous and ever larger corporations, complex activities of financial institutions, concerns about crime, and a large and invasive government we feel that we are primarily under the control of entities outside of ourselves. Although we likely will never use a gun, it represents a last and final vestige of individual power. God made man, but Colt made us all equal.

———————————————————

Greed is a form of competition, and competition is the most prevalent American sickness. In competition we expend most of our effort at crossed purposes, instead of cooperating to better our lives and solve our problems. Since the affluent make their gains on the movement of money, our competition allows them to make a profit from each of our competitive interactions, whether any of the direct participants benefits or not. Greed is simply a way of keeping score in a competitive society where the real winners pull their fees by providing the field on which it is played.

————————————————————

Climate Change:

I despair for the future. That a species could evolve to have such mental, social and technological power and have such a large number of its individuals still remain convinced that it is so special that it has nothing in common with the rest of the environment, it is only a matter of time until we destroy our home and everything on it.

————————————————————

Punishment has two goals; (1) To dissuade, before they act, the perpetrator or anyone considering something similar from doing the act, and (2) to exact a cost from the perpetrator so they are forced to consider that actions do have consequences. Would the father have showed the same lack of care in clearing his weapon had he considered he may go to jail for his failure? I think that would be far less of a consideration for him than the loss of a child. What cost does society want him to pay for his carelessness? Again, any further consequence for his action pales in comparison to his own irretrievable loss which he is responsible for. I submit that sending him to jail serves no purpose, either for him or to dissuade others from similar errors.

————————————————————

Here are two ways I control my spending: 1. I always keep something I really want on my Amazon "Wish List" (call it Item A), then when I see something I want to buy (item B), I ask myself if I really want it as much as item A, and even if find that I do, I know that have done without item A for this long, so I can obviously do without item B. 2. I try to avoid what I call "Big Man Syndrome". If I find myself wanting to buy something I ask myself if I am just buying it to feel important or impress someone else… am I doing it to play the Big Man. If so, I remind myself that what others think is really not very important, even if they notice or care, and it's almost always not worth the expenditure.

————————————————————

One reason people purchase so much junk is that it is so insubstantial. It is surprising how substantial a 2x4 is when it is actually two inches by four inches.

————————————————————

The world came apart when adults began delivering newspapers.

————————————————————

We understand relationships through language. Today, in what context do we express loyalty? We sometimes say “he is a loyal friend”, but we no longer say “she is a loyal wife” and don’t often say “he is a loyal member”…. instead we most often say he or she is “a loyal customer”. Our loyalties are expressed more by what we get than by what we give. We expect to receive some benefit in exchange for our loyalty, especially in our careers. We no longer anticipate that our employer has any interest in us, since his over-riding and legal duty is to the company shareholders. Loyalty in our daily lives is no longer something which we expect to be expected from us.

————————————————————

At the heart of civilization is the concept of procedure. Whether we call it a state law, a company policy, or a social ceremony, it is a procedure which we have adopted to deal with a certain group of situations or occurrences. These procedures are vital to keep us from anarchy, unrest, and from killing each other. Within groups we have developed ways to institute procedures; legislatures, professional boards, and have selected individuals do this for us. We have different ways to develop, designate and empower those people. We realized a very long time ago that If we all live by our own rules, there is chaos. Within a working civilization, freedom does not mean you can do anything you want.

————————————————————

My Groundhog; A Christmas Story

I will call it My Groundhog, because the more accurate "the groundhog which decided to live in my yard" is 7 words longer. I would refer to it as "he" or "she", but I have no idea which to use; so I will use the demeaning "it". In the spring I did nothing to encourage it to stay once it began to set up residence, as I questioned the wisdom of digging a winter home within 30 feet of a very active railroad line. (How is it going to sleep through the winter?) Of course I bought a house within 150 feet, so who am I to judge. I didn't trap it or fill in the burrow, and since it's all I can do to cook an egg, I wasn't going to shoot it and eat it. The cedar which it has dug underneath of seems none the worse for wear. Now that it is clear my Groundhog is staying for the winter, I've been setting out some apples, which it seems to enjoy. Groundhogs are often considered pests especially by farmers, and for good reason; a tractor can plunge into a groundhog burrow and break an axle. I imagine this has happened quite often, and it got me thinking. The farmer is out in his field, hard at work doing what he does, providing for his family. The groundhog is is digging his burrow, hard at work doing what he does, providing for his family. Suddenly; KA-THUMP…CRACK!!, and everyone's life has changed for the worse. There is no victim and there is no villain, the situation simply is. At that point the Groundhog and the Farmer don't like each other very much, but neither is to blame; they were each doing what they were supposed to be doing. And that brings me to current events. How does that bring me to current events? you may ask… well, I'm not going to say, 'cause just writing about it will make trouble; and we already have enough trouble. Next year My Groundhog may decide to live somewhere else, and that may be a farmer's field. Peace On Earth, Good Will To All Groundhogs.

————————————————————

Change

The thing that has changed all of our lives is how technology allows real power and wealth to be drawn to fewer and fewer individuals. Although we all have ready access to information, we have no effective means to act on it; the slow death of the Occupy movement and other ineffectual protests have taught us that. Bread and circuses keep us distracted, and our comments and emails are monitored. So don't expect that knowledge of the problem will lead to a change of direction. We will, however, find a way to live in the new order of things. We will have food and entertainment enough to preclude mass riots, and the social tide will continue until something completely outside of the control of even the most powerful (like a massive natural disaster or a madman with WMD) produces enough suffering to cause the entire social system to fracture. None of us will avoid the pain that will cause, but unfortunately that's the only way, I believe, real change will occur.

————————————————————

The Long View:

It seems the reality of the situation is that the value of capital will continue to increase over the value of labor. Everything is moving in that direction, including the recent Supreme Court ruling that money is speech. The reality is that affluent folks will not be taxed (and pay) at an 80% rate, and their influence will continue to gain (in both political parties) at the expense of the majority. Even if we do enter a new era of feudalism, the lower class will be much better off than in past similar eras. It may even become fashionable again for the affluent to exercise the lost value of noblesse oblige. The great unwashed masses survived past feudal periods, and we will survive this next one. Just as affluent people continue to benefit from the efforts of their fore bearers - regardless of their own current level of effort - so too members of the general society should benefit from the efforts of past generations. All that effort by all those working class people developed the structure and assets which our general society now enjoys. Built on those efforts, they do not belong to the rich, they belong to all of us. We are at a level of development where automation will continue to make more and more people economically unnecessary. Prospective employees might gain all the education they can find but there simply will be more people than jobs; the supply-and-demand market in labor has already begun to break down. So are poor people ENTITLED to food, clothing, shelter and security just for being human? The answer is yes.

————————————————————

On Car Driver Carelessness.

Since by far the primary mode of transportation in the US is the automobile, most drivers are completely oblivious to anything on the road that does not present the same potential danger to them than another car does; this goes for bikes, motorcycles, and pedestrians. Again and again drivers fail to see, and then hit, these other users of the public roadways, and no amount of education will change the attention of a driver who rarely encounters a smaller non-car conveyance on the roadway. America is not Holland, where a primary means of daily transport is the bicycle and where seeing them is common. I ride my bike and my motorcycle often, and with the full understanding that automobile drivers can't be trusted. Such tragedies are as unnecessary and stupid as they are predictable.

————————————————————

————————————————————

————————————————————

Books that changed my mind:

Endless Forms Most Beautiful… by Sean B. Carroll The story of evolutionary development. How biology works is wonderful… not because it cannot be explained, it now can be explained, but it is incredibly complex and unexpected.

Infinite Powers… by Steven Strogatz How calculus reveals the secrets of the universe. We don't know why the universe is so mathematic, but it is. Humans can use mathematics to predict things and, sure enough, it actually works.

————————————————————

Magic Words:

“Lock Them Up!” It is nearly 3 months since the election, hundreds of our Grandma and Grandpa poll workers must be in jail! …or at least in court, …or at least charged. Of course that’s a problem for the next election since hardly anyone will volunteer for the job, and we can’t really trust the folks who do volunteer. Maybe Republican State Attorneys General are “Soft On Crime!” At least they have charged hundreds of thousands of people for voting fraud, right? Maybe just thousands of people, or hundreds of people? We do expect them to “Stop The Steal!”. In every election some people are… well, let’s be kind and say… overzealous, they run afoul of voting laws. This time there must be thousands more than in previous elections, hundreds of thousands more this time, that number should be on the internet somewhere. Come on, Republican Attorneys General, what are you waiting for? I hope at least the election machine manufacturer CEO’s are in jail by now, it’s been 3 months after all, maybe they’ve only been charged, we should know that. Those magic words: “Lock Them Up!”, “Soft On Crime!”, “Stop The Steal!” no matter how often or how loudly they are spoken just may not be working. Maybe there are other magic words which WILL work; perhaps they will heal wounds to the Democracy, perhaps pave the way for civility and respect in future elections. Perhaps the trouble is instead of using 3 words, we need to use 4 words. So everyone, both those now in office and all of us who put them there, let's just try this; shoulders back, head up… and in a strong, sure voice repeat after me: “There Was No Steal!”

————————————————————

Trifles:

Saw somewhere: "Even in the Garden of Eden there was a Serpent

AlphaGo — Game 2 Move 37

————————————————————

The range limit of an animal species is not based upon the most available food or most comfortable climate, it is that area where there are the fewest things that can kill it. All animals, including us, are risk-averse. I think that the United States became the “Land of Opportunity” only after people migrated to escape European war, hunger, social-system oppression and violence. It takes more than hope to get people onto rickety ships, traveling across a stormy ocean many of them had never seen, to an unknown shore with its own terrors and dangers. They were not moving toward a better life, but escaping certain pain, famine and early death: the hard life in America did not pull, the impossible life in Europe pushed.

————————————————————

Some say love, it is a river, that drowns the tender reed. Some say love, it is a razor, that leads the soul to bleed. One might say love, it is a way to.. make money writing so..ongs. Most say love’s so damn important, I say, they’re just plain wrong.

————————————————————

In Defense of Social Security: When disparaging Social Security, It's curious how confident many people are in their ability to grow their savings. Financial companies are no different from other companies in that their primary purpose is to make money for their own shareholders, and those companies are not traded in the market but only offered to private equity. Also there is a disproportion in ability to gain actionable knowledge about how to invest; the big "wealth managers" will always have better information than the general public.That disproportion of knowledge and marketplace power will always work against us, the individual owners of the 401k or IRA because wether we make money or not is of no real interest to the financial company shareholders. It is curious so many commenters are fine with trusting what a corporation offers over what a politician offers... in fact both may be lies, but we have some recourse against individual politicians, whereas individual bankers always seem to go free. Also financial corporations are very good at transferring all risk to the small investor. We have seen what happens when corporations have their way; it was called the 1920's and it led to the 1930's. I think there needs to be a strong government to resist the excesses of corporate power, and we should have a goal for common people going about their normal day to have some confidence they will enjoy an honorable old age. Social Security must be changed, but a government-run Social Security is the way we have found to work toward that goal.

————————————————————

Get used to it, it has been decided that the system is more important than the individual. As the sole governors of the system, corporate shareholders have determined that what happens to them is the only thing that matters. Employees and customers have limited importance, but poor and sick people are of no importance at all. As far as the system is concerned, there are lots of unnecessary people.

————————————————————

The multinational corporation and crony capitalist government is not the end state of civilization. In every age there is an ascendant system which moves civilization forward and then gives way to the next system. The ancient egyptian priesthood, the roman legions, and the european absolute monarchs each ruled for a time and then were replaced. Individuals in general are better off now than they were in past systems, and in the next system we will be better off still. Just as an ancient egyptian farmer, a roman citizen, or a french peasant did not know what system would come next, nor do we. Any name we try to give it now would be wrong; communist, authoritarian, libertarian, socialist, utopian… none of those terms would sufficiently or accurately describe it. But a better life for each and every individual is out there: even though we don’t know what it looks like, a future waiting for us to make it.

————————————————————

There is a video which I will not share, but which I would like to comment on. It is said to be out-takes from an interview of President Putin by NBC news.

I reject the equating of American “interference” in Ukraine with Russian meddling in the US Election.

We as humans can be arrogant and self-serving, so it is no surprise that our institutions sometimes act the same way. The history of America gets muddier as books are researched and written about our Patriots maltreatment of British loyalists in Revolutionary America, the failure of Reconstruction after the Civil War, the effect of our corporate interests in Latin America, and so much else. But as well as a flawed people and imperfect system, America is also an IDEA (or perhaps a group of related ideas), one of the most powerful and far-reaching ideas in the history of the world. It is a noble idea, it is a valuable idea, and other people in other countries seem to like it as well. South Korea, Japan, Germany, and many other places have prospered after our “interference”. Honestly, some countries have not, since we are sometimes arrogant and self-serving. But because of all of the above, acknowledging both the bad and the good, and the complex relationship between our values and our actions, I still reject the equating of American “interference” in Ukraine with Russian meddling in the US Election. We are the good guys.

————————————————————

On the new CIA Director, Gina Haspel:

I am sure the CIA has an oath similar to that for the military, which states that "...I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations...". Those orders and regulations are an expression of the will of the People of the United States, and you better have a darn good reason for ignoring them, even after Nuremberg, especially if you are told the orders have already been reviewed, approved at the highest level, and are legal. If you are in that position, the People of the United States are paying you to do their will, not your own, and you can be jailed if you refuse. That's the way many critical organizations work.

————————————————————

I am against the proposed city ordinance to require corporate tax incentive recipients to contribute to a public art fund. By having a way to say "look at the public good tax incentives are doing", this ordinance is simply a way to normalize corporate tax incentives which draw down tax receipts and cripple important and appropriate government functions. What does the phrase "required to contribute" mean? If it is not a voluntary contribution then it is a tax; so in effect the city would simply be adding back on to the corporation a tax which has been earmarked for public art. If we want a viable civil society with useful volunteer organizations we have to incentivize that by making volunteer organizations (not government) the way in which people accomplish things they want done. If people value the arts, organizations like Arts United should strive to grow and aggressively seek private funding in order to be able to accomplish what they value. I am a visual artist and I would like to produce large works, but I understand that the government must prioritize its expenditures. In modern society with unclear future trends, I would hope to have expedited government approval of a site and a legal framework for things like liability, but in the current fiscal environment I would expect to source the materials and assistance with the help of an arts community funded by voluntary donations (by good-citizen individuals and good-citizen corporations), not by a government.

————————————————————

Here's a little fact I just read about that shocked the heck out of me. I have some cousins in Bristol England. That city in 2015 just finished paying off a loan from 1833. Bristol took out the loan in order to reimburse local merchants for their financial losses from the passing of a new (1833) English law; the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. Lesson: Slavery was not very long ago -- and somebody was still profiting from it in 2015.

————————————————————

Everyone is expected to try to be the soprano on the opera stage, is it OK to just want to play the oboe in the orchestra pit? Our economy depends upon people striving for things which in the end are out of reach; and (because we keep score with money) which they pay for with future earnings, collapsing the population into the few who achieve, those who try to appear to achieve, and those who give up. To give up trying to be the soprano is to fail. This makes everyone crazy. It's OK to be the oboe.

————————————————————

Due to the way our brains and our civilization have developed, we are always using a combination of cooperation and conflict. It is not reasonable to expect that conflict will decrease, especially because insecurity primes us for manipulation, and corporations as well as governments depend on it to make us malleable and influence our actions. Because of all the varied cognitive biases, a person only changes their mind when they are ready to change their mind; for us to be influenced, these biases must be overcome... and then (effectively) employed to keep us buying and believing.

————————————————————

Every economic interaction is adversarial. Contracts are full of legalese (what often seems like unnecessary parsing of words) BECAUSE someone at some time acted in bad faith and the only way to control that is to be very specific in how each part of the contract is expressed. It is generally accepted that in the modern world one does not base economic interactions on a handshake. This is unfortunate, but understandable.

————————————————————

I enjoy watching sports because it is an opportunity to watch a rich jock break his leg or perhaps even snap his neck.

————————————————————

Various events have demonstrated the futility of raising arms against the American federal government. To think one can protect oneself and ones family with any number of guns against governmental tyranny is a delusion. Assault weapons are fun to use, but so are explosives, and we closely control those. What actually protects us against our government are the norms of civil society, the votes of our fellow citizens, and the law. Only a complete breakdown of all three of those would weaken the current system enough to make individual violence effective, and in that case, the current system would cease to exist. Then, it would not be individual against government, it would be every family for itself.

————————————————————

Letter to the Editor

I would like to urge your readers to please consider carefully their position on Indiana Senate Bill 562.  Please fully question the intent of the bill, and whether it gives necessary additional guidance to teachers, or whether it introduces intentionally non-scientific subjects into science classes.

I vote Republican; this is not a partisan matter, but a matter of education.  I believe the legislation is unnecessary to promote critical thinking or science education in Indiana schools. Indiana's state science standards already promote critical thinking throughout science education. The standards earned a grade of A- from the last evaluation of state science standards by the Fordham Foundation in its 2012 evaluation of state science standards.

If, however, the intent of SB 562 is to encourage the unconstitutional presentation of faith views like creationism, then it should be rejected on those grounds. It's no reassurance that the bill specifies that it can't be construed to promote religious beliefs, because creationists -- whether they accept "creation science" or "intelligent design" -- insist that their views are scientific. And the bill offers teachers and administrators no way of resolving such a disagreement.  Individual educators would be permitted, under SB 562, to tell their students that the scientific information in the state science standards and state-approved textbooks, which they are trained, paid, and expected to teach is, basically, not worth knowing.

Other states have successfully defeated this ill-advised legislation.  Since 2004, legislation promoting creationism has been introduced at least than 50 times in 17 states.  Only Louisiana and Tennessee have passed such legislation -- in both cases, over the protests of state and national organizations of scientists and of science teachers. A call for the repeal of Louisiana's law has been supported by over seventy Nobel laureates.

I would urge your readers to contact their elected officials, particularly their State Senators and instruct them to vote against SB 562.

————————————————————

In the book Year Zero: A History of 1945 by Ian Buruma, an interesting desertion occurred at the end of WWII.  Two german soldiers deserted and hid in a dutch farmhouse.  When they were discovered by the allies, they were placed with the mass of german units which were then surrendering.  Because there were not enough Allied units to effectively control the surrendering germans, the german command structure was kept in place and german military law was enforced within the surrendered units.  The two deserters were tried and found guilty.  The german commander asked for weapons to execute them, and, the situation of the Allied forces being what it was, the weapons were provided and the german deserters were shot.

That has fascinated me since I first read it.

————————————————————

The sheer volume of information keeps corporations and government from effectively monitoring what I am doing.  Should I care if a drone takes my picture?  That's just a waste of the corporations’ time and resources, I say go for it!  I may not be particularly comfortable knowing that my use of the internet puts more information out there than I consciously intend, but I'm also not completely comfortable flying in an airplane; so discomfort and actual vulnerability are two different things.  I have had to get a new credit card because of some criminals misuse, but I have not stopped using credit cards. Perhaps the right to privacy is an antiquated notion.

————————————————————

Abundance, Order, and Meaning are the requirements for human flourishing. Abundance includes sufficiency of food, clothing, and shelter. Order includes physical safety and status/event predictability. Meaning refers to the internal "why" as actions are taken or situations are endured. Human tragedy can be found in failures of one or more of these three basic requirements, and recovery from such tragedy can be found in them as well.

————————————————————

The disconnect between the Government and the People of the United States is widening; the government "by the people" no longer exists. For the citizens, government works best when it is closest to the governed and that is what most individuals who live in the United States want. A desire for an effective government is expressed by the public in the pervasive drive to reduce taxes, limit the powers of the federal government, and devolve those powers to the individual states. Such activities clearly benefit the citizens, but they undermine the viability of the United States as an entity. The United States must exist in a world with other powerful centralized nations. To be effective in the modern world, the constitutional responsibilities of the federal government to conduct our international affairs and provide for a common defense must now include the monitoring of communications as well as finance and trade control measures. This brings the general good of the federal government in conflict with the direct good of the citizen. In addition, the common citizen is unable to effectively exert any influence due to the control of federal government policies and activities by monied interests with international rather than national concerns. This produces a growing conflict between the federal government and the citizens which cannot, by the very nature of each of them, be bridged. The disconnect and conflict can only get worse.