GRANT'S PORTFOLIO

INTERESTED IN THE EDUCATION ESSAYS?

2008-06-30T04:33:00.002-07:00

If you just signed onto this blog, you've arrived at the "titillating" photos of America's periodic obsession (Britney Spears and Anna Nicole), dated February 2007. I assure you these two contemporary items have little to do with K-12 education in America (on second thought, maybe they do).

However, if your intention is to read the 5-part series on education, please scroll down to the series immediately following the two "titillating" entries.

The education series was written sequentially in order of time, so if you're seriously interested, you ought to scroll down to the first essay posted on January 15, 2006 and work your way up.

I encourage and invite serious commentary.

America's Soft Underbelly

2007-02-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

If anyone had the slightest doubt that America is already well down the downhill slope that all good nations in recorded history seem to slip onto after shining for a while--just take a look around at today's media frenzy.

The post-teenie bopper Britney Spears and her drug-induced antics that delight and draw out the worst in the mass media. Simultaneously, there's Vicky Smith aka Anna Nicole Smith, a two-bit, airhead Hollywood slut, recently croaked on drugs (whether self-administered or otherwise) and not to forget her 20-year old fatherless son who succumbed to the same "disease" just a few months before. As if to put several exclamation points after these appalling events, a true circus maximus was created by the widely televised court proceedings detailing the grubbiness of an endless number of caricatures fighting for control of the corpse of this indiscreet, shameless harlot. As if that wasn't enough, the circus was presided over by a goof ball, ex-Bronx cabbie-turned-probate-judge, who is seeking his own "Judge Judy" TV show to coincide with his imminent retirement. This nitwit needlessly stretched a two-hour hearing into a week-long spectacle, finally announcing a non-persuasive decision while blubbering for the courtroom TV camera--this because he wanted to "preserve the spirit of the beautiful Anna Nicole." God forbid that I ever must face American justice if this character is representative of its guardians. These events and their personalities, presently being canonized as important American lore--if you measure them by the obsessive, salacious voyeurism we have accorded them--put America on record as where our real national values lie. Never mind that there are grave and substantive problems threatening our survival that should concern us--we gladly leave all that to others to worry about.

Does not our reaction to these events make an outrageous lie of the adage beloved by patronizing politicians who tell us that Americans are collectively a wise body? Doesn't it belie the validity of the polls that ask our opinion on a range of subjects from global warming to America's vital national interests?

Is it any wonder the Muslim World (and much of the rest of it) hates America? Maybe it's time to consider the many advantages of becoming an expatriate on a beach in some third-world country, where the main concern is whether it should increase or decrease its coffee export quota.

Rescuing K-12: But what about our universities? A look at Duke University.

2007-02-01T10:22:00.000-07:00

Since my "rescue the schools" series has been limited to grades K-12, some might think I believe everything is hunky dory at our universities. I don't. Not by a long shot! But reforming higher education is beyond the scope of my undertaking. Besides, if we can straighten things out so that students will arrive at university prepared in reading, writing, and thinking, they'll force "academic" departments in the arts and humanities to return to seriously academic inquiry.

Today, however, things have reached such a sad point on most campuses that, in order to survive, universities must either offer tutorial courses in English (and other subjects, as students' SATs might indicate), or lower their academic standards.

Unfortunately, too many institutions (remember, they worry about attracting the necessary revenue to pay their bills) have chosen to lower their standards (for both students and professors) . They do so by offering courses that pander to politically correct trends that have been cast upon a generally uncaring society by disaffected social malcontents, radical feminists, and coddled flower children from the 1960s and 1970s. Once ensconced in a plush professorship, they created curricula around their maladaptive, New Age perspectives.

Nowhere is this better documented by Charlotte Allen in her timely article (January 29, 2007) in The Weekly Standard, entitled " Duke's Tenured Vigilantes." Ms. Allen takes a hard look at the strange behavior of 88 tenured professors at the preppy, expensive Duke University who signed and published an open letter condemning the three lacrosse players accused of the rape, sexual assault, and kidnapping (all of which charges are, this writing, about to be dropped due to the D.A. prosecutor's gross mishandling of the case).

Ms. Allen went to the Duke campus in Durham, North Carolina. What she discovered about these professors resulted in her expose of the mindset that, unfortunately, parallels what is taking place at most campuses in the U.S.A.

If you'd like to brush up on the Duke lacrosse students scandal, you can read Ms. Allen's entire article yourself in The Weekly Standard at this hyperlink, but the scandalous case is beyond the purpose of this essay. However, citing a few items from the article will give you a sense of what is happening to "higher education" throughout America.

Ms. Allen points discovered the obsession humanities professors have the themes "race, gender, and class"--which drive the curricula content and the "politically correct mindset" that pervades arts and humanities departments. These New Age professors have developed and bought into a trendy sociological theory that the three metas* of race, gender, and sexuality dominate human existence . Which of course can lead to some pretty questionable course titles: Critical Race Theory, Environmental Racism, and endless creative titles related to women's' studies, "diversity," "sexuality," and "multiculturalism"-- just pick your favorite university's website and surf course titles in the arts and humanities--you may be shocked to discover just how far "higher education" has departed from rigorous inquiry.

*Metas are "impressions" we are born with that pre-determine and color our every human motive-- a sort of updated psychology--the New Age collective consciousness, if you will.

Ms. Allen writes that Duke is known on the national university landscape as the absolute repository of "all that is trendy and hyper-politicized in today's ivy halls: angry feminism, ethnic victimology, dense, jargon-laden analyses of capitalism and 'patriarchy,' and "new historicism"-- [being] a kind of upgraded Marxism that analyzes art, literature, [and history, sociology, and psychology] in terms of efforts by powerful social elites to brainwash everybody else." She also comments on the university press that publishes such "scholarly" titles as, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity and An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality and Lesbian Public Cultures. Duke University Press, she says, is the laughingstock of the publishing world.

I Googled Duke University to scan a few of their academic offerings for the Spring term 2007. The effort both amused and appalled me. Following are just a few examples to give you a feeling for Ms. Allen's analysis of Duke U.

A brief sample of course titles under "Cultural Anthropology":

African MBIRA Music

Marxism and Society

Social Activism Motivations

Gender in Language

Studies in Ethnomusicology

A brief sample of course descriptions in humanities:

IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT

English language variation in the United States considered from a current sociolinguistic perspective. Social, regional, ethnic, gender, and stylistic-related language variation, along with models for describing and applying knowledge about language variation. Language variation focused on vernacular varieties of American English in general and on North Carolina in particular.

IN THE GERMAN LANGUAGE (!) DEPARTMENT

Title: Philosophy
Synopsis of course content:
This seminar will be devoted to reading and discussing primary texts in early 20th century analytic philosophy. The readings will include works by Gottlob Frege (excerpts from the Begriffschrift, the essay "Thought", and other writings), Bertrand Russell (excerpts from The Philosophy of Logical Atomism and The Principles of Mathematics) and Ludwig Wittgenstein's
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

Depending upon the interests of the seminar participants, we may also look briefly at movements and developments in art, architecture, music, biology, aerodynamics, and history and philosophy of physics about the time the Tractatus was written.

Theoretical approaches to the question of the interrelationship of gender and language including neurobiology, psychology, semiotics, feminist critical theory, philosophy of language, discourse analysis, and linguistic theory.
Assignments: Occasionally short written assignments in preparation for class discussions.
Exams : None. Grade to be based on: Class participation and paper(s).
Term Papers: Student's choice of either three (5-8 page) term papers or one long (20 page) paper.
Taught in English.

IN THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT (!)

Title: Gender and Language
Department: RUSSIAN
Permission required? No
Prerequisites: None
Synopsis of course content:This course will explore a broadly-based set of issues and theoretical approaches that deal with the question of the interrelationship of gender and language. The question of gender and language is conceived and developed within the context of those linguistic theories that necessarily require a definition role of speaker and addresses in models of speech acts and sign production. Readings will be taken from a variety of disciplines that grapple with linguistic issues, including neurobiology, psychology, semiotics, feminist critical theory, philosophy of language, discourse analysis and general linguistic theory. Linguistic data will include a representative selection of the world's languages. The question of natural and human language(s) will also be discussed.

Exams: None

Term Papers: None; Final essay/research paper (topic to be chosen in
conjunction with instructor.)
Taught in English.

IN THE ENGLISH LITERATURE DEPARTMENT

(Here's the "champ" of "academic, politically correct jargon, and just plain BS)

Title: Gender/Sexuality
Department: Literature
Permission required? No
Prerequisites: None.
Synopsis of course content: “Sexuality: You’re Making it Up; It’s Making You Up”

In a woefully under-remarked upon passage in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Freud writes, “…The instinct for knowledge in children is attracted unexpectedly early and intensively to sexual problems and is in fact possibly first aroused by them." The instinct for knowledge here is explicitly linked to questions of sexuality. Moreover, “perverts,” Freud will more or less tell us in the first essay, are particularly adept at providing knowledge (for him) about psycho-sexual development, at historicizing, at leaving the psychical traces necessary for providing an account of Western culture, unlike their “normal” hetero-sexual counterparts. These claims by Freud serve as the general inspiration for this course. Not that we’ll rest peacefully on these assessments. Eventually, we’ll bring to bear on these claims the radical historiographic account by Michel Foucault in The History of Sexuality: Volume One that historicizes (as opposed to naturalizing) this very relationship between knowledge and sexuality. Designed mainly as an introduction to the field of “queer studies,” this course will mine the object, “sexuality” to compel questions like: What is sex? Is sex in the body, in the brain, on the body? What is sexuality? Why do we think sex is magic and that our sexualities speak to some special little secret about ourselves? How are sexualities racialized and “races” sexualized in historical and contemporary accounts of queer embodiment? These questions will be tracked through queer postmodern fiction (Dennis Cooper’s Closer & Frisk); psychoanalytic theory (Sigmund Freud); radical historiography (Michel Foucault); critiques of contemporary scientific research on sexuation and sexual orientation (Anne Fausto Sterling’s Sexing the Body); Marxist critiques of sexual identity in late capitalism (Rosemary Hennessey’s Profit and Pleasure). This course generally explores how humans in the West came to understand themselves—and continue to understand themselves—as properly “individualized” through sexual identity categories, that is, the “me” effect of sexual identity.

Requirements: Include one long research paper (12-15 pages), one oral presentation, 2 quizzes, spirited class participation, excellent attendance, an ability to still register and perform surprise and awe, a sixth sense attuned to the humorous and the morbid.

Well, the course offerings go on and on . . . afterall, Duke U. is a large campus with a "diverse" student body seeking wisdom. But this brief sample surely conveys an idea of how our kids are being brainwashed in some really strange material--all centered on gender, race, and sexuality. Those are the three metas the kids are learning for their life's journey. By the way, you'll notice the absence of prerequisite preparation or examinations for these courses--reflecting an old trend adopted years ago at the K-12 levels: Don't challenge the youngsters' self-esteem by judging their performance and comparing it with their peers.

If you've the stomach for it and believe Duke U. is a weird anamoly, just Google your favorite university by name and click on their undergraduate course offerings. After viewing a sample of them, you'll probably want to join the Gnuteacher's Revolutionary Vanguard the next day!

Finally, the 101 worst professors in America:

If you think Duke University is an exception rather than the rule, you've got to read David Horowitz's 2006 book, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. It is an thorough survey of the appalling landscape of "academic" inquiry on American campuses. Professor Horowitz describes, by name and university, a mere handful of the weirdos, malcontents, and charlatans who populate our campuses and are busy indoctrinating our kids-- those impressionable kids who are arriving at grade 13 without a developed critical ability they should have learned in their previous 12 years of education.

Names you're probably already familiar with (if you're old enough) pop up with regularity: Angela Davis, the black American Communist Party; her comrade, Black Panther Huey P. Newton, convicted rapist, murderer; the aging Tom Hayden (who holds only a B.A. degree) anti-American activist and Jane Fonda's pal during the Vietnam era; Noam Chomsky, the well-ripened professor of linguistics-turned-anti-American activist during the Vietnam era--he made a comeback splash after 9/11, when he dismissed the 3,000 deaths in the Twin Towers as pale when compared to Clinton's ill-advised cruise-missile attack on a Sudanese factory (in which no one was injured).

Rescuing our schools: Part 4, The New Paradigm

2007-01-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

This the fourth of a four-part series on K-12 education reform.

It was an interesting, if discouraging, hour-long interview with our local city schools superintendent, a substantially important job because she administers K-12 education to the children of our 45,000-populous (and growing) community in Arizona. Not that she isn't a bright, or even brilliant administrator. She earned her spurs as a young teacher in Wyoming, back at the beginning of era I call the "Age of Aquarius" reform period, which I discussed in Parts 1 and 2 of this four-part series "Rescuing our Schools." And here she is a half-century later, wrestling with the creature of her design.

I really have no personal animus for her--in fact, I'm awed that she is able to daily find the energy--especially at her age--to deal with the schools under her supervision. It's not easy managing the near-chaos typical of most public schools in the U.S.A.

I hate to admit it, but she controlled my interview--she was determined not to brook negative talk about a "reformed" system she was, after all, along with her thousands of colleagues an, architect. But I did manage a couple of touchy questions, one of which was, "With all the teachers, substitutes and aides you have to hire each year, how do you attract and retain them, given the abominable salaries you pay?"

It was evident she was used dealing with this old question, because she had a ready answer: "Fortunately, we have a good source from the nearby military base--they need the employment, but most important, salaries are not the most important factor to any of my teachers . . . they do it because they love children." Anyone who actually buys into this spin is hopelessly naive and uninformed. A more accurate answer would have been: "They do it, because most of them can't do anything else." However, in my vision of the future of a reformed system is, it'd be O.K. for teachers in the future quality, reformed system to love children, but I'd hire them on the basis of demonstrating that they're stable, intelligent, and highly capable people whose bona fides would not include a college degree in education, but in an academic specialty (or practical experience) appropriate to their teaching assignments.

In part 3, I promised to outline my design for The New Paradigm. To fulfill that promise, I decided to rely on two main sources: My own e-mail to a friend and the excellent work of Bob Lavin of Portland, Maine; he's a blogger who writes under the pseudonym "Gnuteacher." Doing so will cut down the time I'd otherwise spend rewriting my own e-mail thoughts and trying to re-work the extensive and excellent work of Gnuteacher, with whom I agree to an iota.

First my email I wrote in response to the comments by Bill Cosby and Star Parker about education, which my pal forwarded to me. I quote myself:

How much longer are the Star Parkers and Bill Cosbys going to entertain us with their pen and paper, in order to motivate the blacks (and other minorities) as well as us, the WASP crackers? They write, and we all nod our heads in solemn agreement, but we continue to elect failed political retreads and hacks as well as wild-eyed congenital liars with no or impossible agendas. Then when nothing changes or social pressures grow so demanding and thus force our so- called leaders to react, we spend years bitching and moaning at the stupidity, irrelevance, etc. of our school boards and school administrators. Want a taste of real reform? Here's an outline, beginning with some background:

First, recognize what education is really all about. It isn't to make good,intelligent, contributing citizens or develop lifelong learners, or to help each individual develop their full potentials. No, its purpose continues to be to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority, to make conformists of our kids, to develop each person's eventual social role, but most of all to provide the "fodder" for industry to maintain a workforce in support of "free market" principles.

Things got really wild after Sputnik when the government captured education by throwing unlimited monies at the system to develop linguists, scientists and the necessary human infrastructure to keep up with the USSR in its technological advances (this spawned the 1958 Defense Education Act), allowing unlimited experimentation that the hippies glommed onto in pursuit of their vague, purposeless "Age of Aquarius." And today we're left with the school system that has picked up the disabled that used to be in private or government-run sanitariums; we adopted the stupid hippie notion that individual children know better than their teachers what they want to study; when forced to study a basic reading, writing, and arithmetic regimen, are coddled by Bush's No Child Left Behind which naturally devolves into teaching tests that, in good faith are designed to measure actual achievement.

So the beat goes on and reformers have no chance to institute real reform because education has become a monstrous, faceless bureaucracy that has captured America, its parents and its kids. If you're skeptical, just read what Bill Gates has said in recent months, and why he and hundreds of other businesses must seek "brain power" abroad. Just look at the appalling recent stats that nationally, 40% of kids do not graduate from high school! This is up from the traditional 25% the past couple decades. Things are in a f**king mess that constitutes a disaster which is undoing our society and is "dumbing down" (Bill Bennett's term) the nation. Little wonder that our country elects queers as governors, Bill Ney's and ex-fighter pilots who turn out to be parasites and crooks.

2. Here are my recommendations, which I'm certain will never see light of day until the country implodes completely after the governors lose their grip on the present social order:

(a) Re-examine the purpose of education, which, in a nutshell should be: To recognize that every kid isn't enabled with the same capacity. Some should be in an institutional setting with special education teachers and nurses, while others should be mechanics and people who build the society the brilliant engineers design, and are capable of leadership in industry, law and politics.

(b) Around these classes (yes, my dear, what horror--I'm advocating that the classless society goals of JFK and LBJ must be rooted out and respect for individuals' abilities planted in their place) a rebuilt education system, with minimal influence or interference by the federal government, whose limited role would be to return to local schools the tax money we, the people, have paid and are now demand its return--without strings attached. The second federal involvement would be to host temporary boards of active teachers recruited from the states whose task would be to develop standardized curricula. In so doing, we could (and should) dismiss 99 percent of bloated, useless Department of Education in Washington.

(c) Demand teachers who have IQs of at least 120 and whose training is in the specific areas of practicum designed to master early on the basic skills (the 3 R's) and then to engage, in specific courses according to the desired end goal, the capable kids, as per my definition above.

(d) To hell with education courses for teachers, but instead seek out 'real' people from society who are actual practitioners in their areas and make them either adjunct or permanent teachers, according to their stage of life and personal needs.
(e) Throw out all distractions in curricula and focus on the essentials of the particular skill set the kids are training in.

(f) Throw out all non-productive and "theoretical" pedagogical approaches and speak and write in plain, concrete terms.

(g) Throw out teachers with social or political agendas. No more "civics" classes that are being propagandized by maladaptive "teachers," and replaced by leader or ex-leaders in communities at local, state and federal levels--people who have actual experience in governing.

(h) Throw out all frills such as swimming pools, fancy gyms and spas, irrelevant infrastructure that do not answer the question: "Is it needed to learn the (now radically revised) curriculum.

(i) Re-educate the parents (and bar them from interfering with the reformed schools, on pain of having their kids ejected) who, being products of the abomination we've suffered for the past half-century, probably have no clue what constitutes a sound education.

(j) Encourage parents to install severe Internet filters that will end the kids' exposure to sex, violence, and kook social theories. TV for students would be programmed and filtered so as to only carry programs relating to and reinforcing their level of educational curricula--these could be "hard core" subjects as well as entertainment, as long as it related to the curricula.

(k) Allow the greatest flexibility in the establishment of private institutions and finally,

(l) Establish a voucher system wherein students could choose their school, public or private, in any location, that would offer the specific career-directing courses they've chosen according to their (tested) native abilities. This would be a good start.
Following are verbatim excerpts from Gnuteacher's "Manifesto":

GNUTEACHER'S MANIFESTO OF EDUCATION REFORM

Gnuteacher says of himself: I have been involved in "education" for the past 15 years. I have taught in public and private schools in the United States and abroad. I am NOT a certified teacher and I look with antipathy and derision upon those that are. I believe that we can reform our educational system quickly and at absolutely no cost if we have the will and desire to do so.

Organizational Structure:

1. Give more power to the individual schools, principals and teachers. Let them hire, fire and train their own staff.

2. Consult with others outside the field of Education and study the writings of professionals in their respective fields. For example:

Learning Organizations (Peter Senge)
Systems Theory (Margaret Wheatley)
Industrial Ecology (Tachi Kiuchi)
Media Ecology (Neil Postman)
Multiple Intelligences (Howard Gardner)
Innovation and the Future (Gary Hamel)

3. Establish Lesson Study Groups within schools. In the long haul for Education reform, Lesson Study is one key to success.

4. Reject Federal funding. There is nothing in the US Constitution that says the Federal government should have anything to do with state schools. Tell 'em "thanks but no thanks" when they try to give you money and you won't have to follow any of their stupid regulations.

5. Outlaw, abolish and starve out the teacher's unions. They are one of the main reasons for our current, rotten system.

6. Expect that schools will be open for 12 hours per day for community and student needs. We paid for them so let us in whenever we want.

7. Our schools should be models of a paperless society. There is no reason for the waste and repetition that our schools produce each and every year. If you can't access a computer in the 21st Century then a teacher should call you on the phone and tell you that Johnny is flunking her class.

Cultural / Metaphysical:

1. A dress code for Teachers. Have you seen the way these people dress? Take off those sweatpants and put on a tie and you will notice that the students will respect you just a little bit more especially if you put pants back on.

2. A Teacher code of conduct consisting of: honesty, personal responsibility, intellectual curiosity, industry, kindness, empathy and courage. Teachers should ride the school bus in the morning if they are on the route and stop cutting the lunch line.

3. Incentives for students based on performance. How about $10 for every "A"?

4. No homework, textbooks or detentions.

5. Music over the intercom in the morning.

6. Longer school day with meaningful activity hosted by volunteer Teachers. Don't let our children roam the streets until we get home from work.

7. A bonfire on the eve of the first day of school. A spiritual rebirth every year.

8. More field trips within 1 mile of school. Get out of school more often and explore the resources for learning within walking distance of your homeroom.

Curriculum:

1. Teach literacy, numeracy and civic understanding along with rhetoric, linguistics, media studies, seeing and memorizing.

2. Bring back art, music, dance and theatre if only after school.

3. Teach all subjects under these umbrella headings:
Inquiry and Expression
Math and Science
Philosophy and History
Literature and the Arts

Teachers:

1. Involved in a Lesson Study group.

2. Streamlined alternative certification for would-be Teachers. Too many good Teachers never make it into the classroom because of hurdles placed in their way. Private schools Teachers are not certified but they DO have a degree in a specific major other than "Education" and they usually score high on verbal aptitude tests.

3. Highest test scores and verbal aptitude tests as basis for hiring. Right now all you have to do is pass the Praxis test. We should hire only Teachers who have scored extremely high instead.

4. Trained in the Socratic Method.

5. Teachers must ask themselves three questions each day:
What am I going to help my students to learn today?
What is it good for? and...
How do I know?

6. Teachers should occasionally teach a class outside of their field. This not only keeps things interesting for the Teacher and students but it also reminds the Teacher what it is like to be a Learner again.

7. Teachers should talk less, ask only questions and always say "please" and "thank you".

If you want to know how the whole thing turns out, then get your copy of the Gnuteacher Education Manifesto when it comes off the presses. We'll let you know.

Footnote: The above material, written sometime in 2006, was accompanied by the following advisory: "The [complete] Gnuteacher Manifesto of Education Reform is complete and has been sent to the printers. Before it is ready for distribution we thought that we would share some of the ideas contained within this groundbreaking and monumental treatise on the causes of and solutions to the problems facing our public schools. You will notice that almost all of the ideas don't cost a dime and there is no good reason why they can't be implemented ASAP." However, I have been unable to find it in print and due to the lack of activity on Gnuteacher's blogsite, he may have become inactive sometime in 2006--at least he hasn't returned my e-mail inquiry asking for his O.K. to cite his material above. But I'm risking his wrath by citing it, especially in light of his encouraging e-mail to me in early 2006.

Rescuing our schools, Part 3: The Purpose

2007-01-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

It may come as a shock to many Americans when they learn, for the first time, that our school system wasn't a by-product of the idealism that underlay American democracy within a republican context. No, we inherited our educational context from Europe for strictly practical reasons: To provide obedient, skilled workers to industry.

When the American Revolution was complete, the Age of Industrialism was about to explode as the driving social and economic forces in Europe and England's recently liberated colonies. Almost overnight, no longer was it possible to operate industries with the independently minded lads and lasses possessing their specific, rudimentary skills (shoe making, basket weaving, etc.) they may have acquired from within their families or as apprentices to the Guilds. No, industries now would need armies of disciplined workers who would leave their homes, receive training in individual industrial skills, and completely submit their lives to the industrialist.

One will recall that these armies of workers were so well disciplined by their half-dozen years of basic education that they were too easily manipulated and abused by the industrial magnates. As unions and social activists began to diminish the tensions between industrialists and the work force, education begin to reshape itself in generally positive ways--by extending the number of years of mandatory schooling, expanding its curriculum and codifying standards of education that became generally accepted throughout America.

Meanwhile, however, in case we forget, a great shift has taken place. America lost virtually all its industrial base to other comers like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, India and now China--and there are more comers. As we now know, that massive shift was abetted during the past couple of decades to corporate "outsourcing" and their transfer of remaining industrial operations to foreign countries in an effort to enhance profits through lower labor costs. But no matter how much hand wringing some of us are doing over that evolution, a surprisingly lucrative economic force filled the vacuum left by our diminished industrial base: America's entrance into the New Digital Age--a shift of our economic force into service industries that became centered around computers and related high technology. Unfortunately, however, our education system failed to match that massive shift, remaining stuck in the old rut of the Industrial Age.

What is now needed, in recognition of America's new economic force, is a parallel paradigm that will educate people to the demands of the New Digital Age; Bill Gates is a significant leader in pushing for an education system that will be responsive to the new demands of high technology. But something else even more demanding and urgent is taking place that will place heavy demands on the us--the shifting demographics of human population. As populations grow and ebb, huge new problems will continue to impose heavy responsibilities on society's governors and mechanics (economists, politicians, industrialists, educators, law enforcement--in a word, by the entire social apparatus), namely, how to deal efficiently with ever more complex problems that spin off of shifting populations.

What are "ever more complex" problems, you ask? Is it because high-tech industrialists, headed by the likes of Bill Gates, are consciously driving this transformation for the sake of profit, as some cynics suggest? Not at all! Population growth has given birth to a growing radicalization. Radicalized populations are already demonstrating our confusion in the face of new problems that so far are only slowly being recognized, but that are far from being solved. Almost overnight "jihadism" has evolved so dramatically that we're just becoming aware that the underlying causes must be dealt with swiftly if existing social orders are not to fall into utter chaos.

Little wonder that China, India, and other fast-growing populations (including the Muslim world around the planet) are frenetically searching for new natural resources, while simultaneously pushing science and technology at break-neck speeds.

But at the same time, the corollary of growth is also grave cause for concern: declining population (and its consequences). Europeans, whose birth rates are approaching historic lows, seem blissfully unaware why radical Islamic elements are beginning to ravage their traditional European social values and institutions. Indeed, some voices today teach that by mid-century Muslims will have completed a massive cultural transformation of most European societies into Islamic entities. The most incisive non-academic voice is Mark Steyn, a self-educated journalist who has become a star in the printed free-world media. Steyn's article "It's the Demography, Stupid" is urgent reading.

If, then, we can agree that the real purpose of education has changed radically during the last half-century and that we need to get in step with the Digital Age, identifying and outlining the new K-12 education system won't be such a difficult task. However, it will take the collective will of our society, beginning with a strong movement at the roots--namely, concerned parents-- in order to induce our politicians at all levels to make the necessary fundamental changes. This will initially involve purging the system and its guardians of old pedagogical habits learned during the now defunct Industrial Age. Resistance to this fundamental change (we could accurately call it a "revolution") will come from those schooled and exercised in the old mindset, and maintained by the powerful education unions that have canonized and politicized it.

So far, the conditions have not existed in sufficient force to overcome resistance from the status-quo folks. And our citizens are in a state of blissful ignorance or denial. But that's no reason to throw up our hands and cry "uncle." Even if it takes a generation or two before changes are in place, we must make the effort. While still unheard and unheeded, there are powerful and convincing leaders ready to support the "education revolution." Make no mistake about it, our survival is at stake. And the task is made more urgent when we realize that time and demography are working against us.

SUMMARY: The old, now defunct "education paradigm" that served the Industrial Age that produced disciplined, humble, dependent workers for assembly lines must be replaced by one that will produce highly intelligent, independent thinkers who will recognize and anticipate societal problems, and then deliver to societies' future governors and engineers the high tech solutions they can use to solve problems created by demography. From this perspective we can suggest an outline of the new educational paradigm, along with some details that will characterize what our new K-12 educational system will look like.

But hold onto your hat! My outline of a new educational mindset may surprise some, or step on others' toes; if they're a relic still stuck in the Industrial Age, it will definitely ruffle their feathers or even evoke severe condemnation.

Rescuing our schools - After a one-year breather!

2007-01-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

After a 12-month hiatus, I've picked up the "pen" again, spurred on by dogged determination to finish this critique and consideration of the current K-12 educational mess.

Since my last post below, written on January 17, 2006, I've learned a lot more than I knew a year ago, but interestingly, have earned the contempt of (and have been ignored by) local educators and their supporters--who, I've learned (duh!), have too much personally invested in the present, corrupt system to advocate fundamental reform. In fact, many if not most of the senior educators today are the system's administrators who were the very ones that promoted and developed the nutty philosophies and outlandish techniques that led to today's mess. Anyhow, here we go again.

In Part 2, the elephant we've been laying our hands on to get some idea of what it is, but we might not yet feel comfortable with the image we getting--we're just getting the idea that it's a enormous "beast," and that trying to deal with it won't be easy. As my now retired poly-sci professor (jailed by both Nazis and Communists) e-mailed me recently:

"[Yours] is truly an Herculean undertaking because with few exceptions mediocrity in K-12 has been institutionalized. . . . [You] are somewhere between Mother Teresa in pants and Don Quixote."

My professor attributed me with more future effectiveness than I myself expect to achieve, but that's because in his indefatigable pedagogical habit, I suspect he doesn't want to discourage the early enthusiasm of his overly eager undergraduate student whose eyes he opened. That notwithstanding, his commentaries in several exchanges were designed to encourage me in what has also become his own personal crusade the past 25 years--reforming higher education, a coincidental and fortuitous event for me because, as the lyrics of a 1950s pop tune goes, "you can't have one without the other."

In Part 3 that follows this, I'll attempt to examine the question: "What is the purpose of education?" Or rephrased: "What do we want our system to achieve?" that is, "The Purpose." The final Part 4 will examine some specific steps that can be taken immediately and those longer-range steps that are critical to real reform.

Rescuing our schools - Part 2: The Problem

2006-01-15T18:38:00.000-07:00

So what's the problem with American education? "Problem? What problem?" Believe it or not, there are a few people who deny that there's a problem. If you've never talked to kids or their teachers during the past 20 years, you might think everything's A.O.K. However, confronted with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, as our own personal experiences will testify, and as revealed in the endless reams of statistics being kept under President Bush's federal program "No Child Left Behind" (and other state-level programs), I think it's safe to conclude that our system's broken.

We know there's a problem when students trash their schools and disrespect their teachers--even resorting to physical violence.
We know there's a problem when psychologists report one out of 10 teens suffer clinical depression.
We know there's a problem when 25% of high school youngsters don't graduate.
We know there's a problem when the U.S.A. is 39 out of 50 nations tested in basic academic skills.
We know there's a problem when universities have to lower standards in order to fill seats in freshman classes, and then have to create remedial courses in basic courses in order to prepare them for university-level work.
We know there's a problem when employers complain that American universities are not graduating enough scientists and engineers to fill their positions, requiring them to turn to India, Russia, England, and other countries.
In summary, the evidence is overwhelming, so we needn't argue if there's a problem, but must turn to solving the problem: Why is our once famous educational system broken?

O.K., now that we've laid a foundation, it's time to define more exactly the nature of "The Problem" if we are to seek solutions to it. It's all well and good to fire blunderbusses in any direction and say, "The system's broken--our kids aren't getting an education." But we need to go further and try to get our arms around specifics.

Doing so isn't easy--the problem is so large and involves hundreds of thousands of teachers, administrators and support people who deliver something we've labeled "education" (it's the largest industry in the U.S.A.), it's hard to "get one's arms around it." It's appropriate to use the adage of the blind men who were told to feel an elephant and then report what it was they examined. Each of them was able to relate bits and pieces of their "feelings" and "impressions," but until someone was able to help put the pieces together that make up a coherent picture, the elephant tended to remain a mysterious entity--threatening and revolting to some, curious and bizarre to others. So to begin shaping the nature of the beast, we must have a common basis for understanding what it is we're "feeling".

It's very helpful to review briefly our own history, which impacts significantly on our system like no other country in the world. When our much revered forefathers set out to establish a new country free of King George III's tyranny, we inherited essential British attitudes and a system of education that was mostly a privilege of the "upper crust." Education had always been a private matter delivered by families of the privileged classes who hired learned tutors in philosophy, religion, mathematics, Latin, and science. Education was rarely something delivered to women, who instead were taught the "social graces" by their mothers. However, the enlisted men who fought and suffered the years of our struggle with Great Britain were largely "dumm as drumsticks" to quote a patrician in those days. They were mostly farmers and tillers of the land, with a smattering of shopkeepers--socially barely one step upward. Their officers, of course, were educated and members of the privileged classes.

Historically, education for the masses was an unthinkable notion--even by the most enlightened liberal thinkers--until the Industrial Revolution began to demand specific factory skills of workers--more than those possessed by farmers and tillers of our agrarian society. In response, beginning in Europe, formal, organized education began to take shape to fill these needs. Simultaneously in America there arose a school of thought that had been influenced, quite understandably, by a revolutionary idea that followed from the successful American political revolution--the republican (note, in the small 'r' meaning) notion that education belonged to "the people"--a notion that was born in the Declaration of Independence's opening paragraphs:

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness--"

Those few words began to enter the vocabulary and consciousness of even the lowliest American classes--in fact, in a short time, they became the official mantra of a whole new political class that would reach its most influential zenith almost 200 years later. Their impact on education was profound. Armed with the sentiments expressed in this powerful stimulus to the American Experiment, well-meaning citizens came to believe that everyone, no matter what their station in life or the level of individual native capacity, deserved--by constitutional right--as much education as possible. The idea was that, in the popular vernacular of today, "education levels the playing field"-- presumably toward creating a truly egalitarian society. This revolutionary notion was considered the most important stepping stone to pursuing that elusive state: happiness--an exclusive American concept of the meaning of life.

The flowering of this sentiment occurred in massive numbers after World War II when, in an effort to absorb into the economy the millions of GIs being mustered out of service, the once-cloistered universities, heretofore reserved mainly for the privileged, were opened to anyone with the money to pay the tuition--and the generous GI Bill supplied millions of young veterans just that.

It followed quickly that high schools opened their doors to a wider segment of the population--even if it meant readjusting its standards to accommodate more students. Until the early 1950s, high schools and universities filled the demand of America's voracious need for managers, technicians, scientists, engineers, and most facets of the liberal arts professions: psychologists, sociologists, librarians, statisticians, and yes . . . teachers. At the university level, the curricula were shaped and aimed at society's needs and qualified students became "experts" through a rigorous and demanding process. High schools too aimed their students to become proficient in the essential building blocks: math, reading, science, with a smattering of the "old" subjects like Latin, Greek, philosophy and (in parochial schools) religion.

But things began to go horribly wrong around the late-1950s. Some say a national psychosis was introduced into our cultural psychology by the apocalyptic fears that came with the nuclear age in Cold War with the Soviet Union was behind the New Age--a national mode of escapism, as it were. Whatever the reasons, respectable liberal thinkers began to consider--in all social affairs of the nation--the impact of the words, "All Men are created equal . . . and are endowed with certain unalienable Rights . . . pursuit of happiness." A new political movement dedicated to implementing the ideas embodied in these words grew quickly--their proponents viewed school curricula too restrictive, both in their breadth and depth and in terms of the people shut out of the system for various reasons: poverty, political repression, class and race prejudice, and (although rarely voiced) native ability. They were able to shame people into silence, or were successful in shouting them down, if they persisted in resisting the "self-evident" truths in the words "all, created equal, unalienable Rights, pursuit of happiness."

Reality was replaced with excessive idealism by well-meaning progressive thinkers and their followers, but they became so enamored with the progressive ideas embodied in those words that the balance between theory and reality was lost in the enthusiasm of a new era. That enthusiasm was given a sudden, enormous political boost in the 1960s by JFK's era dubbed "Camelot" and the "Age of Aquarius" (the "me" Age) by their most dedicated practitioners. Reinforcing this "new era" was the music and dress code of the Beetles and their imitators; "pot" and peyote were recommended by Timothy Leary and other darlings of the "New Age" as a way to experience "mind opening." Free love, imported from daring films and books from socialist Scandanavia, was institutionalized in a new Hollywood genre of porn in films like "Deep Throat." Widely practiced among hippies of the time, it was undoubtedly encouraged by the invention and introduction of the "pill" in the 1960s.

Nietzsche's nihilism was reflected in Time Magazine's April 8, 1966 cover that asked "Is God Dead?" Karl Marx again became fashionable on university campuses, creating a newly minted political movement that quickly spawned a spate of radical factions of every imaginable kind, including the "Symbionese Liberation Army," a small group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, who strangely became one of them and took part in Los Angeles area bank robberies. In summary, the 1950s and 1960s were decades of intense turmoil, vast national uncertainty, experimentation, and social and political bombast. It was during this social upheaval that "education for everyone" was considered deficient and outmoded--in terms of both curriculum and the methods of delivering it in the classroom. Experimentation became the main sail of the teaching profession.

At Kindergarten through Grade 12 levels, "New Math" and "New Reading" methods were invented. No more sounding out words in learning reading--it was now said that "word recognition" was now "in." No more rote memorizing of "boring" multiplication and division tables--"cognitive understanding of these fundamentals was now "in." Curricula were delivered in a "free, less regimented" atmosphere in which kids could study what "felt right" for as long as they wished. Teachers were supposed to cater to the "needs" of their students; they were advised not to become "authority figures," but "facilitators of learning. Older teachers in the system were admonished to join this revolution and if they didn't, they were the first ones to be retired or advised to seek other employment. Education in the 1960s was profoundly changed by those who promoted the "It's all about me" generation that the Age of Aquarius had ushered in.

At the university level the liberal arts were also profoundly affected. Here, experimentation went to new levels. Teacher training was shaped in such a way as to make graduates with Bachelor and higher degrees vessels of the new educational philosophies and methodologies. "Social consciousness" became the raison d'etre of "higher" education; the New Age professors created new courses in racial sensitivies, cultural appreciation--in a word, the "basket weaving " courses. No need to bother students with "hard" courses such as algebra and calculus, chemistry or biology; instead, in order to fill the liberal arts graduation requirements, they were substituted with "introduction to mathematical principles" or "general philosophy" and in science, "history of science" or "appreciation of science" courses. In a word, this was truly the era that started the "dumbing down" of America.

Where we are today: Fortunately, most youngsters nurtured in this period have forgotten this era in meeting life's demands; today they look back on it with a certain nostalgia--either positive or negative, depending on how retarded their lives were because of their education in this era. During the past 10 years, a palpable trend has been underway--there is a slow, tortured desire to return to "the basics" at the K-12 levels--but you don't turn around a giant ocean liner on a dime; it takes time to build new keels and to reorient the ship toward a different course. The main exception to this "corrections trend" is in the liberal arts departments on most American university campuses where the Aquarius generation of "intellectuals" sought permanent haven as professors. Unlike "real life," the Ivory Tower makes few "real world" demands on professorial theorticians, so that their habitants today continue to live out their fantasies and--worse--infect the young and impressionable who enroll to seek "Truth," thereby delaying their maturity and entry into the "real America." Purging campuses of this generation will probably not be complete until they die out--literally.

At this point, you're either with me or not. If I haven't convinced (or reminded) you that America's educational system is truly broken, then don't bother reading Part 3 ("The Purpose") of this series. Instead, I suggest you direct part or all of your 2005 tax refund to your local School District to signal that you're happy with the way things are.

Rescuing our schools - Part 1: Introduction

2006-01-15T11:35:00.000-07:00

Where angels fear to tread--

On December 21 of the year just past, I made what "professional educators" would call a naive--even ignorant--promise on this blog to offer clear and practical steps toward recapturing and reforming the education system that was snatched from us about a half-century ago.

My interest derived from the curious experience I had during my brief stint as a high school teacher of Russian and German languages in 1961-62. In a word, I refused to cooperate in an experiment that had my "forward-looking" teacher colleagues all agog. The experiment involved, among other things, not limiting my language classes to eligible students, but offering them, in a loose-knit kind of schedule, to any and all students, whether academically eligible or not. I would teach all comers in a kind of "round-robin" arrangement where I would be available all day long to students who wished to "sample" my classes. I was told that attendance would not be monitored and that I would not issue traditional grades; in fact, performance would not be measured, except to the extent that the students "were satisfied." My reaction was immediate: I rejected the notion as being foolish and unworkable. My principal took my recalcitrant attitude up with the county administrators who evidently relented to my "old-fashioned" methodology, at least long enough to humor me as I organized the first language programs in this particular high school. I insisted on rigorous exercising in the language as much as possible during the 50-minute long, five-day per week classes. Testing was frequent and carried out as another student learning tool. My colleagues were not happy that I was not participating in their "revolutionary" experiments.

I didn't know it at the time, but I had landed smack-dab in the middle of the "revolution" widely sponsored by the Left (which had also given birth to the "progressive" hippie movement on U.S. campuses in the late 1950s), and had the support of growing, powerful teachers' unions (National Education Association and the newer American Federation of Teachers). Because of my refusal to cooperate with new curricula and teaching techniques in my very first year as a new teacher "on trial," I was ostracized by most of my colleagues as educationally "insensitive." If you're interested in a little bit more about this personal experience, you can scroll down on this blog to an entry entitled "Who hijacked our education system?" (August 28, 2005) .

I mention this by way of introduction because I had just entered the teaching world with so much enthusiasm for imparting the skills I had acquired to those who were coming behind me, but left a short time later disillusioned and somewhat bitter. As the years rolled by and I acquired a perspective that comes with maturity and time, I watched our system of education rapidly deteriorate into confusion on several levels:

(1) Teachers became demoralized and were continuously swindled on several levels,

(2) Administrators became cogs in an ever-growing bureaucratic, dogmatic machine,

(3) Parents became confused and neutralized, but worst of all,

(4) Students began to dislike school and even hold it and their teachers in contempt.

Everybody has come to understand, intuitively or by direct contact with any level of education in America, that the system is broken and is in serious need of reform if our country is to survive, much less to regain our competitiveness in a world that has grown rapidly smaller. The following cartoon, published last December in our little local paper, illustrates our common knowledge: Something's seriously wrong. Unfortunately, no one has yet undertaken serious steps to fix the problem,* although there is an overabundance of pundits who daily continue to comment on our nation's shame and embarrassment.

*No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a recent attempt launched by the Bush Administration with the intent to fix it, but it is clearly failing because there is no political unanimity behind it and, most significantly, it's a bureaucratic monstrosity that is drowning schools in the maintenance of endless statistics--it's like frantically trying to patch the enormous hole in the Titanic with rolls of duct tape, while simultaneously demanding meticulous record-keeping of the number of feet of tape used, the cost, the source of the tape, the man hours used, who applied the tape (broker down by race, disabilities, level of skills, etc.). Much more on NCLB in subsequent parts of this essay.

Since leaving my teaching post so disillusioned and after the demands of day-to-day responsibilities of raising a family and making a living are behind me, I now have the luxury of time to consider the results that have been percolating in the cauldron of my mind the past 45 years. I think I know what the problem is and how to cure it--assuming, of course, that Americans will summon the political will to carry it out.

I'm not sure how long and in what form my solution will take. I suspect the enormity of the problem I've assigned myself could take hundreds of pages. If I thought such an exposition might have a significant impact on a wide audience, I would undertake the task in whatever length and in whatever formats required. For starters, however, this blog will serve as a repository of the "essentials"--an outline--if you wish.

I am anxious to use this Internet Age "blog" to record this outline for one important reason: To interact with readers and thinkers who undoubtedly will help widen my thinking and thus ultimately contribute to the value of the final product. (Note: Unless I am directed by contributors to exercise anonymity on their behalf, I will record wide attribution to anyone who contributes to this essay--negatively or positively.)

I promise to try and avoid being pedantic, long-winded and academically obtuse. If I drift off into old university-acquired habits, I hope someone reading this will alert me forcefully.
So as to make the whole exercise as palatable for both myself and readers, the essay will be done in pieces--this being Part 1, the Introduction.

Please make comments--either directly at the end of each posting in "Comments" below or by using my separate e-mail (on the "Profiles" button, upper right-hand margin).

Israeli Air Force updating GPS coordinates

2006-01-10T12:07:00.000-07:00

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Is he a madman or just pulling our chain?

It's reported that Mr. A continues to rile the West, even the reluctant Germans and Mr. "Smooth" Chirac. In response to the Iranians' removal of the U.N. seals from their uranium enrichment facilities yesterday, the London Financial Times reports today:

French President Jacques Chirac warned Iran Tuesday that it would commit a serious mistake if it ignored the international community on its nuclear program. And German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that with the latest step Teheran had "crossed lines which it knew would not remain without consequences." Steinmeier also said he had asked IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei to evaluate the dangers of Iran's move.

I can't imagine the redoubtable Mr. A--who undoubtedly is acting in league with the theocratic government of mullahs--misreading both the Europeans and the U.S.A. to the extent of begging for retaliation. But I suspect they are. However, surely he hasn't forgotten that the Devil's "country of the proven and willing" just a few air miles southwest of Teheran has been watching his country's nuclear program with increasingly intense interest? Or does he think they're on Uncle Sam's leash?

And has he also miscalculated China, who surely has more than a passing interest in Iran's possession of the bomb? China has been playing the oriental inscrutable role with respect to its relationship with Iran, but it's a fair bet that they'll countenance an upstart bunch of religious fanatics on their flank having an equalizer--especially not in the hands of a young, apocalyptic radical.

I reckon President Bush's newly minted doctrine of preemption in foreign policy is being looked at in a much more receptive light by European, Russian, and Chinese leaders. And no need to worry about jawboning with the Israelis--they're in if no one else is, and they're perfectly capable of taking care of the job in short order. Their Air Force has run various air strike scenarios over many times since their strike on Iraq in 1983. You can bet their cockpit GPS instrumentation is up to date.

As for my personal attitude: I still remember vividly the seizure of our embassy in Teheran in 1979 and the embarrassment I, along with most of my countrymen, of the year of humiliation we suffered while the theocratic nuts toyed with their hostages, making the U.S. and its president, Jimmy "Peanuts" Carter, the laughing stock of the world, setting off the "paper tiger" image of us that to this day underlies the impunity with which terrorists continue to operate. It would appear that Mr. A (who some think was one of the young terrorists who led the attack on the embassy in 1979) thinks he's going to call Uncle Sam's hand again. With Dubya at the wheel, that'd be a serious mistake.

If asked, I'll do grunt flightline work on Israeli airbases and help the Jews launch their attacks. Just call on me--I'll pull away the chock blocks.

Shooting themselves in both feet

2006-01-10T10:06:00.000-07:00

Judge Samuel Alito's Travails

Here we go again! If you recall the confirmation of John Roberts last Fall, it's deja vu all over again. Although I'm tempted to rant (again), I'm restraining myself, because it does nothing but add to the increasing number of gray strands in my ever-thinning mop. I can't afford to put more of it at risk so soon after the Roberts trial.

The Dems continue to demonstrate why they lost all political power in the House, the Senate, and the Executive Branches and, astoundingly, they still don't "get" it. Senator Edward Kennedy, whose irritating upper-crust Boston accent rings from my TV set in the background as I write this, continues to fail to understand the function of his own nest, the U.S. Senate, but the Executive and the Judicial branches as well. I wish one of his staff members would write a pithy essay on Government 101 for Kennedy, although it's possible that Kennedy doesn't hire staff members who possess that knowledge either.

He and his leftist brethren appear to believe that the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of every aspect of American life: economics, morality, education . . . you name it--in their minds, it is that small body of nine lawyers who hold the fate of America in their hands. Therefore, according to the Left, the Court is and must be politicized, that is, it must function in terms not of the law but in terms of whatever societal whim should be placed before it. By any means, they are desperate to make the Court an institute of social engineering and legislation--something our Founders clearly never intended.

But that's why the Left are trying to claim as one of their own the retiring Justice Sandra O'Connor, whom they so lovingly describes as the "swing vote"--that is, "a Leftist vote" in cases of a 4 to 4 tie between the nasty conservatives and the enlightened liberals on the court. The insidious aspect of their frantic effort to politicize the "swing vote" is that they're trying to establish the function of the Supreme Court as a political entity-- not a judicial one--conveniently overlooking the fact that the U.S. Constitution and its founders did not intend that body to be a microcosm of the 535-member legislative houses of Congress, but a pure instrument of jurisprudential oversight, whose members exercise a non-political role. Do the Dems simply not understand that the Court was designed as an institution to address legislation passed by Congress and the states (where state jurisdiction is challenged) as to constitutionality? Or is it a dangerous attempt to reshape the Court's function.

As long as the Dems are so far out of power in Washington and across the nation, the specific, narrow view of the Court's "job description" as our Founders established it, is unacceptable to Edward Kennedy and his ilk; they prefer to slough off their own responsibilities as legislators and look to the Supreme Court for relief. They don't understand that their attempt to eschew their responsibilities and turn the third major branch of the U.S. government into an their own instrument is precisely why Americans have rejected their party several times during the past two decades. Thus, in desperation, believe that if they are able to gain control of the Court, they would be able to recoup their lost political power.

It's a shameless display of ignorance and their helplessness. And the irony is, by taking their hypocritical stance on television with the nominee, Sam Alito, they don't realize that they are merely reinforcing in middle America's mind (wherein lies the Republican power) the ignorance, duplicity, and effeteness of today's American Left. If they continue their incoherent and one-theme performance during the remaining days of torturing a brilliant legal mind of similar stature of Justice Roberts, they're only reconfirming why Americans will continue to reject the Democrats at the polls.

Add this to the daily performance of the Dem's official court jester, head of the Democratic National Committee Howard Dean, and Republicans have little to worry about at the polls for the next couple of decades.

WMD truth finally revealed!

2006-01-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

URGENT NOTICE

Be sure to check out this website and be prepared for explosive revelations about the mysterious, lost WMD. Heavy hitters (lots of 'em) will reveal the truth about Saddam's so far undiscovered cache that the Left has been using to bash President Bush unmercifully the past three years. You can also read a preview of the revelations (scheduled to be released at the intelligence summit conference on February 17-20) by journalist Steven Hayes in The Weekly Standard's just published article . Among the several heavy hitters participating in this important conference will be James Woolsey (above), former Director, CIA. February should be an interesting month.

Fizzled out whistle blower?

2006-01-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

Why isn't the whistleblower getting media attention?

Russell Tice, an ex-NSA (National Security Agency) analyst went public last week in a TV interview with Amy Goodman, director of Democracy Now. In the hour-long interview, Tice confessed he was responsible for the present uproar inside Washington's Beltway and on the public media around the world. Although he said he was unable to discuss specific operating details of the electronic sweep allegedly performed by NSA at President Bush's direction ("because I don't want to walk out of here into an FBI interrogation room"), Tice left no room for doubt that he was the whistleblower.

Tice said he was still waiting for a response from the House and Senate intelligence subcommittee chairman, to whom he faxed a letter stating his willingness to testify before their committees. He said it was probably too early to expect a response, because he had sent the fax during the Christmas holidays. His voluntary testimony, he said, was conditioned on being treated under the provisions of the "Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act."

Tice fingered the past NSA Director (General Hayden, now deputy director of the recently created super-spy bureaucracy headed by diplomat John Negroponte) as well as the present NSA leadership, all of whom he says had to been authorized by President Bush to go around FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) procedures to spy on Americans.

Asked by the TV interviewer whether his termination was connected with his explosive revelations, Tice said he was fired in May 2005, months before he decided to blow his whistle. The actual reason for his firing was, according to him, his dissing the FBI over what he thought was its incompetent handling of a report he pressed his security officer to pass to the FBI for investigation. It seems he reported a fellow NSA worker for engaging in what Tice believed was espionage. Evidently, Tice was dissatisfied at the FBI's handling of the case (that is, dismissal of Tice's allegations).

Asked if his subsequent decision to whistleblow the electronic eavesdropping might be seen by the public as retaliation for his termination from NSA, Tice admitted his timing might be seen in that light. Tice's reason for his revelations? His answer (paraphrased): His self-appointed role in protecting and preserving American Democracy, etc., etc. , ad nauseum.

After hearing Russell Tice's interview last week, I assumed his confession would be instant "big news" that would be picked up within minutes of his live interview. Instead, the reaction has been silence. Which leads one to speculate. Was Tice shown to be a confessor for the personal publicity he anticipated? Or perhaps his further revelations would be severely damaging to intelligence interests? (Maybe, after all, he did walk out of the interview into FBI detention?) Or perhaps congressional authorities, in collaboration with the FBI and his former employer, have decided he's a self-serving fraud?

Amy Goodman and her Democracy Now organization owe a follow-up to her explosive scoop that has so far fizzled.

Only in America!

2006-01-07T05:09:00.000-07:00

Cold beer nixed in Missouri!

No joke! The news media report this morning that a Missouri state legislator has introduced legislation (suggested--no kidding--by a grade-schooler's research) that would make beer under 60-degrees Fahrenheit illegal to sell or transport.

Seems the young future scientist presented convincing (in Missouri, anyway--which may explain the ludicrousness of the issue) evidence to Missouri's lawmakers that people drink more beer when it's too cold or, expressed tautologically, Americans reject and thus drink less warm beer ( it should be noted that in Germany, this would not hold true, inasmuch as in many parts of that world beer-guzzling nation, patrons often dunk battery-driven "beer warmers" in their mugs if tap-served brew comes out too "cold").

The pending legislation would put at risk any seller and buyer of beer caught with beer measuring under 60 degrees.

What's next? Missouri's Highway Patrol testing the temperature of any six-pack being transported by an unfortunate driver? I can envision an alternative to a hefty ticket and appearance before a local magistrate: Buying some ribs or chicken and inviting the beleaguered patrolman to an impromptu picnic at the nearest roadside rest stop. And why not? Missouri's in America.

Competing lawmaker mentality: Water ecology. The beer-temperature legislation rivals the proposal of a newly elected councilwoman in our little desert town. Wanting to impress her constituency that she was up to the task, she proposed a city law that would require homeowners to install pool covers on their outdoor pools when not in use--the idea being that the move would save water lost to evaporation in the desert heat. Her suggestion hit a snag when a more experienced fellow-councilman asked her how she proposed to make sure home owners were complying by covering their pools, most of which are located in their backyards. The lady stammered, paused, and the council moved on without further discussion.

But don't laugh! After the council session a wag suggested that she introduce her legislation at the state level--where it'd be more likely to find endorsement (a greater number of "professional" lawmakers, you see) and--given the wider application throughout Arizona--could theoretically amount to water savings in the millions of gallons, while simultaneously stimulating the growth of an industry: pool cover manufacturers. Given the Missouri cold-beer experience, the suggestion might be a sound one.

The Washington Mobster

2006-01-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

He's even dressing the part!

A mobster is exposed! One assumes that Jack Abramoff and his associates will surely do time after ratting on the many congressional contacts to whom he generously shared what appears to have been very ill-gotten gains (from various Indian tribes around the country). Some might even believe it follows that Congress is on the verge of collapse, and anyone receiving money from the crook for whatever reason is also tainted. Of course, if the Left weren't scared to death that party stalwarts will be long on a list the federal prosecutors are busily compiling, they'd already be trumpeting Abramoff's extortions and embezzlements as constituting a massive "Republican Cultural Scandal."

I too am outraged, but not because congressmen were receiving "tainted" money for their campaign re-election war chests (mainly by promoting legislation that would benefit Indian casino business ventures)--that's legal and old hat in Washington. What enrages me is that Abramoff crafted an almost perfect scheme to scam our Native Brothers on their generally miserable reservations. In recent decades they had finally discovered the perfect way to rake in the big bucks with minimal capital investments: the Halls of Gambling that much of America seems incurably and insatiably addicted to. The ironic aspect of this growing industry on the reservations is that they're finally realizing in spades for what their white oppressors did to them in the 19th century: Legally fleecing them cleanly.

As to the outrage that the media are expressing--and it seems so far successful in whipping up their readers in middle America--placing the focus on Congress and the 35,000 registered Washington lobbyists, it's a case of completely misplaced emphasis. I've got my own (great big) beef with the elected big free-spenders of our (legally) confiscated money in Washington--and I've no doubt there may have been some legislators were directly engaged in the fraud that Abramoff was perpetrating. But they probably amount to precious few.

Recently, I had an exchange with a blogger, a (Leftist) professor of economics at a major university, over his over-zealous condemnation of politicians (especially G.W. Bush). His assertion was that our representatives, everyone one of them, are corrupt to the core and should therefore be fired, and replaced with "honest citizens" (under a system Karl Marx referred to the "enlightened proletariat," enroute to Eden or Communism) who would, overnight, bring everlasting peace, harmony, and economic equality to America. When I responded to his apocalyptic view of American government by citing a few facts against his pure illusions and fabrications, he became livid and denounced me as "obviously an active member of The Conspiracy" (I presumed he meant Hillary's "vast Right-wing conspiracy"). Proffering this kind of worldview is what severely damaging the very foundation of American governance. The professor would also contend that Jack Abramoff is a White House undercover "plumber" doing the nefarious work of The Conspiracy. The mainstream press accounts of Abramoff's criminal activities during the past decade are simply framing the professor's view of American politics.

However, I stand in stark contrast to that view of the "lobbying scandal." I don't see it as a "lobbying scandal," but as the gullibility of so many who were defrauded by Abramoff, and the weakness of a few Washington operatives. I also happen to believe our 200-plus year old system, with all its warts and fault lines, is still the best, proven system ever invented and has provided me and mine a standard of freedom and living undreamt of by even my own father. And lobbyists have been an inherent element of our system even before the Constitution was concluded, when interest groups tried actively to influence the framers of our Constitution to shape it to their own visions and perceived needs.

While I recognize it's fashionable to attack lobbyists and try to cast shadows on legislators who accept donations to their political re-election war chests, I don't see myself as political posture as "fashionable." The fact is, Congress couldn't operate (not under the present set-up we like to call a "free-market") without having the court attendants helping legislators to acquire knowledge of the 1,001 things they and their staffs must know in order to fulfill their duties to their constituencies. (Please don't get side-tracked here--I recognize a strong case is made for far less legislation, which would eventually have the effect of cutting down on the size of government, reducing the federal budget, and eliminating most of the excess flow influence through monies throughout the Halls of Congress--all interesting libertarian-like arguments--for another day.)

There's no doubt the lobby system tempts and it also may exert undue pressure on otherwise honest legislators--that's simply a fact of life. Former congressman, now MSNBC TV pundit, Joe Scarborough, made that observation last night in an interview with MSNBC TV interviewer, Chris Matthews, that those who cross the re-election campaign coffers with silver will get first attention from the firms for whom lobbyists work--"it's a fine line [between being tainted and honest brokering]" he said. But when an elected legislator falls for and partakes of the forbidden apple, he or she must bear the full weight of the law and ethical shame.

Just what constitutes "the forbidden apple"? It's clear to me and most Americans (excepting lawyers and politicians who try to wiggle out of accountability): After accepting money for legal re-election campaign purposes, if a legislator agrees to draft legislation or vote the way a lobbyist's client wants without considering all facets of the issue, then that's corruption. Or, as in the recent case of Air Force Vietnam Phantom (F-4) jet fighter pilot ace, "Duke" Cunningham, if a legislator accepts gratuities clearly out of proportion to the inherent sense of propriety (never mind the limits specified in the House and Senate Ethics guidelines), that's corruption. In other words, we have the smell test of common sense and famous "I'll-know-it-when-I-see-it" test. Honorable people know what corruption is. Less-than-honorable people know. Only truly evil individuasl wouldn't know, but the optimist in me says we send very few of that kind of people to represent us. No legislation is necessary in the wake of Abramoff.

The real story here is Jack Abramoff and his immediate willing associates who scammed eager but innocent people into channeling huge sums of money into Abramoff's several companies, in the naive belief their money would insure the success of their casino operations, through favorable decisions from the Department of Interior (via the Bureau of Indian Affairs) and from Congress as well. Their naivete was overwhelming naive! Without doing basic due diligence, they trusted a crook enough to turn over millions of dollars to him personally, or to dozens of fake lobbying companies. Any congressional electee--and officials, including congressmen, their staffs, and career or appointed bureaucrats found complicit in the multiple fraud schemes devised by Abramoff--should be shown no mercy after juries pass their verdicts.

Is there a "cure" that would effectively end the temptation of green--the "apple"? Perhaps the assignment of independent oversight bodies inside Congress and the bureaucracy, accompanied by the certainty of vigorous prosecution would curb the worse excesses. But to advocate the elimination of the lobby system is foolish and ignorant. Lobbyists not only represent corporations as well as the likes of the Indian gaming industry, they also represent thee and me in ways we seldom appreciate: Insurance of various kinds: medical, vehicle, property; retirement benefits; drugs and medicines; legal and judicial abuse; travel;business; education--an endless list of interests to a nation of 300,000,000 souls. In fact, lobbyists are a vital conduit to legislators. To suggest their elimination would throwing the baby out with the bathwater and would paralyze the nation almost immediately.

Christmas wishes from a Hungarian blogger!

2005-12-22T15:25:00.000-07:00

The wonders of the Internet! Here's a link from Hungary that will warm your Christmas cockles.

Be sure your speakers are turned on! Great rendition done in 1954 of Irving Berlin's well-known "White Christmas." Accompanying visual is great!

Merry Christmas to all who wander onto this site.

Coming soon: To fix a broken system!

2005-12-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

Everybody knows it's broken, but nobody does anything about it!

But now your humble blogger, having thought about the problem for more than 40 years, will soon post a clear design--not more obfuscation or politicization--for a practical overhaul long overdue at the critical levels, K through 12.

Except for the pernicious political grip professors presently exercise on most university campuses in the liberal arts studies, the change in science, math, engineering, and related studies will be reflected in the arrival of students already well prepared, motivated and grounded in "thinking"; their numbers will quickly replace the enrollment of foreign students who presently constitute 50% of those departments.

America will then resume its role as the clear leader in education--a condition required if we are to compete among rivals who are surely bent on assuming the mantle of our once-undisputed greatness as a vibrant, innovative people.

Stay tuned.

Attempted rebirth of Camelot, USA?

2005-12-19T09:52:00.000-07:00

TIME MAGAZINE'S 2005 PICK

Bono, Bill & Melinda: Gimme a break!

Not so long ago, I congratulated myself for having survived the 1960s more or less intact. I was able to shed any lint that may have brushed off onto me from the phony Camelot era.

And meanwhile, during the past decade I’ve come to pay little or no attention to Time Magazine’s annual naming the person having made the most impact on the world—mainly because the magazine some time ago moved its original definition to include the thing, event, or . . . well, just about whatever happens to occur to its editors as politically correct--natural disasters, concepts, ideas. . . . whatever might attract the most advertising revenue for the week.

This morning, CNN aired a special on this year’s choice (little wonder, since CNN and Time Magazine are bugs in a corporate rug) swooning and bearing clear evidence that PC-ism, akin to the best days the do-gooder flower children had to offer, is being reborn. Those ushering in the renaissance: Bill Gates (with wife, Melinda) and Bono.

It seems the Gates--the richest couple in the world--have been unloading their money—34 billions (that's "b") of it—as fast as they can on a lot of philanthropic causes. As admirable as that may be, their redirected targets in Africa, led by their new pal, the rock star Bono (a jazzed up copy of hippiedom's rockers) , lends an up-to-date face to international raising of money. It's particularly 21st century that Bill and Melinda would engage the world's best known rocker as their shill who warms up millions of his international fans with his guitar and high-level amp noise to extol the Family Gates while simultaneously urging other celebs to join the “cause.”

What's the “cause” this time around? Bono, in his indefatigable (is it Irish or Brit?) accent, explains that, with the lavish spread of the Gates’ money, “we will finally defeat AIDS” (would it be too presumptuous of me to be highly skeptical of this claim?). Furthermore, Bono continues, “we can wipe out hunger on the planet” (again, my skepticism is showing). Finally, he assures us, “love, not war,” will finally cure mankind’s ills (I'm confused--I thought he said it was the Gates' money--but I digress).

This might have been but one more rich man's attempt to assuage his conscience--and that it undoubtedly was, but now they're adding an interesting twist to this renascent Camelot. In a brief clip where Bono isn’t singing or rocking—he's holding forth at an Honest-to-God revival meeting somewhere in Africa. Not even a guitar in hand--only a microphone, belting out the stock revivalist phrases, just like the best of ‘em—Benny Hinn, Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggart and the rest--working the crowds into a frenzy.

It’s not just “Just Give Peace a Chance” or “Kumbaya,” etcetera, all over again. This time there’s a clear attempt to link it with Jesus. It's almost as offensive as the charities that use the phrase "Junk for Jesus." The next career move for Bono--maybe even Bill Gates (who must be getting bored with his duties at Microsoft)--my instinct leads me to guess, could soon be a presidential appointment to some goodwill ambassadorship.

A not-so-surprising strategy—with the support of Time magazine and other corporate giants--perhaps will be the most successful of all past attempts to benefit its sponsors: Bono, MTV, Microsoft Corporation, as well as dozens of designated "charity" organizations. But it strikes me odd that, given that the targets of this giant media event are overwhelmingly black Africans, the "music" genre ("rap") plied mainly by American blacks--with a few white exceptions like Eminem--is conspicuously absent in this coalition of the rich and willing. Does this signal some kind reverse race card? Or am I being too sensitive?)

In the end, what about the mesmerized millions who have little to hang onto, save a thin filament of hope these super stars are expert in raising? And when the spotlight turns to other themes in other parts of the world? What then?

Shall we simply surrender now?

2005-12-17T09:38:00.000-07:00

The president delivered his Saturday radio spot (televised on CNN) this morning. He was short, sweet, and to the point. And he was pissed! Rightfully so.

On two counts: First, the Senate is balking at approving a renewal of the Patriots' Act (and it's due to expire in two weeks). He did not try to hide his anger--he iterated that the Senate is irresponsibly interfering with the security of the nation. Second, the New York Times, having held from publication a full year the knowledge that he had authorized the National Security Agency to monitor certain communications between suspected terrorists at home and abroad, finally spilled the beans yesterday.

So now begins another in a series of bad weeks for the president. To get it started, Democrat Senator Russ Feingold, the official Democrat response to the president's statement, had a tantrum, saying that the president's attitude and actions were unprecedented and shocking.

We may be sure the president's detractors are honing their straight razors and will be slashing wildly the next several days. The usual stable of Democrats (Pelosi, et. al.) and the Loony Left will be joining forces to do their best to undermine the Administration--in full view of the world: both our friends and our enemies.

I've been trying my best to remain circumspect and slow to react to the deep political division in our country, but this is the last straw! It's time to call a spade a spade. Gloves off!

Those American citizens who have been ragging this president since 9/11/01 and before, going to such lengths as to declare him to be a Nazi subversive, responsible for everything bad that happens in this country and on the planet--including hurricanes--are marginal creatures. I am now beginning to seriously doubt their dedication to the defense of this country. If these people were rational, I'd go one step further and agree, with David Horowitz and Ann Coulter, that they are real, live traitors! But suspecting that they lack sound minds, I'll step back short of that accusation and simply call them irresponsible.

The rabid anti-Bush, anti-American, self-hate, self-defeating attitude that grips this country must cease. This country must take immediate stock of where we are headed. The media must get their collective acts together. Bureaucrats inside our government must cease their illegal and traitorous "leaking" because of their narrow-minded, misguided pettiness--they must be rooted out and prosecuted for breaking their security oaths. Responsible academicians, business and spiritual leaders must quickly and decisively condemn the trend that is plunging the country into chaos. If we're going to insist on citing the Constitution as a vehicle designed to hasten our own destruction, then we've truly lost our way, and have sullied the vision of the men who wrote that blueprint.

Where are those rational voices? Will they step forward? Or are we destined to go down to defeat because of the irrationality of the Loonies and the opposition's quest for power? Or is history repeating itself, and the Huns are finally on the verge of ravaging the ramparts of freedom in the world's longest surviving Democracy?

It might be less painful in the short term if we simply surrendered now.

Who will be teaching whom?

2005-12-13T08:20:00.000-07:00

Iraqis arriving for training in interrogation techniques

Local military affairs reporter for the Sierra Vista Herald (Sierra Vista, Arizona), Bill Hess, reports that Major General Barbara Fast, the senior Army officer responsible for setting up military intelligence interrogations in Iraq--and presently commander of Fort Huachuca (pronounced "wha-CHU-kah") in southeast Arizona, where Army interrogators are trained--has arranged for the visit of several Iraqi military officers to her military interrogations school.

As I noted in this blog (October 24, 2005), it's curious that General Fast--the Pentagon's darling with respect to interrogation policies--not only emerged unscathed from Army investigations over the abuse scandals that broke into the news in early 2004, but was rewarded by being placed in charge of the school that trains military interrogators.

Reformed or revived interrogation techniques?

In light of recent international news reports about severe maltreatment of prisoners discovered in Iraqi military prisons, one wonders whether the visiting Iraqi officers will be receiving information about the latest American interrogation techniques or whether the Iraqis will be instructing General Fast's school on the latest Iraqi techniques. After all, Iraqi prison and military officers under Saddam Hussein developed expert methods of torture and interrogation techniques during his 30-year reign.

Whatever General Fast's plan for the Iraqi officers' visit, at least it's good to note that this is her first public appearance of any kind since she took over command of Fort Huachuca last Spring. Since then, she has been maintaining a very low profile--to the extent that she's not even listed, in any capacity on the fort's public website. This announcement is one of her rare public interchanges in almost a year.

It would be edifying if General Fast would explain her role in the Abu Grahib scandal as related to the overarching theme for which she was responsible: Military intelligence interrogations in Iraq. Her co-commander in this effort, Brigadier General (now Colonel) Janis Karpinski--the only senior officer to be charged in the affair--would also be grateful if General Fast would explain her role and how she has managed to emerge from the mess with "clean hands."

Hasta la vista, baby!

2005-12-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

Apologies to any weak sisters reading this; it and my stance on torture must be painting my self-portrait as Attila's spiritual guru. Fact is, I'm normally a gentle soul--except when our collective stupidity rises to intolerable levels.

Tookie, the Govenator just kissed off your last chance, in case you didn't catch his famous one-liner. And so now it's time to pay for being the big, bad, fearless anti-social malcontent you were (and whether you still are or are not, I don't frankly care one whit). Bid your lawyers "adios," then reminisce--until they call you for that final walk--about your letters of nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize (what a joke!--the Swedish Nobel Selection Committee must have been co-opted by the hashish, free-love crowd that distinguished the "creative, sensitive" sides of Sweden in the 1960s).

There's still time before midnight tonight to also dedicate a few copies of those kiddies' books you wrote with such loving, tender insight to some of the bros' kids, many of whom are still being reared in the tradition of violence and the primitive lifestyle you founded. You must take great pride in the fact that the bros and their broods still populate and are still propagating their existence in your nationally-based criminal gangs that still prey on people in the big cities.

Yes, yes, I know you say you found Jesus a long time ago, and despite the fact that most people don't believe your epiphany was genuinely from Above, --I'm easy. Most people would say that your seeing the Light is a boringly typical jail-bird's discovery soon after he realizes he ain't so tough any more, being left to pace a 9 x 12 cell night and day. I'd get Jesus too--for real--if it'd ease my conscience and might even turn out to be a ticket out of jail with the help of a bunch of Hollywood creeps enrolled in various New Age Enlightenment sects!

Well, pardner, the jig's up, as they say! Unless a tsunami washes away San Quentin Prison this afternoon, you can thank the U.S. legal system (not God, you creep) that gave you 20 long, unnecessary years of appeals and the time to feign your "rehabilitation." Twenty years that your many victims, dead and alive, did not have to contemplate and build their lives!

Pack your spiritual bags, Tookie and get ready to meet either your Maker or His Nemesis--if you're really a repentant Man of God as you claim, you ought to thank also California for providing you a shortcut to His throne. If I really believed you were a truly remorseful, repentant man, I'd say "vaya con Dios," but candidly, I doubt that my lip-synching that phrase would do you any good.

Instead, my counsel is: Lie down, don't fight the leather straps, and when they turn on the microphone to carry your words to the spectators' gallery, apologize to each victim's family for the unspeakable pain you have caused them the past 20 years. Then, if it gives you comfort, ask the padre to make the sign of the cross over your body and then take the needle like a man.

Oh yeah, you ought to thank California that they did away with death by strangling at the end of a noose or smoking from your eyeballs in "Old Sparky"--both rough by-ways to transcendence. You will go without agony--a luxury you didn't accord your victims. By the way, do not say as you exit, "until we meet again"--'cause we really don't want to have to put up with you again, bro!

A short primer on torture!

2005-12-12T09:57:00.000-07:00

Torturous Tortured Logic

BE FOREWARNED! My instinct on this subject is to really let go. But doing so would probably obfuscate the subject as much as any of the many commentaries before the public these days. So I'll restrain myself and rely on Ambrose Bierce, my favorite journalist-gadfly, who wrote before he disappeared into Mexico during the Mexican Revolution:

"Endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be."

Anyone unfamiliar with, for the first time intending to listen to the do-gooder, high road, halo-burdened crowd should get themselves a barf bag before they settle in.

One of the most practiced silver-tongued advocates of the “no-torture” debate waxed eloquently at length on Meet the Press yesterday. He was so slick that I actually paused a few seconds before I barfed.

Lindsey Graham, senator from South Carolina, made his very well practised case like this: The future of humanity rests on the U.S. making Senator McCain’s “no-torture” amendment, passed last week 90 to 9, federal law, applicable to all U.S. agencies, contractors, or representatives. The Senator’s curious amendment would also forbid any “degrading, coercive, and inhumane” treatment—hopeless muddying the letter of the law whenever our agencies seek critical information that might save American lives or treasure, in conventional or unconventional war times.

In other words, according to Graham, we should go along with voluntarily strapping one arm behind our collective back in any struggle with an enemy, because (loud, extended drumroll please!): Americans should represent the “gold standard” of the highest form of ideal human behavior, so that lesser nations (and inextricably linked lesser human beings, it follows in their logic) will be impressed, instructed, and therefore will follow our high-meaning example. Not only will this bring love, peace, contentment, and positive spiritualism to the world, but doing this will save the world from plunging into moral chaos akin to evil doers such as those found in the circles of Al-Qaida & Co.

My barf was extended, hearty, and complete!

Let us get real for a few seconds: Man, no matter how high-minded he might like to be thought of, acts first and foremost out of the instinct to survive—as any psychologist will confirm. Close behind the survival instinct is the instinct to win; granted, this is nearly as strong as the survival instinct, because it is often seen to be irretrievably linked to the survival instinct—particularly pronounced during wars between individuals, nation-states, and business competitors.

In an attempt to see things as they are, and not as they should be, we can quickly see the fallacy in Senator McCain’s amendment. First, voluntarily subscribing to such a high-minded standard will not automatically assure one’s entry into the arms of Jesus or into a state of Nirvana. Second, enemies bent on winning at any cost will have little regard for the rules we might establish—surely, the jihadist beheaders have taught us that.

Let’s face it: Torture, no matter how lamentable, is a practice that is permanently embedded in the dark side of our psyches and will not easily be exorcised by many Amendments or Sermons nor excite us to action when told about how morally reprehensible the practice is. Just as Eve was programmed to succumb to her base instincts, causing mankind’s permanent “fall from Grace,” so it easily follows that a squad of tough, kill-and-survive Marines, under fire and threat of beheading if captured, could hardly be blamed if they did not stop and prepare a Japanese tea ceremony for their sword wielders. Especially if they thought their captured adversary might be harboring information relating to their survival.

Even if the preachers and Ivory Tower do-gooders believe that laying down some abstract set of laws will someday contribute to a finer, more pleasant association between competitors or combatants--it is silly, unrealistic, and unthinkable to condemn those who must employ it under stressful, life-threatening situations.

The best we can or should expect is to limit the application of torture to those “stressful, life-threatening” situations and not to allow it to spread, as it easily would, among the those on the sidelines and not directly affected—as happens in crowds that are driven by an irrational crowd psychology we have yet to understand (take as an example, yesterday’s violent beach riots against Muslims over the weekend in Australia--they spilled over onto the constabulary charged with preventing loss of life by the mobs). To this reasoned extent, military and other U.S. agency managers must always be in charge and must promulgate clear rules and procedures for when, where, and how torture will be applied. Such rule-making authority must extend downward to the level where the "action" is--not upward to the some congressional oversight committee or government entity remote from the scene.

Just one critical exception to all this! Absolutely banned should be any form of torture involving forcing opponents to listen to any recorded materials (visual or aural) by Barbra Streisand! Such a form of torture would be simply too barbaric and beyond the pale.

Sounds brutal and "primitive," eh? Sure, maybe, I can handle that accusation. But until someone revokes man’s first motivational instinct—self-preservation-survival—I’d rather we deal successfully with it, than fall prey to the vultures of those who don't give a damn about high sounding slogans. So doing would simply constitute surrendering whatever positive values Occidental societies have achieved, especially during the past two or three thousand years (including those mores from “foreign” cultures that underpin our current social order).

Pass the word to your congress people--especially to the suspiciously hypocritically sanctimonious Senators Graham and McCain:

I want to survive, so that we can look forward to building a more idealistic society where perhaps all men who share the planet will have purged themselves of the primitive instinct of survival.

Ciao, Machiavelli!

2005-12-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

I don't like minor bureaucrats toying with national security

The case of the “compromised" CIA employee, Valerie Plame

Thank God this jet-set, wannbe lady spook finally resigned (more accurately, “retired”) yesterday from her desk job at CIA headquarters at Langley! She and her out-of-work, minor diplomat hubby, Joe Wilson, managed to wring every bit of undeserved attention and anti-Bush wrath possible—with the more-than-willing collaboration of the Washington Post and the New York Times, to the delight of Democrat party leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid of Congress, the vast array of Lefties, down to and including the weirdos (not to forget the clownish Democratic National Chairman, Howard Dean).

Both she and Joe are products of JFK's mythical "Camelot" era--moved on from recreational pot-smoking (“Yes, I inhaled, and I enjoyed it,” Joe declared in one of his many staged interviews these past months) to mainstream respectability and the fat paychecks of federal jobs. Joe won an appointment with the State Department's Foreign Service in the 70s and worked his way up a mediocre career ladder to an undistinguished early retirement. Valerie, a converted campus flower child of the Camelot era into an upward moving mainstream, avowed feminist, snagged a desk job as an analyst in CIA and married Joe.

Joe trudged through his 25- year career to qualify for a fat government pension. And when Valerie passed her 20 year-plus mark a couple years later, they decided to fold their government-paid tents to enjoy their pensions and perks that amount to more than $100,000 annually--an amount that will continue to support their high-flying lifestyle: An upscale home in a fashionable Washington suburb and their expensive trendy convertible import that moves them back and forth to the A&P in style.

But now to the unexciting, meaningless Washington-only game: The "leak" that so far has cost taxpayers about $700,000 for a special Department of Justice investigator (Patrick Fitzgerald) to answer the profound question: “Who outed Valerie Plame in the CIA?” Although Americans outside Washington could care less, the Left is doing its best to make the "leak" the Second Watergate, so we're forced to be conversant about it.

Before you plod through this recap, remind yourself about the theory the Left is advancing for the Administration's supposed willful "leak" of classified information: Vice President Cheney (and maybe the president himself) was seeking revenge on Joe Wilson who was trying to neutralize the administration's case for going to war with Iraq (over the question of whether Iraq was "nuclear capable" if it had acquired "yellow cake"). How was Cheney supposed to have done this? The Left's answer: By outing Joe's wife as a CIA "operative."

Now ask yourself: "Wouldn't a highly experienced politician like Cheney (who knows Washington inside and out), had he wanted to seek "revenge," have found a more effective, more mature, more rational, and less risky way to "get back" at Joe? Think how silly this theory is--considering the many other options available to Cheney.

Here are the elements of this Machiavellian affair:

(1) Since 1984, because a disgruntled CIA spy, Phillip Agee, had earlier revealed the names of real U.S. spies in the U.S.S.R. and elsewhere (resulting in the deaths of the outed spies) it has been a federal crime to willfully reveal the identities of CIA deep cover agents (i.e., spies). This law is the foundation for the byzanntine floss that the Left has woven; they claim that Valerie was a CIA spy, and therefore whoever had outed her had committed a serious federal crime. But let's look closer. . . .

(2) Valerie undoubtedly had a “secret” assignment or two (in the CIA, most all their work, even including routine work such as culling open sources for information is at least “confidential”—if not “secret”) during the course of her career but, as far as anyone has been able to ascertain, she was never a “deep undercover agent” in the sense most people associate with the CIA--she was always one of the stable of CIA desk analysts, who constitute the majority of employees. The only "spy" work she did was to classify "secret" (or above) her correlations of open-source material with occasional bits of covert files intelligence. These analysts may, when it's convenient, call themselves "spies," but it's a questionable stretch.

(3) It’s well known in the bureaucracy and among the mainstream media people that both she and Joe, along with factions within the CIA and State Department, have long harbored anti-Bush political sentiments--over time, they have only barely tried to conceal their intentions to do what they could to wound and undermine the president. (It's worth noting here that Bush's first Secretary of State, Collin Powell, did nothing to discourage this in-house corrosive culture during his four year tour of duty.)

(4) Joe and Valerie's predetermined strategy--an effort coordinated with sympathizers inside the State Department and the CIA--played out as follows:

a. When Washington area intelligence agencies were searching for evidence of Saddam’s WMD stocks and/or intentions to acquire them, Valerie, from her position within the CIA, suggested to her bosses that her hubby be sent to Niger to research rumors of Iraq’s attempt to buy uranium ore (“yellow cake”), which British intelligence had endorsed as true.

b. Why CIA paid a non-employee to do this bit of intelligence research for them remains a question that eventually deserves to be answered. Nevertheless, on the strength of his wife's recommendation, the CIA paid Joe for this junket. After a couple weeks of sipping “lots of mint tea” with his African hosts, he returned and, with the apparent blessing of his CIA paymaster, “leaked” his trip report to the Washington Post, in which he left the impression that Vice President Cheney had requested his research and which concluded that Iraq had never made attempts to buy the nuclear ore. Upon reading Joe's op-ed, Cheney was understandably bewildered, so sent his Chief of Staff, "Scooter" Libby, to find out who Joe Wilson was.

c. From this point forward Cheney, his chief of staff, and other White House people were drawn into a morass of confusion deliberately exploited in order to discredit the Bush Administration. It was now that Valerie's name surfaced (Robert Novak wrote the now infamous article that first named her as a CIA "employee"--to this day, he hasn't told the public his source). As if on cue, the CIA requested the Justice Department investigate this as a breach of the "outing-of-spies law."

(5) Here’s where the non-story morphed--among the Inside-the-Beltway mavens--into a story that doggedly persists for no rational reason at all, except that it is being revived on a daily basis--abetted by the help of the news outlets inimical to the Bush Administration: The Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, and a long list of lesser pundits.

a. It's maddenly frustrating that Robert Novak, a long-time Washington insider, has remained behind the scenes ever since his article started this hullabaloo--leading some to believe that Novak provided enough information (while exculpating himself) to cause Fitzgerald to think he could nail someone high up in the Administration for the (as yet) alleged crime of outing poor little Valerie, while exonerating Novak himself for the "crime." However, that Fitzgerald couldn't make anything out of his two-year investigation except for a dubious "Martha Stewart" indictment (for allegedly having lied to Fitzgerald about some detail in the course of the investigation) of Cheney's Chief of Staff, "Scooter" Libby, lends serious doubt to the validity of the entire investigation.

b. Before Fitzgerald's weak indictment, as if to "help" the investigators, wrote a long op-ed piece in the Washington Post, “clarifying” his (non) relationship with VP Cheney (he said the CIA had tasked his intelligence research and that he "assumed" this was at Cheney's bidding). Then he flat out lied that he had discovered, examined, and found the documentation alleging Iraq's intent to purchase uranium ore to be forgeries; furthermore, he wrote that he reported this to Cheney. How Joe got his facts so mixed up he hasn't explained, but the documents he claimed to have examined didn’t surface until six months after his African trip, well after he wrote his penurious op-ed piece. Maybe Joe had been reliving his pot-smoking days when he wrote the piece, because also made another gaffe--he himself “outed” Valerie by confirming, for the first time since Novak's article, that she was indeed a CIA employee. Then, as though an afterthought, he embellished the truth some more by suggesting the little wife had been a long-time undercover spy, so that now her career was ruined.

c. Judith Miller, a long-time reporter for the New York Times, mysteriously enters the picture. It turns out that her involvement was a total--if odd and apparently unrelated--diversion to the Joe-Valerie plot. Judy was supposed to have been privy to which administration officials were involved in the "leak"—but as it turns out, she unnecessarily created high drama out of this refusing to cooperate with Fitzgerald about her alleged knowledge of the "leak" and spent 85 days in a federal cell for all effort in Alexandria, Virginia.

d. Bob Woodward, the Washington Post’s super-star journalist who, with his sidekick Carl Bernstein, reported the Watergate Affair in the mid-1970s, even came forth--albeit belatedly after Fitzgerald's indictment had been served--to confess that he too had some inside knowledge who might have been the original culprit (Bob has yet to enlighten all those inside the Beltway waiting with bated breath for his revelations).

The entire process is an exquisite tragic-comedy woven from nothing and promoted entirely out of proportion by President Bush's antagonists. It would have been a simple Beltway caper of no consequence had Fitzgerald concluded early on the emptiness of the accusation. But for reasons we can only speculate about at this stage (was it personal or professional ambition that drove him?), Fitzgerald pressed on and finally had to be content--presumably to save face--with convincing the grand jury to issue a dubious, weak “Martha Steward indictment" (the details of which are still unknown to the public and will undoubtedly be dropped by Fitzgerald, thrown out by an Appeals Court, or found by Libby's jury to be false).

Look at this expensive, distracting, mean-spirited affair from an arm’s length distance: Is there any, I repeat any, significance to this non-story that would warrant the screeching and beating of breasts--not to mention $700,000 and two years of a staff of DOJ investigators who could surely have been used more productively in prosecuting pressing matters (such as the War on Terror)? Has anyone, including the CIA, suggested that Valerie's outing as a career employee has done the slightest damage to national security? The answer is clearly "no." But the whole affair illustrates the outrageous Machiavellian mindset of Washington’s politicos who do not demonstrate the slightest restraint in the face of an enemy in their quest to topple a president for the sake of ascendancy to power.

But even more insidious is the realization that these minor bureaucrats, Joe and Valerie and their faceless colleagues inside the government, are allowed--with impunity--to play fast and loose with the country's security. Most disturbing is the revelation that two of the most important bureaucracies in the government—the State Department and the CIA—are riddled with insiders who believe they should determine the standards of governance and may do so by undermining the very government who is paying them-- instead of producing the intelligence Americans are paying for and deserve.

It’s high time these politicized bureaucrats (starting with the small fry like Joe and Valerie and working up the food chain to the very top, if need be) be rooted out, fired, and-- if there's clear evidence--prosecuted to the utmost the law allows. At minimum for breaking their oaths of secrecy to which they are required to subscribe as an inviolate condition of their employment, for which we the taxpayer-citizens are paying.

They’ve been playing fast and loose with this nation’s security far too long. But to continue to tolerate this reckless, anti-American behavior is especially pernicious during wartime—a condition of the state that permits prosecuting violators up to and including treason. And please, don't let them get away with the weak-sister "First Amendment" argument that they have the right (and moral duty) to speak up whenever they believe they should "for the good of the country."

I worked among these "elite" bureaucrats in Washington; after that enlightening three-year experience, I can assure you of this: you should not want bureaucrats mucking around with your security by making unilateral, politically motivated decisions that undermine or replace the purpose of the people we Americans voted for to represent us. We should prefer our elected representatives make all decisions about governance--not a bunch of spoiled malcontents who imperiously appoint themselves as guardians of the "American way of life."

Are the Saddamites winning this hand?

2005-12-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

A Straight beats a Flush--right?

What the hell kind of a trial is taking place in Baghdad? The prosecutor’s duty, evidently, is to introduce witnesses--like an emcee at a charity drive-- and then just “let ‘em rip.” No questions to focus the witnesses on issue of the trial—just rambling monologues. Then up jumps Saddam or his half-wit half-brother and they start to rant and rave, sometimes making veiled threats about the testimony against him, but more substantively about the lack of smoke breaks; too infrequent changes of underwear; how the judges are American puppets; how Saddam is still "dah man," etc. At the end of the first (and only) full day of court time, Saddam tells the chief judge to “go to hell” and stomps out, vowing not to return the following day (and he didn't). If you've a penchant for self-flagellation, check it out on CourtTV (when the trial's actually taking place from time to time), or click here for a blow-by-blow transcript.

Then there’s the gaggle of defense lawyers sitting to one side, saying little of substance--one assumes they will come to life at Saddam's beckoning--presumably because the old dictator has clearly taken charge. Even nutty Ramsey Clark (the former Attorney-General on President Jimmy Carter’s painful four-year watch), one of Saddam's lawyers, is not given the opportunity to say much—which must frost him considerably, since he undertook the task hoping to get more international attention as the anti-American extraordinaire. So far, he's only been allowed an introductory remark, urging the judges to conduct a fair trial and, at the admonition of the chief judge, had to go buy a black robe out of respect for courtroom tradition in Iraq. I suspect the real reason he hasn't said anything is because he's as confused as everyone else.

Then there’s the blue curtain, behind which alleged witnesses testify—presumably because their lives would be in danger because of their courage (audacity?) in testifying. O.K., O.K. so we understand that Iraq’s a dangerous place, and that Saddam loyalists seem to be in charge of the country's violence. But shouldn’t someone (the witnesses' lawyers perhaps) help them write—or at least edit—their statements? The rambling, James Joycean style suggests . . . well, whatever.

One of the many U.S. Department of Justice lawyers who has been consulting the Iraqi court after Saddam’s capture held forth on C-SPAN a few days ago. He averred that he and his colleagues have spent many hours the past couple years providing the Iraqi court extensive research and procedural advice, so as to augment the judicial system that had "decayed" during Saddam's reign. Man, if our DOJ boys really invested that much time trying to "refresh" the long unused judicial system, please don't ever send that team to represent me--even in a no-contest divorce case.

I have the same sinking feeling I suspect President Bush and his administration are now experiencing: Someone made a bad mistake to hold Saddam’s trial in Iraq. Their initial theory was that handing Saddam over to Iraq would constitute a grand gesture that would also serve to assure the citizenry that we, the United States, were not “occupiers,” but are there to only serve Iraq’s needs until it is able to get on its own feet. At the time, Bush was operating under the impression that the Iraqis would be made even more grateful (than they were supposed to have already been) for Saddam’s capture, they would “feast” over the spectacle of Saddam’s trial, right there in “River City.” Evidently, the thinkers in the White House and in Foggy Bottom didn’t game out the “what-if” scenario in which Saddam’s bold take-over and contempt for the “Puppet Court” would energize not only Saddamites, but also reawaken a long-ingrained nostalgia for the dictator--unarguably a masterful "law and order guy"--who made the streets safe (except for the occasional unexpected visits from his henchmen, for whatever transgressions he pronounced).

To think of carting Saddam off to the Hague, as was the case with Serbian president Milosevic's, is now clearly out of the question—doing that would not only offend the present Court and its political supporters, but would give substance to the charge that, in fact, Saddam’s trial is an American-inspired “puppet trial.” And pulling the plug on the live TV drama that Saddam is creating would also invite the charge that Americans are censoring the old dictator! And, as the benevolent guys who won the freeging war, we sure wouldn't want to be accused of that, now would we? After all, we also have to show sensitivity for the weak sisters here at home, too!

Poker players will recognize that we’ve been out-bluffed and we're now being forced to play our hand or fold. Before letting the Iraqis work him over in their judicial system, perhaps we should have anticipated that the ancient land of Babylon has bred some pretty shrewd players easily capable of competing in poker with the best of the West Texas barroom rowdies or the more prim East Coast Ivy League set.

WARNING! Information Overload

2005-12-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

Isn't it a great time to be alive? There're Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) flown by pilots from their comfortable chairs at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas, viewing computer screens where they target, in real time, insurgents and their refuges in Iraq and Afghanistan--7,000 miles away; "smart" bombs that destroy anything we choose ("surgically"); inter-planetary probes; the aging space shuttle resupplying the ISS; sonic toothbrushes; home pregnancy test kits and quick abortion on demand for all ages; pills for almost any ailment (real or imagined)--with more new ailments being revealed or invented (Restless Leg Syndrome--whatever that is--comes to mind); laser surgery that restores marginal vision; and . . . well, the list is seemingly endless. Truly awesome is the statistic that technical knowledge in the IT spectrum is mounting so fast that it doubles every 18 months (which means, as the kid at Radio Shack taunts me, that what I buy today will be hopelessly outdated in 18 months). As if this fast-moving world weren't enough to try and get your mind around it, there's the fast moving . . .

Internet and its infinite spin-offs (business-card size Apple iPods that record and playback as many as 10,000 songs--I've always longed to have 10,000 songs at my fingertips--the more noise, the better; blog sites where I can read first-hand the travails of spoiled and abused teenagers from Chile to Ukraine). Now add "Google search" that is expanding exponentially, giving us instant facts, photographs, textbooks, news, and opinions. . . oh, yes, endless opinions on any damned subject you never wanted to know about, but now you can--and probably should, unless you want to be happy as an intellectual null. And for the voyeur, he can even view my house or yours with Google's instant satellite imaging. And with Googlle's moon.Google.com you can even peer into the moon's craters to get a close-up feeling of what has always been left to the imagination of earthbound mortals.

Finally, when Google has finished digitizing every known book in print (oh yes, in case you didn't know, the company already has a good start on that mind-boggling project), and when Wikipedia--edited by you, me and millions of others out there--has made most of man's knowledge available at our fingertips, we shall have achieved--whether we want it or not--some kind of intellectual Nirvana.

How are we coping? I don't know about you, but as for me, well, maybe I'm stuck in a prolonged phase of Darwinian evolution, but I don't think I'm adapting all that well. Like a good pal of mine says, "zeros and ones" scare the hell out of him when he realizes they're controlling everything from UAV warplanes to the surgeon's scalpel and the tiniest minutiae about his life. He tries to have as little to do with the "net" as possible. "I'll send you an e-mail," I say. "Just pick up the phone," he retorts unabashedly. I get a little nervous too, whenever I think how fast the zeros and ones are driving me, with scarcely any guidance or reference, into a vast, virtual, and mysterious cyberworld that I'm not sure is completely friendly and which I find I'm not able to control.

Don't get me wrong--unlike my pal who is always inventing new ways to resist assimilation--I actually am in love with"the net." (Or am I simply enamored of it, like a testosterone-driven young man studying a Playboy fold-out?) I now do 99% of my banking and bill-paying on it, and am committing more of my life to it. I've even learned how to make a little money (legally) on it--just enough to let me spring for additional software that those too-damned-smart designers dream up and convince me that I can't do without it. Sometimes I pause and try to take a breather, lest, according to my pal, I become a virtual, helpless prisoner of the net.

The larger aspect of the problem is this: Together with the numerous print magazines I still subscribe to out of a long habit (most of my favorites are also now "online" and have the enormous advantage of eliminating the piles of unread magazines that pile up on my bedside stand and in the john, causing my wife considerable stress when I insist that I must keep these weighty piles, for articles I've yet to read), the Internet has now infected my brain with recurring bouts of "information overload."

Information overload is a seriously debilitating ailment (I don't think the drug companies have yet found a pill to alleviate this condition) that manifests itself in an odd way--in me at least. When my mind has reached information overload, it compensates by turning toward the nostalgic past. It surrenders to a simpler time. Some would tell me, "Hey, you're just getting old--that's what happens in the opening stages of dementia, Alzheimer's, and any stage of senility." At first I agreed with this diagnosis.

But I'm not so sure, because just like when you re-set a tripped fuse or breaker in your electrical circuitry to restore the lights and power to nest, so submitting to the flow of pleasant images from the past--otherwise long overlooked and buried in those creases and valleys of gray matter--seems to re-set the mind back--if not refreshed, at least capable of plowing through the endless flow of information that the net provides. And if I allow myself to (which I do out of courtesy, if not terribly enthusiastic), I can get double and triple doses of worrisome information by opening the e-mails and links that friends and acquaintances send in abundance. And that is likely, in time, to trip my circuits again.

I find those moments of re-setting unpredictable. For example, while recently debating illegal immigration with a couple of Internet correspondents, I struggled for a way to assure them that this flow of mankind from Mexico and Central America has been taking place much longer than Simcox's Minutemen would have us believe.
WHO TH ISueatyourownris WHOOPS!

CIRCUIT-BREAKER TRIPPED:ENTERING A NOSTALGIA ZONE! CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Images of Felipe and Maria come to mind. They were a lovable, caring older couple who showed up every Spring in the 1940s at my stepfather's little "finca" on the outskirts of Rocky Ford, Colorado in the Arkansas River Valley--famous for fine quality cantaloupes and watermelons that lured hundreds of illegals (we called them "migrants"--probably a PC-turn of an otherwise cruel phrase) to tend, harvest, and pack them for the area's truck farm operators.

Felipe and Maria brought the mystery of the planet to my little world in Rocky Ford; while caring for the 5,000 chickens my step dad raised to make some income on the side of his newspaper editing job, these polite, swarthy foreigners taught me phrases and words in Spanish that made me wonder where these strange sounds were uttered--in fact, now that I think about it, Felipe and Maria planted in my psyche my life-long fascination for exploring the world.

But one summer day my little, care-free world changed abruptly. After a long, care-free typical day that was filled with hours of swimming (and getting massively browned after an initial sunburning) in the nearby city reservoir (forbidden, but tolerated, until the community finally built a swimming pool on top of Reservoir Hill), bicycling between my home just outside the city limits and the homes in town of Jim Bill Grimsley, Tommy Warren, Billy Simpson, and Betty St. John (my first "real" girlfriend) and a mid-afternoon Saturday matinee at the local movie, I found myself manacled by the local constabulary. After hopping on my Schwinn tank bicycle (which I had received the Christmas before and was the envy of my pals), I was waving bye to my pals after watching the Lone Ranger and his faithful sidekick Tonto shoot it out (in black and white, of course) with the bad guys , when a cop (we were taught to call them "policemen," not the more disrespectful "cops") stopped me for "riding illegally on the sidewalk." So off we went to jail in the paddywagon--the cop, me and my Schwinn.

Being arrested, manacled, and thrown into the hoosegow of our small town at age 12 was a traumatic experience, to put it mildly. My parents returned a couple hours later after attending a journalism convention in Pueblo, just up the highway north of Rocky Ford and, of course, had their tear-drenched, soon-to-become-a-hardened criminal released forthwith (I don't recall if bail was involved or not). Although I never understood the real reason for my arrest until years later*, you may be sure I steered clear of anything that bore a resemblance to a sidewalk. Undoubtedly, this is where I acquired a too-deep "respect" for the law that has lasted up to this day. In fact, although it's embarrassing to admit it here, whenever I'm stopped (rarely) for such a mundane matter as breaking some traffic rule, my throat gets dry and I have to try and control my hands from shaking while searching for my driver's license, title, and proof of insurance.

* It seems my step dad, not one to mince words or fail to take up a good cause, had been bad-mouthing (in his weekly Op-Ed column) the local Ku Klux Klan and the City Council to which, as he explained to me 35 years later, membership was controlled and interchangeable within the local "old boys' club." In the 1940s a small Colorado town of 5,000 souls law, order, and rule-making were all pretty much defined and administered in the hands of like-thinking folks. And because they didn't like to be dissed, the word went out to slap cold iron on me for whatever transgression they could discover--I later learned it was an act that was intended to "send a message" to my crusading newpaperman step dad.

And as if for good measure, presumably for having criticized in his paper's Op-Ed section the poor treatment and low wages meted out to the likes of the many Felipes and Marias who populated our area six months every year, we woke up at midnight shortly after my arrest to Maria's screams (she and Felipe had their own one-bedroom hut near the chicken houses) to find a 10-foot burning cross in our alfalfa field just 50 yards from our house. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SIGH!

-----------RE-SET------------

Ah, I feel much better now-- see what I mean about what happens when my mind gets overloaded? It switches to a simpler, more pleasant time (including the KKK and my early experience with the criminal world) and I'm refreshed, as it were, ready for another round of more e-mails, online opinion pieces, and several bloggers--one of whom will predictably challenge my Weltanschauung, requiring me to defend capitalism against socialism (I thought that was a dead subject after the U.S.S.R. imploded in 1981, until newly minted campus Marxists started popping up recently and began lecturing me on the "newly discovered" wonders of socialism). Then tonight, I'll fall asleep after forcing myself to absorb more bad news in my increasingly large pile of magazines that analyze where our world is headed. This cycle will undoubtedly continue, with new images about "yesterday" soothing my raw psyche. If my circuit breaker doesn't trip, then better send me a bouquet of lilies (the cheapest bunch possible, please).

Semantic Silliness

2005-12-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

I think it was Bill O'Reilly (FOX News) who called my attention to the insistence in some quarters on linguistic Political Correctness, namely, the use of phrases such as "Holiday" trees instead of "Christmas" trees by some businesses and institutions.

Now, I confess that Bill has entertained me pretty consistently for several years, because he and I both know his "fair and balanced news" is really a not-too-subtle form of entertainment couched as news opinion--ostensibly without "spin" (wink wink). With the exception of an occasional foray outside this reasonable formula, Bill's turn of a phrase, and his aggressive--sometimes ranting--style often hits current domestic issues squarely on the head. And you can listen to and watch O'Reilly without expending much effort.

Now he says the fight over retaining "Christmas" in our seasonal vocabulary is "the centerpiece in a cultural war" between secularists and religionists. C'mon, O'Reilly--isn't that taking semantics to a whole new (silly or perhaps dangerous) level? But now you've worn out my easy acceptance of the various causes you love to take up, by virtue of your daily whining about how evil the expunging is of the word "Christmas" from advertising modules used by some businesses-- like Wal-Mart and other biggies. You really got my goat when you began calling for a boycott of businesses that wouldn't bend to your thinly disguised theological campaign. I suspect you know that you're playing on the emotions of people who themselves don't realize how powerful identifying ideas with words can be. You're prepping them for taking up the sword against "the Devil" when the time comes (and of course, we know who the Devil is, don't we?)

Although the word "Christmas" or any other linguistic device referring directly or indirectly to "God" is subject to debate among linguistics and other academic pinheads, it is really a non-issue that religionists are trying to raise to the level of a social crisis. Let the nitwits, including the ACLU, militate on the grounds of "church and state separation" if that's what provides fuller employment and mischievous amusement.

But leave middle America out of artificially created turmoil. Left to the "regular folks" who make up the backbone of this country, they will determine what words they will use and which they won't. I wager few of the "regular folks" could care less what word Wal-Mart uses or doesn't use--they'll patronize them if the price and service are right.

As Martin Luther said of his heresy in translating the Bible from Latin into German, "language is that found in the marketplace." Whether "Christmas" and related words should survive in the American lexicon will be determined by the people speaking the language--not the linguistic prigs who are wielding all kinds of axes intended to engineer society in their own private visions. Let's let Luther's dictum work and get on with any of the many more serious issues.

Do Queensbury rules apply?

2005-12-05T09:31:00.000-07:00

Another shocker, or so says the anti-war, anti-Bush, anti-U.S. crowds--HORRORS! The CIA has been accused of maintaining secret facilities in foreign countries, presumably to be able to interrogate high-profile Al Qaida detainees without having to worry about the niceties of U.S. constitutional rights provided in the U.S. judicial system to American citizens.

To my liberal readers and the disconnected armchair warriors sipping their diet green tea and calculating the cost of remodeling their kitchen counter tops with the finest marble or coriander materials: We are engaged in what some have described as the opening chapter of World War III in which the safety and even the existence of our civilization is at risk!

The Queensbury Rules do not apply. We're not playing cricket where the highest refined standards of sportsmanship guide both internal and external appearances of the game. Do the Geneva Rules of War apply? Not if the combatants don't want to play by the rules, like acting on behalf of a sovereign state and wearing identifiable uniforms.

To the nervous Nellies who wish to connect this theme with torture, I say this: The U.S.A. does not embrace cruel and unusual torture as a policy--a long-standing credo expressed in Senator John McCain's recent (unnecessary) "Torture Amendment" that passed 91-9 in the U.S. Senate. On the other hand, in the interest of survival and the protection of our troops on the front lines fighting the beheading bunch, there is no reason that techniques such as "waterboarding," sleep deprivation, temperature control, and other non-life threatening methods should not be used whenever vital intelligence is available and is not offered under up voluntarily under "friendly" circumstances. Charles Krauthammer offers a definitive and lucid analysis of the moral dimensions of what he calls "crossing the Rubicon" in a recent issue of The Weekly Standard. Here's a preview of Krauthammer's reasoning:

GIVEN THE GRAVITY OF THE DECISION, if we indeed cross the Rubicon--as we must--we need rules. The problem with the McCain amendment is that once you have gone public with a blanket ban on all forms of coercion, it is going to be very difficult to publicly carve out exceptions. The Bush administration is to be faulted for having attempted such a codification with the kind of secrecy, lack of coherence, and lack of strict enforcement that led us to the McCain reaction.

Of course, as Krauthammer says, officially embracing such techniques may well stimulate abuse(interestingly, he suggests leaving the military completely out of all forms of coercive interrogation) if they are not applied under clearly defined rules and controlled by intelligent managers. The fact that excesses took place at Abu Grahib under the command of Major General Barbara Fast points to the failure of sound management--an offense that is indictable under the military's Uniform Code of Military Justice (see my post "Female Interrogator" on October 24, 2005, below).

Remember, this operation is not comparable to Auschwitz , no matter how the opponents of the U.S. conduct of the war are trying to paint it! I say give thanks that hundreds of "warriors for Allah," who would lop off your heads in the blink of an eye, are being frustrated, even if they are discomforted from time to time.

And to the armchair weak sisters: Can I say it any more plainly? Start putting something less mind-altering in the Kool-Aide you've been sipping since 9/11/01.

"Planted" Stories in the Iraqi Press

2005-12-05T08:50:00.000-07:00

O.K., O.K., so my conservative skirts are showing! Now allow me to openly plant a little common sense into the "Omigod-I'm-shocked" brigade comprised of U.S. Democrats (no shocker here), mainstream press pundits, and--shamefully--a goodly cross-section of the political party in power!

This isn't a complicated issue. As long as the "planted" stories being offered for remuneration are verifiably true, then to right-thinking folks, this is a no-brainer. In case we've forgotten it, we're involved in a life-and-death war in Iraq. We're fighting not only Iraqi "insurgents" and "foreign terrorists," but an odd coalition comprised of U.S. congressional Democrats, the PC-crowd, mischievous French empire re-constructionists, and others harboring ill-will for the U.S.A. , or even their own odd death wish.

Journalists are holed up in the Green Zone in Baghdad, afraid to go out to see what progress has been made in the reconstruction of Iraq and what ordinary citizens think. So reporting from the struggling country boils down to the daily count of incidents and bodies--both U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqis. After their brief embedded experiences in the Spring of 2003, the post-invasion chapter has not been journalists' finest hour.

So if Iraqi news sources need a little "priming" to balance the largely meaningless reporting efforts of the "U.S. journalist community," then I say great--maybe this will give its members a kick in the posterior to inspire a little more dedication to their profession! And to the sanctimonious cowards hanging out in the government briefing rooms and local Green Zone bars who are now seizing the opportunity to criticize the "ethical standards" of journalism being breached, I laugh in their faces. I disdain their hypocrisy. And mostly I resent the stupidity which they regard me and my fellow Americans.

To the Bush Administration: For God's sake, don't be sucked into this maelstrom of stupidity and moral effeteness! Stand up for what's right, get on with it, and ignore those who--for whatever reasons--are dismayed that U.S. military efforts may be achieving progress, or are simply "stuck on stupid"

The Female Interrogator

2005-10-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

HOW HAS GENERAL BARBARA FAST MANAGED TO STAY UNDER THE RADAR?

Where does the buck stop in the Abu Ghraib scandal ?

You decide.

I became concerned about this question when, amazingly, the two-star female general, daughter of an Air Force Master Sergeant, emerged unscathed in Army investigations into the responsibility for excesses at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. It so happens that I live next door to her domain--Fort Huachuca (pronounced "Wha-CHEW-kah"), which is leased from Sierra Vista, a small town of some 40,000 in southeast Arizona. The sprawling post hosts, among other missions, the Army's training center in intelligence and interrogation techniques.

Major General Barbara Fast set up military intelligence-interrogation in Iraq following the invasion in 2003. Her counterpart, Reserve Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was in charge of the military police, who were the custodians for POWs and other detainees. In addition to the huge facility called Abu Ghraib, she also the commanded three other large US- and British-led prisons, with eight battalions consisting of 3,400 Army reservists.

For a current background on the evolution of the United States’ attempt to develop a viable legal position on the status of detainees and interrogation for intelligence in our new era of warfare—terrorism—the most comprehensive public presentation to date is Frontline’s (PBS) recent 90-minute TV production, provocatively titled: “The Torture Question.” The presentation also examines the Joint Task Force detention center in Guantanamo, Cuba (Gitmo), where certain interrogation techniques were refined and subsequently adopted in Iraq.

In March 2005, just after General Fast finally took command of the post and the intelligence training center responsible for training interrogators (after lying low for almost a year while the Army completed its investigation into command culpability for the Abu Grahib excesses), I e-mailed a fellow retiree on the board of directors of a large local chapter of the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA):

I noted that General Barbara Fast, after finally assuming command of the Post a few days ago, spoke at your last MOAA luncheon. What’s going on? I can't get rid of the nagging thought that her weak command skills surely had a lot to do with why the scandals at Abu Graib occurred. Now, a year after the general’s return from Iraq, the Army “cleared” her of any responsibility for the Abu Grahib excesses. But isn't it surely a profound mistake to place her charge of . . . teaching intelligence interrogation techniques, even if she has learned from her past mistakes. What’s going on? Is the Army afraid to tell it like it really is, perhaps under pressure from feminists?

His response (heavily edited for brevity) was swift and sternly admonishing; I believe his attitude represents a wide section of American opinion:

I am ashamed that this issue has distorted the views and opinions of some fellow veterans [referring to me:ed] who ought to be more supportive of the good things our folks are achieving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and less accusative and second guessing.

I am also concerned to learn that you have become a presumed 'expert' on General Fast's 'command skills.' If there is any 'fault' to be assigned, it ought to be zeroed on the news media/ACLU and the resulting intimidation of the Army Justice System into court-martialing the 'hazing' participants [referring to Specialists Graner, Lynnie England and seven others:ed] instead of reprimanding or possibly issuing Article 15’s for 'behavior unbecoming.'I [don't] believe any of them were acting in on official command orders.

I am glad that folks like General Fast have stood up to uninformed public criticism that has probably caused lesser individuals to step down and prematurely retire.

It’s interesting that, even as reports continue to surface about severe beatings related to interrogations, Americans seem unwilling to accept that their warriors would resort to real torture of their prisoners--especially under orders. The most they seem to be willing to accept is that the incidents were "brief anomalies" carried out by a few untrained “rogue” soldiers--all of which, in any event, they believe amounted to no more than fraternity house “hazing.”

However, it's not my purpose here to allege torture or to try to define it. My concern is whether, after Army investigators determined that inappropriate activity had taken place and the Army decided to take punitive action, all the individuals in the chain of command have been held accountable. As a case in point, it's an unexplained mystery why General Fast, as the highest ranking officer in charge of all intelligence and interrogation operations in Iraq, emerged with entirely clean hands and, counter-intuitively, was rewarded with the command of the Army's center for teaching military intelligence-interrogation techniques, after a year of remaining in "limbo" upon returning from Iraq. The Army owes the American people an explanation.

Now it's time for you to decide. It’s not really as complicated as you might think. After accumulating pertinent facts, the main thing you need to know is the American military concept of orders and the chain of command:

MILITARY ORDERS & THE CHAIN OF COMMAND

All levels of officer and non-commissioned officer schools teach: The individual at any level who issues, receives, or executes an order is responsible for it. The ultimate responsibility rests at the level where the order was originally issued. Delegation of authority does not relieve anyone of responsibility. Therefore, when problems occur, their origin may be traced and resolved by following the chain of command to the level where the order was issued. It is never an excuse after the fact to claim that an order was not clear and therefore misunderstood. If an order is deemed unclear, it is the responsibility of those receiving it to clarify before executing. Finally, illegal orders are not to be obeyed.

This concept was made crystal clear by a high ranking retired Air Force officer writing recently on a military blog (in reference to religious and sex discrimination/abuse at the Air Force Academy):

I have commanded at every level [up to wing and] I have a newsflash: [L]eadership is always responsible for the behavior of the troops. Not only can leaders not condone [inappropriate behavior], but they are held responsible for the environment they have fostered that allows such [behavior] to prevail. Do you really think all Nazis were responsible for the Holocaust? Do you really think all of the South was responsible for segregation? . . . . There is no guesswork about this.

Looking at the actual chain of command below, whatever the specific facts uncovered by investigators in the Abu Ghraib, where do you think the buck should stop?

Notes:

(1) Red denotes INTELLIGENCE-INTERROGATION functions. Blue denotes PRISONER CUSTODIAN (Military Police) functions. In 2003-2004, names shown are the highest ranking officers in Iraq who were found guilty of lapses related to the Abu Ghraib excesses. Maj General Barbara Fast is shown in green because she was the sole exception, despite her position in the chain of command; in fact, she was the only officer authorized to promulgate and approve of military intelligence interrogation methods in Iraq.

(2) The two-way arrows between the two functions indicate the close coordination required between intelligence and custodians (Military Police). This is important to remember, because lots of finger-pointing between the two functions took place during Army investigations, when in fact their activities were closely related, as the chart above shows. So far, the Military Police seem to have lost the contest, if you count the number of low-ranking soldiers the investigators named as responsible (2 enlisted in intelligence, against 7 enlisted and 2 officers in the MPs); of course, General Karpinski was demoted and relieved of duty, although--according to the Army--for "other" unrelated reasons.

Liberals, the Left, and the media are not the only groups criticizing Abu Ghraib--here's a link from conservative The Weekly Standard.

Jazz made palatable!

2005-10-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

Confession! I've never understood or really liked jazz . . .

. . . not until I had put a belt or two under my belt to help me endure it.

But recently I turned on my speakers and downloaded the webpage belonging to the daughter of a friend of mine. I was not only surprised, but astounded that she called her work "jazz"--it's obvious the genre has evolved considerably--and in positive directions--since I originally tried to tune my ear to it. Her name is Stephanie and you're in for a treat if you listen to some of the many samples she has loaded (free) for your enjoyment (see the link below).

I'm certain my dislike for and ignorance of the medium was partially due to certain biases my family inculcated in me--classical music (it has "rules" and rhythms that one can anticipate and even memorize)--and the unfortunate encounter I had with "modern" jazz after enrolling in college. As a 17-year old who wanted to be as "sophisticated" as my peers, I collected the names of stalwarts such as Stan Brubeck, Thelonious Monk, Woody Herman, Dizzy Gillespie, et. al., and invested, with what little money I had for subsistence, in several LPs.

The "in crowd" tutored me that these were musical geniuses who performed without written guidelines or practice--yielding improvisations without equal. Despite my best and honest efforts, to my ear they seemed to be--for the most part--painfully disjointed dissonances. It was my preconceived notion that one should feel uplifted after listening to their noises--or at least some better than before engaging one's record player. However, after a trial run of about a year, I finally gave my LP recordings away--I was thankful not having to stare at them on my bookshelf, making me feel guilty about the money I paid for them through a mail-order record club.

To me, listening to a "jazz session" by these geniuses was like having to make stare for 15 minutes without a break at my print-reproduction of Guernica or most any other disjointed work Pablo Picasso turned out in his "later period"-- that is, after he abandoned his natural ability to reproduce the beautiful forms, colors, and subtleties of the real world. I always suspected the old boy took the easy way out to make a fast buck when he discovered the craving the post-WWII middle- and upper-class population had developed for something "different" in art. I hold the same suspicion today about the surge in music that resulted in modern jazz at the same time.

I haven't had time to research or listen to enough of the very different strains that wafted from her webpage, but what I heard coming from Stephanie's site convinced me that "jazz" has evolved considerably since I bade goodbye to Stan Brubeck and his ilk years ago.

In fact, if you're as ignorant as I still am about jazz, I found a terrific website to ply the history of jazz. After 30 minutes on this site, I now recognize the "jazz" genre is far wider and deeper than I ever appreciated, so somewhere in that vast field I suspect are forms of jazz that might even have met my approval years ago.

In the meantime, if you're seeking a new, vibrant (and disciplined) music form Stephanie classifies as jazz, you can leap over all those years of music history and cut to the chase for some fine listening. Although Stephanie doesn't appear on the rolls of jazz history yet, I fervently trust she may be someday. Listen to Stephanie now.

Bling-Bling! Say what?

2005-10-21T17:32:00.000-07:00

BLING-BLING! Huh . . . say what ?

Normally, I've always tried to be patient, understanding--even admonishing myself for being too frequently "rigid" in my outlook. In other words, I try, as much as is practical, to step away from the mainstream (if I ever fall into it) and stay up on linguistic trends among the generations soon to take charge of running things.

But I discovered a few days ago that I've been totally blindsided, and I'm not sure I can explain why it happened. This time, I may have reached my limit in my flexibility to accept new trends.

If my first impression is reasonably accurate, BLING-BLING refers to the audacious and impractical dress style of gangsta-rappers, East L.A. Bloods and Cripps and other undesirable anti-social groups--right?

Ball caps with the bills placed askew on the head. Sweat shirts that flow freely to mid-thigh, over jean pants that fall over the Nikes, so that the wearer has to tread (or stumble) on them with each step. Finally, the over-sized tee shirts over the sweats, bearing all sorts of blasphemous, outrageous, sexist, and other ignorant "messages."

Time Magazine recently had an article (I only looked in disbelief at the pix and read the subtitles) that seems to confirm--this is for real.

O.K., so I happen to hate this anti-social style, but among the young, my taste doesn't count. What distresses me, however, is that the hundreds of under-educated, outrageously overly paid ball dribblers have adopted BLING-BLING as their preferred "cool" dress mode. Naturally, a good percentage of their pre-teen, teen, and puberty-retarded adult fans will slavishly imitate this anti-social dress style, embarrassing everyone but themselves. Fortunately, it seems I'm not the only one offended by the brainless new trend--I just read somewhere that the NBA has decreed that BLING-BLING dress style by its dribblers would not be acceptable in any NBA-related event. Bravo for the NBA, but I'm not going to bet that this rule will stick; after all, the monsters that sports fans have created now rule their masters.

As a footnote, the gals who hang with the dribbling crowd or their fans are also emulating their male counterparts' dress trends, but that's nothing new--it's an extension of the 1960s "unisex" mentality. But it was part and parcel of feminism's influence on young women and it hasn't receded easily.

A quick check of my 1999 unabridged Webster's doesn't contain "BLINK-BLINK," but Google revealed a very discouraging recent decision by the Brits. Astonishingly, they have already officially added the term to their stodgy, conservative dictionary--the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language. According to our British cousins, it means: "jiggy," "breakbeat," "dopey" and "phat."

Jiggy, breakbeat, dopey, phat!! Except for "dopey" (unless the Brits have another meaning for it), I haven't the slightest idea of what these definitions mean. I only pray they're definitions peculiar to the British dialect, so that maybe Webster's-- if it decides to follow suit and canonize the term--will use some American English definitions I can understand. But at the moment, I stand naked (linguistically speaking) and helpless. I think I now know how a speaker of, say, Urdu, must feel during the first week of instruction in English when his instructor says, "Look it up in the dictionary!"

Wasn't it Judge Robert Bork who wrote Slouching Toward Gomorrah? Perhaps I ought read it, especially if the Judge offers suggestions on how to rationalize BLING-BLING. And where is Bill Cosby when we need him? Or in even framing that question, am I beginning to tread on racial sensitivities? I'm assuming I'd be vindicated for this possible insensitive transgression when I can prove that lots of white guys (Latinos don't count, because I suspect BLING-BLING has its origins in their culture) are also stumbling on their over-long pants.

Have I finally reached the linguistic Jordan? Should I stay put on this side of the river, or should I wade in and head for the other side?

Would my being blindsided by this linguistic surprise have been avoided, had I at some time in the past watched even one full length MTV program? Come to think of it, I now know what BLING-BLING refers to, but where the hell did the words BLING-BLING come from?

C-Span: America's Mirror

2005-10-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

C-SPAN: America's Mirror

C-SPAN (Cable-Satellite Public Access to News) celebrated its 25th anniversary last week.

Until I began to tune in now and then to C-SPAN’s call-in show “Washington Journal” I was always puzzled why politicians pander unabashedly in their speeches by using a variation of the phrase, “the wisdom of the American people.”

If you’ve ever listened to any media call-in show, you know there’s no shortage of opinion on anything. I mean anything! And that was the secret of what turned an unlikely, frumpy, unexciting pseudo government TV network into a 24-hour, advertising-free media phenom.

Politics, economics, the law, origins of the universe, planetary phenomena, nuclear physics, bio-engineering, foreign affairs. . . you name it, there are hundreds--nay thousands--of tuned-in experts waiting out there, ready to opine on any subject you can dream up.

In fact, it’s a safe bet to suggest that C-SPAN (Cable-Satellite Public Access to News), a TV format that, but for its daily call-in show, would have folded within months of its birth for being the world’s most boring concept: showing hours-long live shots of soundless, dead legislative chambers. But Brian Lamb, the “father” of what most pundits had preordained as a gigantic TV flop, discovered the talk-show/call-in format that would attract not only a respectable number of viewers, but millions of them—for one reason only: its seven-day-a-week, three-hour early morning show, featuring personas of the entire social spectrum. They come prepared to appear on camera and present information relative to their area of expertise and then to field questions and opinions—mostly opinions as it turns out—from that fecund body of informed citizens who wait patiently on phone-hold for their brief moment of fame when they publicly engage an renown expert. Many of them are convinced that their presentations are of vital importance to the country (or even the world, on occasion) by prefacing their oratory with exhortations such as "Americans--listen to me. It's important for the future of your country."

The guest experts must come prepared for more than just sharing their knowledge with America--they must be prepared to defend their expertise against the “citizen experts” who call in from Arkansas, Illinois, California, Texas, Indiana, Alabama . . . from anywhere a phone connection can be made to one of C-SPAN’s three call-in lines. (It’s curious to note that these lines are not toll-free, but that doesn’t seem to bother callers who sometimes must queue on hold for up to 30 minutes or more, before the moderator either ushers in their live calls, or run out of time, dashing the hopes of the expectant experts.) And now that satellite radio is up and running, C-SPAN’s reach continues to expand to every earthly niche!

To illustrate, here's an imaginary snippet of a few minutes on the Washington Journal:

C-SPAN Moderator: This morning our guest for the next hour is Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, recently installed by the United States Senate to replace the recently deceased Chief Justice Rehnquist. This morning we’ll be discussing the professional qualifications of nominees to the nation’s highest court, the United States Supreme Court—most especially his personal experience of undergoing partisan criticism of Senators during the approval process. Our lines are open now. Good morning, Justice Roberts. You’re a seasoned lawyer and judge in a lower court and, as many of your admirers have called you, a life-long student of and passionately dedicated to the law. You’re also known as a solid conservative voice. Please tell our viewers what you believe will be the most important factor to becoming an effective Justice—even leading the eight other Justices, all of whom have years of seniority over you on the Court.

Justice Roberts: Good morning. It’s a privilege to be able to discuss with your C-SPAN viewers and listeners my recent appointment to the Supreme Court and my philosophy I will apply whenever possible. To begin with, your audience probably already knows that I consider myself to be first and foremost a jurist who does not believe it’s in my place to make new law, but simply to determine whether the law that has been challenged and placed before me is within the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution.

Moderator: You’ve been described as a “strict constructionist,” would that be an accurate characterization of your judicial philosophy?

Roberts: Yes, that would pretty well sum up my outlook. You see, the three branches of our government-—the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial-—were created to provide a balanced, three-legged stool, as it were, upon which our nation could sit comfortably without fear of falling off. If the Court decides to initiate new law that departs from what the Legislative Branch—the Congress—has created, then it has fitted the stool with one larger leg than the other two, causing it to become unstable.

Moderator: Aren’t you saying, in effect, that while the Court has oversight over the other two branches, no one has oversight over the Court? In other words, the Court could, if it wanted, become the dominant voice of government. Before you comment, Justice Roberts, we have several callers waiting. Let’s take the first call from Sacramento, California. Hello, Sacramento—it’s very early where you are. What question do you have for Justice Roberts?

Sacramento Leftist: Look, Mr. Roberts, I don’t mean to call your hand so early in your tenure as a Supreme Court Justice, but it’s not my fault that you risked coming before the American people on C-SPAN this morning--it’s important you know how 50 percent or more of the American citizenry feels about you. I don’t mind telling you to your face, sir, you’re nothing but another tool of George W. Bush’s fascist government. Your role—-and don’t try to deny it—-is to set up a kangaroo court to do Herr Dubya’s bidding, to make sure the law is shaped to insure that he and his criminal cronies keep their grip on our government.

Moderator (interrupting gently): Caller, what’s your question for Justice Roberts? Let’s try to focus on asking questions of the Justice.

Sacramento Leftist: O.K. then let me ask you Herr Puppet Justice: Was it Herr Bush himself or his SS-minister, Oberpropaganda-Fuehrer Karl Rove who found you somewhere in the woodpile? So when do you intend to pass a law declaring the Constitution suspended like Adolf Hitler did?

Roberts: Caller, I appreciate your concern for our government, but I think you’ve vastly over-interpreted President Bush’s view of his role, much less mine. As for your slurs, equating the president with Nazi Germany and Hitler, I think most Americans don’t share your rather extreme viewpoint. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll place your question about suspending the Constitution in my outbox labeled “Irrelevant.”

Moderator: The next caller’s from Bluefield, West Virginia. Good morning, Bluefield.

Caller from Bluefield (pronounced drawl): Thenk yew fer takin’ mah call, C-SPAN. Ah’m a furst-time callah, so ah’m a tad nervous, O.K.?

Moderator: Welcome. Take your time, no need to be nervous.

Bluefield Caller: Well, I jes’ wanted to tell the new Judge thet he’s got a big job afore him, considerin’ thet thangs in Washington is all messed up, whut with them Liberal folks thet hate their own country, and all. I jes’ hope the Judge’ll set the record straight and throw them commies outta there. Thet's all I gotta say. God bless and good luck, Judge.

Moderator: Callers, for the record, the proper title for Mr. Roberts is “Justice,” not “judge.” Next call is from Phoenix, Arizona. What’s your question for Justice Roberts, Phoenix?

Caller from Phoenix: Good morning, Mr. Chief Justice. It’s a privilege and pleasure to talk to you—we have a lot of faith that you will restore the Supreme Court to its proper place—as the arbiter for the people, not as our nanny. My question for you Mr. Justice is this: We had a recent case in Scottsdale having to do with eminent domain, that is, we were hoping the recent Keho ruling that allows communities to obtain properties if they are deemed . . . .

Roberts: Yes, I’m familiar with that ruling, and . . . .

Caller from Phoenix: Well, I know you are, because I listened to your testimony before the Senate Committee on Keho. But here’s what I want to tell you. Our state Supreme Court ruled against the community, citing Arizona state law that evidently supersedes federal law.

Roberts: Yes, that’s correct, states may make their own decisions on whether and how eminent domain will be applied—they’re not obligated to follow the Keho decision and are largely unaffected by the controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision, unless states should rule in a way that contravenes their own constitutions. This ruling, Number 04-108 issued in July this year, simply allows states the latitude, should they want to exercise it, to exercise their powers of eminent domain in a broader context than the Fifth Amendment meant it.

Caller from Phoenix: So you condone the Keho ruling, do you?

Roberts: Condone? Not necessarily. In fact, the Keho ruling probably exceeds the language of the Fifth Amendment. Let me explain . . . .

Caller from Phoenix: There you go, Mr. Justice, that’s what happens to you people. Once you taste power, you immediately turn against the people. Look, I had to study the Fifth Amendment in a government course I took for my AA degree two years ago, and . . . .

And so goes the remainder of Justice Roberts' hour (as well as the remainder of the three-hour talk show): It's the rare caller who asks a question that recognizes the expertise of the guest. Despite their obvious lack of knowledge, they would not recognize the fact—they’re all exercising their “knowledge” (and their First Amendment rights--they're all very much up on the First Amendment, even if the other 26 Amendments would draw a blank from them) and don’t hesitate to lay it all out there, convinced that approximately 8 million listeners are absorbing every syllable of their enlightened utterance.

It’s amazing to listen to America on C-SPAN—any day of the week, and no matter what the topic of discussion might be. I now know why politicians pander to the people when they preface their remarks with something like, “I defer to the wisdom of the American people.”

They’d better, by God, if they want to get elected!

Testing our resolve!

2005-10-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

TESTING OUR RESOLVE

Here's a "chain-letter" e-mail I received today. Although it was probably initiated by the Secretary of Defense's Public Information Office, it offers a perspective of Iraq most Americans (and the world, for that matter) don't have. It was entitled:

"OF COURSE WE DIDN'T KNOW!"

How could we, with all the “noise” generated by world-wide, anti-American media?

Let’s review the facts. Did you know that,

· 47 countries have re-established their embassies in Iraq?

· the Iraqi government currently employs 1.2 million Iraqis?

· 3,100 schools have been renovated, 364 schools are under rehabilitation, 263 schools are now under construction and 38 new schools have been built in Iraq?

· Iraq's higher educational structure consists of 20 Universities, 46 Institutes or colleges and 4 research centers, all currently operating?

· 25 Iraq students departed for the United States in January 2005 for the re-established Fulbright program?

· the Iraqi Navy is operational? They have five 100-foot patrol craft, 34 smaller vessels, and a naval infantry regiment.

· Iraq's Air Force consists of three operational squadrons, which includes 9 reconnaissance and 3 US C-130 transport aircraft (under Iraqi operational control) that operate day and night, and will soon add 16 UH-1 helicopters and 4 Bell Jet Rangers?

· Iraq has a counter-terrorist unit and a Commando Battalion?

· the Iraqi Police Service has over 55,000 fully trained and equipped police officers?

· there are 5 Police Academies in Iraq that produce over 3,500 new officers each 8 weeks?

· there are more than 1,100 building projects going on in Iraq? They include 364 schools; 67 public clinics; 15 hospitals; 83 railroad stations; 22 oil facilities; 93 water facilities; and 69 electrical facilities.

· 96% of Iraqi children under the age of 5 have received the first 2 series of polio vaccinations?

· 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary school by mid October?

· there are 1,192,000 cell phone subscribers in Iraq and phone use has gone up 158%?

· Iraq has independent media consisting of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers, and 10 television stations?

· the Baghdad Stock Exchange opened in June of 2004?

· two candidates in the Iraqi presidential election had a televised debate recently?

· the nationwide constitutional referendum passed on October 15th?

I answered with the following return e-mail, which I post here--not to illustrate an original perspective--but to record candidly that even my determination to "stay the course" is being tested (if I'm losing heart, I wonder about my fellow Americans out there):

NOW, if only someone'd throw the main to deliver electric power 24/7, re-establish regular garbage pick-up, water and sewage services--at least in Baghdad! That, added to the reported progress in all the other projects cited--together with a restoration of a regular rhythm of life by eliminating the destabilizing insurgent/terrorist attacks--will restore the confident rhythm of life for the average Iraqi citizen, finally allowing us to leave that beleaguered country with a clear national conscience (NOT as we did from Vietnam).

The nut of the problem is that insurgency/terrorism is so rampant and widespread that it's neutralizing our good (and very expensive) efforts, because it's impractical to put an armed guard out with each garbage worker. If we can't stamp out or politically neutralize the insurgents/terrorists--yes, that includes NEGOTIATING with the bastards--it'll soon end in a Mexican stand-off or devolve into an endless war of attrition. Fiscally or politically--we can't afford either outcome.

Bush has three years to see this through. If not fixed (or well on the way to getting that way) when the next administration takes office--whether Dem or GOP-- it'll be another "tuck-tail-and-run operation" (behind familiar Nixonian withdrawal slogans such as "peace with honor"). My prognostication may not hold even three more years if the administration becomes mired into the muck of allegations of criminality (Valerie Plame affair), sleaze (Abramoff and his proteges), and cronyism (FEMA-Mike Brown or SCOTUS nominee-Harriett Mier). And frankly, the president's "spontaneous interview" by feed-TV from Iraq with a dozen GI's didn't do much for my morale. Maybe I was unduly influenced by an angry and politically biased, but nonetheless excellent, op-ed piece by Robert Higgs this morning.

You can tell--my resolve is being tested. I don't know about you, but my sphincter is beginning to pucker, and I'm not even responsible for the war and reconstruction. I often wonder the state of that anatomy belonging to those who are. For that matter, I'm also wondering just how the prez's is holding up. I won't pray for him. Instead, I'll pray for Iraq and the future of America. These are indeed critical, but very stressful days!

NOTE: Here are the blogs of a couple of young Iraqis (with links to their families' and friends' blogs) who will give you current real-world, hands-on insight into what everyday life is like: www.healingiraq.blogspot.com and www.astarfrommosul.blogspot.com . Surfing a few minutes will reveal that blogging is a hugely popular and interactive medium among Iraqi citizens.

Evangelizing the Military

2005-10-13T16:32:00.000-07:00

Evangelizing the Military
Just a pen stroke away!

The Air Force Academy continues to struggle with social forces. The most widely known diversion from the Academy’s mission are allegations and investigations of sexual discrimination. Although the Academy evidently hasn't got the problem completely under control, it finally appears on the verge of doing so.

Even more serious is what has come to light as a disturbing distraction that was about to become a very ugly and dangerous trend: religious intolerance. If this problem isn’t quashed decisively and rapidly, it will become a long-lasting, heavy yoke for the Academy to bear, with consequences for our military establishment that are frightening to contemplate. The Air Force just recently began taking steps to address this problem; it will be interesting to see how aggressively it moves to exorcise it at the Academy. Even more interesting would be a thorough internal review of how pervasive the problem is in the other academies and throughout the military community at large.

Putting the responsibility where it belongs: That these problems exist at all points out where the responsibility lies--squarely on the shoulders of Air Force leadership and the leaders it designates to run the Academy. What weaknesses (or strengths) that manifest themselves at any level of the closed military social order are the direct result of the failure (or success) of leadership--starting at the top.

The easier of the two problems to deal with was the 1976 integration of females into the three service academies. It didn’t take rocket scientists to anticipate, plan for, and solve problems before the first female cadet arrived. Unfortunately, the planners viewed the problem as limited to logistics. That is, they failed to adequately anticipate the attitudes (or, in today’s lingo, “culture”) that would greet women when they first arrived. Thus, for almost 30 years, the cadet corps at the Air Force Academy was left to its own devices—to accept females as equals or not. When sexual harassment and abuse began to surface by the reporting of some gutsy female cadet-victims, the Air Force finally was induced by Congress to shake up things: By admitting there was an attitudinal problem, and then by finding leaders equipped with the appropriate attitudes and leadership skills to repair the damage done over three decades. Today, thankfully, signs finally point toward a healthy resolution of the sexual discrimination problem.

But when it comes to religion, the problem—not as predictable as the sexual discrimination problem—is much more subtle and insidious, as is the challenge to Air Force leadership skills. To begin with, the problem has a very emotionally charged background. For example, if you (or an Air Force officer charged with administering policy at the Academy) are one of the 80 percent or more Americans said to identify themselves as firm believers in God, then at first blush you’ll probably see nothing wrong with the service academies having a robust religious program. In fact, that’s the way it has always been in every service academy since they were founded. But the vital difference today is this: Religion has always been recognized as a highly personal and—here’s the key—a completely voluntary activity.

So what’s happening today? How can leadership be blamed for a problem that 80 percent of us would say isn’t a problem? Some analysts even assert it’s not the lack of leadership promoting and backing religious activities in the Academy, but too much of it and for the wrong reasons. I’d take it one step further by blaming the leadership that didn’t notice or purposely ignored “mission creep,”that is, the fact that the “religious right”—a euphemism for the evangelical sector of the broad American religious panorama--had gained tremendous influence in the U.S. Air Force through its Chaplain Service Corps. This phenomenon parallels the rapid growth of this sector during the past decade. Just as analysts noted that George W. Bush rode decisively into his second presidential term on an unanticipated surge of support from the “religious right,” so too is this force the same that has been busy asserting itself inside the military—down to the point of codifying its dogma in official Air Force doctrine.

Concrete evidence of how deeply the “religious right” has penetrated the Academy was revealed in the recent Air Force announcement that it had withdrawn an ethics manual that allowed its chaplains to “instruct and/or evangelize” members of the military not affiliated with a particular religion. A recent Reuters article highlights these surprising “ethics guidelines” in connection with a law suit filed against the Air Force:

Air Force Academy cadets have complained that evangelical Christian leaders on campus used their positions to push their religion and one Jewish graduate, who has a son enrolled at the academy, filed suit in federal court last week to force the chaplains to stop proselytizing.

The Air Force said a Code of Ethics statement issued by the Air Force Chaplain Service in January stated: "I will not actively proselytize from other religious bodies. However, I retain the right to instruct and/or evangelize those who are not affiliated."[emphasis added]

The Air Force said these guidelines were "withdrawn for further review" on August 10.

"It was pulled to be reviewed following the release of the interim religious guidelines that were put out" on August 29, said Air Force spokeswoman Jennifer Stephens.

These guidelines warned against promoting any particular religion in official communications or meetings, athletic contests and ceremonies and cautioned against pushing "religion over non-religion."

A team from Yale Divinity School said in April it had found evangelical Christian proselytizing commonplace at the Air Force academy, in Colorado Springs and described a chaplain telling cadets they would "burn in the fires of hell" if they were not born-again Christians.

My take: This sort of activity has no place in a closed society such as the Academy or, for that matter, in the wider military services. Before the present heady days when the “religious right” came to enjoy its new found status in our society, the climate inside the military community was always strictly apolitical and non-invasive.

I can speak from my own military experience that goes back to 1951 as a young cadet in New Mexico Military Institute (NMMI) in Roswell, New Mexico--a respected, U.S. Army-accredited, commission-issuing institution akin to Virginia Military Institute and the Citadel. During my three years in that private institution, where it would have been very easy for proselytizing to become officially installed as part of “a wholesome curriculum,” never once did I feel pressure from the institution or from my fellow cadets to attend chapel services that were strictly voluntary. This attitude and policy were consistent with that of all the military academies since their founding and the military establishment in general.

How the system has always worked: In 1963 I was associated with a relevant incident while stationed in Berlin, Germany. A first lieutenant of the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) persuasion had instituted--at the beginning of their daily duty shifts--a mandatory “prayer service” for his 50-man duty contingent. The lieutenant’s senior non-commissioned officer reported this development to me in my capacity as the operations officer staff assistant. After observing the lieutenant’s next duty shift, I confirmed that indeed, he was supplicating the Lord to bless himself and the men under his control before they commenced their daily toil in the service of the American people.

Although the Air Force (or any other military service) had no policy at that time—written or otherwise—nevertheless, we were the descendants of a long, unwritten policy in which religion was strictly a voluntary activity on a serviceman’s off-duty time. On the strength of this tradition my boss, a young black major, didn’t hesitate to act decisively. He ordered the lieutenant to cease and desist, pointing out that government time was not his to covet for any personal or religious reason. He explained to the chagrined officer—who countered with the argument that, in order to avoid the major’s “on government time” logic, he would simply require his men to show up five minutes before their official duty time—that he would risk a court-martial for issuing an illegal order under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The lieutenant, a functionary in the local Mormon Church, made noises to the effect that his church might escalate the matter to the level of the Secretary of Defense, but his more prudent elders in the LDS hierarchy must surely have nixed that move as folly. Case closed.

This is where leadership at the Air Force Academy has been wanting. Someone, somewhere along the line when religious dogma began to make its appearance in official “ethics guidelines”—as we now discover covered not only the Academy, but the entire Air Force structure—leaders failed to step up and invoke the simple, common-sense tradition articulated and enforced by my young black Air Force boss in 1963: Religion shall not charge the military (and the taxpayers who sustain it) time to proselytize.

Religion is a very personal matter that must remain voluntary, especially within a closed, hierarchical military society, where it would be all too easy for its zealots to codify a religious particular dogma as an “inherent” part of that social organization. That’s exactly what the Air Force Chaplain Service “ethics guidelines” were intending to do. And what better place to put this code in place than the Air Force Academy—the heart of the Air Force’s source of its future leaders.

Had this development not been exposed, it was only a pen stroke away from finding a permanent place into one of the Air Force Manuals that dictate every phase of operational life of its service members (as opposed to the off-duty, personal life for which no manual does or should exist) .

In the interest of full disclosure, the author was an Air Force officer who taught German language at the Air Force Academy from 1970 to 1973. This should explain any apparent biases he may hold in favor of the Air Force Academy in this essay.

Color me colors!

2005-10-09T17:36:00.000-07:00

DON’CHA JUST LOVE POP PSYCHOLOGY? or
Color me colors--

Now look—please don’t laugh or snicker! I’m about to make a painful confession, because I’m doing it in the interest of research into modern pop psychology and to possibly save you from blowing $22.50.

I just paid that amount to get a download “analysis” of WHO I AM. I’m a sucker for these things, ever since my father-in-law—normally a stable man (he was a wheat farmer in eastern Colorado, following a failed career as a chiropractor in Los Angeles . . . well, now that I think about it, maybe he wasn’t that stable, after all)—introduced me to a system that, by observing the shape of people’s faces, you could figure out “WHO THEY ARE.” He assured me in 1960 this was no mere parlor game--it was serious stuff! He had invested in a book that probably cost the equivalent of today’s $22.50.

As I recall the idea, there are four basic types of facial structure: round, oval, triangular and square. The most sensitive (and, as I recall, the most preferred by the authors) types were people with triangular-shaped faces—these people were intelligent, creative, and extrovert (presumably the best personality type to be), while the most sensible types were the square-faced persons. The book contained tear-out pages printed with charts that you could use to do your analyses, referring to the chapters arranged around these four types, listing the various characteristics, including their good, bad, and best points. A few minutes scanning the “positive” and “negative” characteristics of each facial type and . . . voila!

Today, zealots have refined this analysis, extending facial shapes considerably, presumably because of their tireless "scientific research;" you can check it out quickly at this LINK.

At about the same time the more “serious” analytical tool was revived: Handwriting Ana lysis (graphology).

This tool was developed in earnest during the same era (18th and 19th centuries) as Phrenology—feeling the lumps on skulls to tell what kind of a person owned them—and became especially popular about the same time as Freud’s method of finding out WHO WE ARE, having to do with the elusive ego, the id, and the super ego.

In the 19th century, Freud and his followers, as we know, established the European School of theories in an attempt to establish a new "science" of the mind. How successful this "science" has been is open to debate; my own bias is reflected in this essay.

While Phrenology has generally run its course and is seen today to be fraudulent "science" (except for a few on the fringes today), Graphology was raised from obscurity and is still a tool that fascinates a wide range of people interested in finding out WHO THEY ARE. Handwriting (which advocates confidently call "brainwriting") is still a popular parlor pastime and to a considerable extent, after being very widely used in the 1960s by corporate employers to make hire and fire decisions, is still practiced, albeit more sparingly, by some human resources people; it is also occasionally used in the investigative phases of law enforcement.

Not slow off the mark was the American School—stimulated, curiously, by the Soviet search in the 1920s and 1930s for the predictable, productive, ideal “New Soviet Man” (Pavlov’s experiments with bells and salivating dogs comes to mind). The American credited with developing the “self-realization/actualization hierarchy”—a brave attempt to pull together the loose ends of the European and Soviet theories of an evolving new industry—was Abraham Maslow.

Americans love to simplify wherever possible, and Maslow managed to do this by tying the loose ends of the various theories floating about at the time into a neat “package.” He then developed an easy-to-understand set of rules by which mankind can be defined and classified. His efforts were represented by his “pyramid” or “triangle” consisting of the five levels ("hierarchies") of human "needs." It’s so simple that now almost anyone can become a practitioner of the mind with minimal effort. Indeed, psychology departments in the academy were given new life and began to expand almost overnight; eager students--many themselves in need of help--were introduced to monkeys' need for love (this was the domain of Professor Harlow, Maslow's friend and mentor) and rats were rewarded when they successfully found their way out of mazes (conversely, the poor things were jolted by electricity when they didn't). In short, advanced phases of the mind industry were born and their practitioners were convinced that they now possessed the power to help people find meaning in their irresolute lives.

From monkeys and rats, the professors made a quantum leap to the proposition that people too could be similarly classified into little compartments; then, if suffering from lack of esteem or other undesirable social traits, they could be treated by dealing with their lack of fulfillment of one or more of the five “needs” (starting from the top of the triangle: "actualization," "esteem," "love-belonging," "safety," and "physiological"). Of course, in addition to the wonderfully simple triangle, you'll need Maslow's textbooks that present in a handy format the “symptoms and treatments” that, if diligently applied, will lead yourself and others to Happy Land.

ENTER THE PARLOR COLORS ASSESSMENT SCHEME: I came to know the newly packaged and updated parlor game online the other day for $22.50. It's called “Color Assessment”--a variation of its predecessors. After answering a mere 24 questions, this system will tell you--as long as you answer the questions honestly (as the authors admonish you before you begin)-- WHO YOU (REALLY) ARE. As in the other "mind games," that's the first step to either avoiding mental anomalies or to extricating oneself from them.

The company assured me of the system’s "scientific" basis (although it doesn't explain just how or why it's “scientific”) and how it can be made even more useful by sharing my analysis with my friends and colleagues for their comment. Frankly, I can't shake the feeling that this is really a crass pyramid marketing appeal--I have 30 days to name as many friends and colleagues to whom I want to expose my innermost self on the company's website, inviting them to log on and have a go at me—a kind of internet group therapy session. (If you think I'm going this far in "sharing" with you . . . what do you take me for?)

After (honestly) answering the company's 24 questions, here’s my chart of colors that tells you and me WHO I AM:
Of course, to understand WHO I AM, you’ve got to have access to the following analysis, which, if you look closely, you’ll recognize Maslow’s hierarchy at the levels of "Actualization" and "Esteem":

It turns out that Green is a great color to have; the company spared little effort in heaping praise on me. My need for ego stroking was amply fulfilled--so that (so far) I’ve given little thought to demanding a refund of my $22.50.

Green: Your Strength is Knowledge

If your brightest color is GREEN, you feel best about yourself when solving problems, especially when your ideas are recognized. You seek to express yourself through your ability to be an expert in everything, and your idea of a great day is to use your know-how to create solutions. You are a complex individualist with great analytical ability. Although you do not express your emotions openly, you do experience deep feelings. Greens are Happiest when Using Ingenuity

Those with GREEN as their brightest color have curious minds, exploring every facet of a problem or idea to control the realities of life. Global by nature, and always seeking universal truth, they acquire skills to perfect and product or system on which they choose to focus. They are symbolized by the abstract thinker, the unknown challenge of outer space, the complexity and simplicity of design, and the symmetry of forms.

With GREEN as Your Brightest Color, You Tend to . . .

· Dream of truth, perfection, and accuracy
· Value answers, resolutions, intelligence, and explanations
· Regard efficiency, increased output, and reduced waste
· Dislike injustice and unfairness
· Express coolness, calm and collected reservation
· Foster inventions and technology
· Respect knowledge and capability
· Promote effectiveness, competence, and know-how

Analytical self-assessment: Now that I know I possess all these characteristics, I'm wondering what went wrong in my life? Will I now have to deal with a tendency not to plunge into despair and permanent depression, knowing that I evidently somehow failed to achieve the greatness I was obviously destined for?

Note: The above summary evaluation doesn't include an in-depth explanation for the orange, gold, and blue components shown in the graph. At first this was a bit disquieting, because it occurred to me that these colors, in close combination with green, might reveal such a negative result, that the company daren’t publish it (except, of course, for another $22.50 and a confidentiality agreement). But to be fair, I suspect the complete analysis lies somewhere in one of the boiler-plate PDF file formats they sent me and which I haven’t perused yet—I'm confident the company wouldn’t risk shortchanging me with $22.50 at stake!

Ah, the never ending efforts of the “mind industry!” If you can’t get ‘em into the office and onto a couch, you can always sell 'em parlor games. Frankly, I’m not as critical of them as this essay might suggest—I believe the “mind industry” is far less dangerous to humans (probably more productive and definitely cheaper) by peddling their parlor games than they are with the patients whom they manage to get into their offices and onto a couch.

Post Script: If you want to save $22.50 for this latest twist on pop psychology, e-mail me and I’ll send you the 24 questions (never mind what the "answers" are, because there are no right or wrong answers) as well as copies of the downloads for nothing--it's exactly the same material you'd get if you were to invest your own $22.50. Then referring to this material, select the color that seems to fit you best and simply arrange your chart that will result in the most complimentary outcome--after all, the fact that you're interested in knowing WHO YOU ARE automatically puts you into the top categories of the "self-actualization" triangle. Anyway, that's about all the online company would do for your $22.50. (Note: I withdraw this offer if I later discover that the material is clearly and specifically copyrighted--the company might mistake me for a big-time writer with deep pockets and go after me in a frivolous lawsuit.)

Minuteman "sells" his newspaper

2005-10-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

SOLD! What's behind the "sale" of the Minutemans' newspaper?

Chris Simcox, founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC), recently sold the Minutemans' newspaper, the Tombstone Tumbleweed. The following are excerpts from the tiny weekly newspaper, located in the high desert tourist movie-set village of Tombstone, Arizona:

Simcox said he bought the paper in the first place to serve the community and he feels he just cannot do justice to both the border security issues and the paper at the same time. Selling the Tombstone Tumbleweed was a very difficult decision, but Simcox stated, “The needs of the community are too important and should be in the hands of someone who will serve those needs properly. . . .”

The Tumbleweed gained international notoriety by bringing attention to internationally-resonant border issues when Simcox began Civil Homeland Defense in October of 2002 and then co-founded the Minuteman Project last April with Jim Gilchrist. . . . Between the newspaper and the website the partners expect to become a premier, international news service focusing on Tombstone and Southern Arizona.

Sometimes, I just hate it when I become suspicious of others' motives, but I can't help thinking that the Horatio Alger spin Chris Simcox put on the reason for his "sale" signals another, more likely story! In 2002, Simcox bought the tiny failing weekly, which was never a serious journalistic or money-making enterprise--at least not after the last big shoot-out around 1889. Chris landed in Arizona after giving up his tough public school teaching job in Los Angeles and, according to his own statements, after spending time wandering in the desert (along the Arizona-Mexican border, of course).

It was during this period of seeking his higher purpose that he was overcome by a profound sense of indignation and patriotism while witnessing first-hand the waves of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S.A. Soon thereafter, he linked up with Jim Gilchrist of California who, considering that Chris was penniless, evidently became Simcox's "sugar daddy" and bought the tiny Tombstone weekly newspaper.

With Simcox installed as editor, the paper became the mouthpiece and business office for the Minuteman Project. Gilchrist, by the way, is not a newcomer to the border protest movement--he has been long associated with Glenn Spencer (at one time branded a "hate supremacist" by the Southern Poverty Law Center), another long-time California activist, also relocated to Arizona in 2001 . Until Spencer was arrested in 2003 for shooting up a neighbor's property with his .357 Magnum in an upscale Sierra Vista (AZ) neighborhood, he had been very active and highly visible in recruiting local MM-type border patrol volunteers. Spencer launched his own unmanned aerial vehicles to fly and photograph the border area, relaying the movement of illegals to his volunteers on the ground. Spencer is good at getting media attention; he has been the subject of many press reports in California and in 2002, he was a guest more than once on FOX News, Bill O'Reilly Show--appearing at least once with Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO)--C-SPAN and Donahue.

I don't know whether the Simcox-Gilchrist-Spencer "Triad" had already forged a relationship before they relocated to Arizona, or if their alliance is of a more recent vintage. However, they're apparently working together these days, if this notice I pulled off an anti-immigration reform website is any indication:

October 7-9 2005: TUCSON, AZ - White Supremacist Glenn Spencer of Voices of Citizens Together, Chris Simcox and others are expected to speak at something called "Borderfest 2005", a three-day hatefest against immigrants at United Sports Arizona Race Park, 4300 E. Los Reales Road Tucson, AZ 85705. [Ed.NOTE: Without explaining why, the keynote political speaker, Randy Graf (R-AZ)--who is seeking veteran Jim Kolbe's (R-AZ) seat in Congress--withdrew at last moment on 10/6/05, causing the organizers to cancel Borderfest 2005.]

Now that the Tumbleweed helped secure the national exposure Simcox and Gilchrist sought for their Minuteman Project, it'd be a good guess that the "sale" of the paper a mere three years later to three fellow MM "businessmen-enthusiasts" was arranged in order to recoup Gilchrist's initial investment, as well as to realize some profit for them both, using the money now flowing into a foundation from donations by sympathetic Americans. The organization grew rapidly after national and international media shone huge spotlights on the much touted "volunteer border patrol" organized last April along short stretch of Arizona-Mexico border. It was truly a fortuitous media success, but it had nothing to do with the Tumbleweed "serving the community" of some 1,500 souls.

On the surface, there's nothing wrong with Gilchrist and Simcox arranging the "sale" of their MM Project's newspaper front to fellow MM enthusiasts, even if it was an illusory transaction ( although some of the many donors to the MM Project might see it otherwise). But the timing of the sale, seen in the light of other closely related events, does make one wonder why Simcox is trying to create the illusion that he sold a business that he pulled out of the ashes--a tiny newspaper with no meaningful subscriber or advertising bases (and little prospect of developing them without money from MM supporters), to an employee and two fellow MM enthuiasts, neither of whom have much if any business or journalism experience.

Without support from the MM Project and its newborn twin, the MCDC, there is no chance the paper--even with its neat modern website--would ever become more than what it has been for many years: A quaint bit of Western Americana, kept alive by preserving the facade of a frontier town that once consisted of whorehouses and saloons--a lore kept alive today by recreating shootouts between gun-totin' O.K. Corral look-alikes for snowbirds looking for "live" winter entertainment.

My guess is that none of the principals intends the paper to become the "community voice" of the tiny tourist village with a population of about 1,500--as Simcox claimed in his "sale" announcement. But it will continue to function with the wider mission that Simcox and Gilchrist lent to it three years ago, and will continue to do very well as long as the MM Project remains viable and continues to attract support from individual citizens.

When organizations with considerable political and financial potential rise like the Phoenix from the ashes--veiled by a cock and bull spin--it's hard to ignore the olfactory senses when they detect the odor of a story somewhere not far below the surface. Not to be forgotten is the fact that Simcox's "partner," Jim Gilchrist, recently threw his hat into the political ring, running for congressman of California's 48th district, with strong backing from Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), a consistent advocate of immigration reform pushing, among other actions, the closure of the U.S.-Mexico border. It's no coincidence that the Tumbleweed regularly features Tancredo's and Gilchrist's politics (finding interesting "hometown" news would be very problematic in this tiny desert village of a mere 1,500 souls). Watch for new, interesting moves from the Tancredo-Gilchrist-Spencer(?)-Simcox-Minuteman/Civil Defense Corps alliance.

Wherever the formula money+ politics = power emerges, there's an excellent chance something interesting's going on. And there's no better issue for ambitious politicians to work than the illegal immigration problem, out of which the Minuteman Project and the MCDC grew--with the Tumbleweed as its mouthpiece. Whatever the fortunes of the MM Project and the weekly, you've gotta give the men behind the movement credit for bringing the little historical remnant out of oblivion and into the sunshine--it hasn't had this much activity in the past 100 years!

However, if you're an investor, I'd advise you not to rush into any future offering by the Tombstone Tumbleweed, based solely on Simcox's puffery that in three years he converted a failed little village weekly into an imminently powerful force of the Fourth Estate. That might not be the smartest investment decision over the long haul.

Postscript: Without the fanfare of last April's patrol activities, the MM, apparently with new on-site volunteer operational control, began its activities in the month of October on the Arizona border. Local coordinators said they're doing their duty this time around with more stealth and a very low media profile. We note that FOX News has been doing its "live" border reports from the California-Mexico border with the U.S. Border Patrol without reference to the Minutemen.

Linguistic Political Correctness

2005-10-04T12:15:00.000-07:00

Linguistic Political Correctness (LPC): Its Unintended Consequences

I’m white, so I can’t use the word “nigger.” To do so today automatically brands me in everyone’s eyes as a racist—at least a suspect or latent one.

You’re black, so you can use the word without stigma anywhere or at anytime—especially if you’re out to ruffle my comfort level. In fact, if you’re Chris Rock, you can flaunt it often, loudly, and widely—and make millions of dollars doing it. During any of his sexually-based, racially top-heavy routines, no one will mind if I laugh at the “n” word, but once outside the theatre, I’m not permitted to.

Just as Detective Mark Fuhrman found out on the witness stand in O.J. Simpson’s murder trial, despite his testimony that he’d never used the “n” word in his life, no one believed him for a second. Why? Because he was white (and a police officer). His denial so infuriated prosecutor Marcia Clark and her black assistant, Christopher Darden, they decided to wander off into one of the trial’s many distractions to prove Fuhrman had actually used the forbidden word. Their sleuthing soon dug up a tape on which Fuhrman was heard using . . . . Aha! See! That proves white guys are thinking and using the “n” word behind our backs! While this revelation discredited Fuhrman’s testimony concerning his personal language habits, it actually cast a negative light on the prosecutors and may have subtly influenced jurors’ attitudes during their final deliberations.

What’s going on here?

Could it be that “learned” behavior (as opposed to “innate” behavior), which modern psychology asserts is ultimately influential in the development of our personas, hasn’t been influential at all? That is to say, people’s thought processes seem not to have been altered by forbidding their use of certain emotion-laden words that are inherent in our vocabulary.

Jim Crow reborn? In fact, could it be that suppression of certain verbal habits is actually creating an undesirable internal backlash--a modern form of Jim Crowism?

During the 60s when the “consciousness” of American black culture was “being raised” by Martin Luther King and more militant organizations like the Black Panthers, American English progressed rapidly through a linguistic evolution when confronted with trying to level the racial differences playing field. “Negro” was discarded in favor of “black,” which soon gave way to the current preference: Afro-American. (I suspect that, if semanticists could only invent a word that doesn't arouse the mock cynicism of European whites who are tempted to describe their ancestry as “I’m a Anglo-American,” or “I’m a Danish-American,” or "I'm Slovenian-American," Afro-American would be on the way out.)

So after almost half a century, if us white guys are still thinking and occasionally verbalizing the "no-no" words in private, could it be that we’re still no closer to solving the “race problem” in this country than we were when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation? Is it possible that Linguistic Political Correctness (LPC) is primarily aimed at white guys and gals and is behind a half-century period of gestating frustration that could manifest itself as a sudden cultural backlash?

Is Dr. (PhD) Bill Cosby on to something when he talks to audiences of black parents, teachers, and kids and lambastes them for clinging to and even inventing more layers of negative social habits that retard their assimilation into the American cultural mainstream? Cosby has especial disdain for black “street language” which a couple of California school districts have attempted to legitimize by labeling it “Ebonics” and including it in the schools’ curriculum as an “alternative” form of English language (if you can believe our educational system has sunk so low--more on this later).

But back to my theme: Are we white guys silently reacting to the semantic repression that has been imposed on us since the 1960s? Is this repression already causing even wider rifts of resentment between the races, instead of altering the tendency toward racial bias? If so, are we actually developing a higher, more pernicious attitudinal barriers between the races? Despite all the advances the black community has achieved the past half-century, black organizations such as the NAACP cite statistics which demonstrate the advances have not been proportionate to their percentage of population in any measurable area.

This unique American linguistic dilemma has spread to relations among other races as well. Take the case of Chai Vang, at this moment on trial for slaying six white hunters with his high-powered hunting rifle. Chai is a Muong tribesman from Laos who immigrated to Wisconsin more than 20 years ago, but found assimilation among the heavily Germanic stock was not easy. Apparently, the slain hunters and Chai had had many run-ins over the years in various settings, but this time Chai exploded when they encountered each other while deer hunting. The exact circumstances of the encounter are not clear—the ongoing trial is attempting to determine this. However, it is known that their previous encounters were always laden with tension and just enough insults (“slant-eyes,” “gooks,” and similar Vietnam-era verbiage) uttered under their breath that an unhealthy relationship evolved over the years, exploding during early evening hours last year.

Is it possible that Linguistic Political Correctness (LPC) was actually the basic cause of the profound levels of resentment in both new immigrants and local citizens? Were the two sides actually prevented by LPC from communicating with each other honestly and openly about their prejudices, problems, and lifestyles? And had they been able to freely communicate with each other when Chai and his family entered the community, would that have contributed to forging a different, less violent attitudes?

If anyone doubts the power of spoken words, they need only remind themselves how their own emotions can be quickly raised to fever pitches under the most ordinary situations—a real or perceived slight to you or your family can bring most people unglued. But just how quickly an appropriate explicative or a good "chewing out" (even if not in the person's presence) can bring beneficial cathartic release—defusing the frustration. It’s easy to imagine the internal pressures that would build internally if we were required to repress our reactions during the course of these ordinary situations, multiplied in frequency over time—that is, to pretend nothing had happened. Yet that's what happens to a lot of us ordinary users of language.

A Polish-born professor of linguistics, Alfred Korzybski, broke new grounds in semantics between 1920 and 1940 with a unique theory of how people function--"General Semantics," only tangentially related to semantics as we usually think of it. He described how most people, unless taught how to deal consciously with the psychology of words, “reify” them—that is, they actually try to transform words into reality by over-identifying with what they think they mean (or what they'd like them to mean) and then try to live and force others to also live accordingly. Professor Korzybski laid a foundation for a modern generation of semanticists such as S.I. Hayakawa who tried to teach people how to apply the adage in their daily lives, “Sticks and stones won’t break . . . . etc.” Or as Alice wondered in her conversation with Humpty Dumpty, "The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things." To which Humpty Dumpty answered knowingly, "The question is, which is to be master—that’s all."

During a very critical period of social development in the U.S. (the 1950s and 1960s) people weren't very interested in and today show just as few signs of wanting to learn these critical skills. Most of us, when cornered, continue to adopt a confrontational attitude, elaborated by the Queen (was it?) in The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland who told Alice defiantly: "Words mean just what I want them to mean."

Unfortunately, semantics has remained the province of the academy. Perhaps, had it been seen as a vital “real life” skill to be widely taught to our kids, Chai Vang wouldn’t be on trial for murder today. In fact, it is possible to surmise realistically that the level of antagonism between people and races might have been significantly lowered--had we understood how not to “reify” words in the course of our everyday conduct, which is shaped largely by words, i.e. person-to-person communication.

More lamentable is that Washington's officialdom, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights--charged with implementing the many tiers of non-discrimination policies, regulations, and laws involved in affirmative action programs--didn’t understand the dangers of verbal “reification.” So they gave us the platitudinous, "We mustn't use words that hurt" (indelicate, rude, inappropriate, vulgar, race-baiting). So all the well-meaning, but linguistically uninformed citizens drew up a list of words that might "hurt" someone. Thus was born Linguistic Political Correctness.

Would there have been a different outcome if our “Great Society” leaders had known something about semantics? Instead of purging our language lexicons of “inappropriate” language, what if they had promoted the publication and distribution—at the community level—of "rules" relating to human behavior and language? Might this approach have underwritten a different outcome in our interpersonal relations today?

Look again at Chris Rock’s routines that play on his audience’s discomfort with racial biases by repeatedly using and re-using “forbidden” words. Doesn’t he lower the pressures among everyone listening to him, if only for an hour or so?

Or take Ann Coulter, while leaving obscenity to Chris Rock, who makes a similar breakthrough in her books and TV appearances by talking bluntly about political undercurrents that LPC effectively represses. By daring to throw those things in our faces and by using "no-no" language that political antagonists aren't used to hearing, Ann manages to arouse levels of emotion that aren't normally displayed among "sophisticated" politicos on radio and TV--she's not healing, but deliberately applying semantics in order to antagonize and agitate--a useful outcome in many circumstances. She proves that the sword can cut both ways! (Ann and I are both NJC alums--we were only a few months apart, but look where we ended up . . . as I write this blog to myself!)

Might today's “offensive” words have become less insulting had we learned about their emptiness? Might we have developed a whole different approach to understanding each other had we learned something about the words we use? It’s probably too much idealism to wonder whether such an open approach to language might have led to positively altered behavior among people with racial and other differences? We could not have done worse.

ID cards: who's on first?

2005-09-29T13:23:00.000-07:00

Flip-flop on National ID Cards

It wasn't that long ago when it was the political Right that jerked its collective knee reflexively, whenever the subject came up ("Real Americans don't carry ID cards!"). In case you haven’t noticed, the flip-flop on National ID cards is complete. It was carried out with the same subtlety as the classic 2004 campaign “Kerry cherry” (“I actually voted for . . .” etc.).

What's going on? According to the Left, it boils down to (surprise, surprise) suppression of voter rights. Today their argument goes like this: Issuance of ID cards is a nefarious right-wing scheme that would return the country to the days when black voters were banned from voting, by imposing "just another form" of long-since outlawed reading tests and poll taxes.

That was the presentation one of the many ACLU fellow-travelers made yesterday (9/28/05) during his 30-minute presentation on C-Span One’s Washington Journal.

The ACLU and its allies now reason that to require a photo ID of all American citizens is first and foremost a right-wing racist plot designed to reduce voting by Afro-Americans, the poor and the underprivileged. Continuing this foray into silliness, the argument goes that proposed legislation pending in Congress would deny eligible citizens an ID card because of overly strict requirements to prove citizenship. In addition, they say that thousands—maybe millions—of senior citizens, the hospitalized, and the ill would also be disenfranchised. How so? Because these good folks, the C-SPAN guest explained, wouldn’t be physically able to present themselves at ID-card issuing authorities because of their infirmity. This particular Left-wing advocate also threw in what I’m sure was his own ad hoc epiphany--inspired during a heated exchange with a caller who questioned his thin logic—namely, that the pending congressional legislation would accept nothing short of an original birth certificate as adequate evidence of citizenship.

So what’s the real beef? As plainly as we folks who live in the desert near the border with Mexico and who have to daily deal with the “invasion” can put it: Illegal immigration is an extraordinary and growing drain on our social and education resources—aggravated by voter fraud.

Ever since Chris Simcox, America’s self-appointed immigration “sheriff”caught the attention of the American people last April with his Minuteman Project, movement toward border control and immigration reform is finally beginning to surface, even if at a tortoise-like pace. This legislation recognizes that the first critical component in devising realistic immigration reform is our ability to know who are and who are not legal residents. Sincere parties to the reform movement agree to this logic, and most agree that this would be most efficiently accomplished by issuing National ID cards.

However, what has been happening in recent months is that taxpayers in the border states (Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas) have been growing increasingly impatient in light of state budgets that are spiraling out of control due to the costs of providing free social, educational, and medical welfare to illegal immigrants.

Voter pressure for reform coincided conveniently with the National ID card controversy last November when Proposition 200 was put to the citizens for a decision. We responded decisively with a loud collective “no”! "No" to automatically doling out our taxes to anyone who asks, without being able to establish their bona fides. Proposition 200 is straightforward and simple: It requires everyone, citizen or not, who seeks social welfare or who wishes to vote, to present adequate verification of their resident status with an "acceptable form of evidence." Even among us rank and file “Joe Voters” in Arizona, Proposition 200 was a very welcome and easy-to-understand no-brainer.

Unfortunately, after the citizens spoke the Left--led by our Democrat Governor Napolitano-- has been busily doing everything possible to block implementation of the Proposition 200, citing their worn-out mantra that citizens would be denied their rights by having to show identification--and besides, identification cards are an unconstitutional imposition. In January when our will was supposed to be implemented, the Governor directed her Attorney General to seek a temporary injunction. After her blocking action expired a month later, the Governor has continued to drag her feet--for example, she refuses to define for state employees what form(s) of identification they should ask for and accept as "appropriate" forms of eligibility. Should hospital emergency rooms deny patients services if they aren't legal residents and/or citizens? Or should public schools stop accepting the children of "undocumented" immigrants? For that matter, should the children who have been enrolled for several years be disenrolled if their parents can't present "appropriate" forms of eligibility? Admittedly, these are sticky questions. So implementation of Proposition 200 remains in limbo--many Arizonans say their will is being deliberately thwarted.

But the plot thickens! As though trying to appease our protests, the Arizona Governor, along with Bill Richardson, Democrat Governor of our neighbor New Mexico, this summer declared a “state of emergency.” She still hasn't explained to us and we are not sure what that move was supposed to accomplish (for example, the National Guard hasn't been called to man the border--in fact, at the border, it's business as usual), but Proposition 200 still goes unimplemented, by virtue of benign neglect. What we suspect was tactic designed to the Arizona masses, Governor Napolitano made the news for a couple days by sending U.S. Attorney General Gonzales in Washington a bill for a whopping sum she calculated Arizonans have paid to maintain illegal immigrants. So far, General Gonzalez has not responded with the hopeful words, "The check's in the mail" and in the meantime the “invasion” continues--we Arizonans continue to pay for the "invaders."

This may be the crux of the problem: Fully understanding the scope of the illegal immigration problem requires realizing that Arizona has long been especially vulnerable to voter fraud at the polls. Arizona requires absolutely no form of identification of voters at any level of registration—nothing, nada, nichevo, nichts! If you’re an illegal immigrant and have been “urged” to vote, you don’t even have to register in advance. You simply walk up to any voting station and request a ballot (which are, of course, conveniently printed in Spanish, if that should make any difference to a coached, illegal voter). The volunteer workers are not allowed to question or impede your intention to vote, nor ask for verification of your eligibility. In fact, one of the helpful attending citizen-volunteers will even assist you, in case you’re not familiar with voting booths and other unfamiliar devices. The only snag you might run into is having showed up at a voting station not corresponding to the local address you choose to use upon your arrival. But not to worry! Friendly volunteers will direct you to the proper location to receive your vote and, if you don't know where it is, they'll probably take you there. Arizonans don't want to be thought of as not being friendly to "voters.”

The galvanizing theme of the ACLU and their allies in their campaign against National ID cards now becomes crystal clear when you hear their key piece of logic (made repeatedly on C-SPAN yesterday): Issuing National ID cards would "prevent widest possible voter participation.” That’s about as close a confession to the truth of the matter, when you consider how requiring an ID card would check the corrupt interests that have too long usurped the rights of citizens who respect the privilege of a special American sanctuary--the voting booth.

Now you know! From an "insider-taxpayer" in Arizona.

Assessing Journalism

2005-09-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

ASSESSING JOURNALISM

Maintaining a blog is demanding. The discipline of writing every day (and, hopefully, while thinking at the same time) is a task I haven't had to fulfill for several years. Not that I don't have ideas--the environment is much too filled with them. It's a question of assessing them and trying to decide what makes them worthy of massaging and, most important, what will attract the interest of readers. That is, what might be "important" or "interesting" to me may be so far out of the loop that I end up writing for one person--myself! That's just about as narcissistic an activity as I can imagine.

The New World of Journalism! In search of an anchor, since my last post on 9/25/05 I've been surfing the Blogosphere several hours a day--to read what others are writing, in search of clues I might profit by in my struggle to give my writing (and thinking) a little bit more oomph. As anyone who surfs the Internet discovers, entering the Blogosphere is like logging onto infinity--one moment you're reading the musings of someone in Phnom Penh, the next in Bolivia, the next in Semipalitinsk . . . places I've never heard of--and I'm pretty well traveled. It's fascinating to find out that people are, as the cliche goes, pretty much the same anywhere. As charming as that is, the fact is, the horrible realization begins to make itself distressingly palpable: The clear majority of bloggers I've read so far are living a life of "quiet desperation" as some philosopher (was it Jean Paul Sartre?) observed. Thus the Internet becomes for them their psychologist, their priest, their counselor, their friend--or at least so they hope! It seems to be a cold, dark infinity out there (or did I miss the sector that's emitting positive, creative light?)

Except for an occasional little jewel that came squirting out of the ether, I wasn't particularly fired up with fresh insight or inspiration after several hours of searching. So I've decided to turn back to examine the fundamentals of writing. Let's start with: What is the purpose of any form of writing? It's to teach, to amuse, or to inform. I've dabbled in all these forms, but I've decided that, in order to contribute something meaningful to "life," journalism--the old-fashioned kind-- is my choice and should be the choice of anyone who wants to make a difference with words.

What's "old-fashioned" journalism? There's lots of room in the New Age Blogger World for old-fashioned journalism. This brand of writing assumes the practicing journalist is first an honest person, dedicated to plying the profession with belief in the "noble purpose" that used to be observed before the Watergate era of journalism drastically altered the "noble" part of "purpose." After Woodward and Bernstein, the purpose shifted to "gotcha" scoops,with emphasis on political leaders. And yellow journalism took on a very deep tone, wherein peer recognition became so important that practitioners resorted to inventing stories. The epitome of blatant immorality was achieved by New York Time's Jason Blair. The sickness wasn't restricted to the younger generation: CBS's Dan Rather's inflated ego led him to believe he had become an infallible national news "institution," entitling him to bear false witness in front of his viewers.

My kind of journalist must be detached long enough to be able see through the "noise" (i.e., the trees in the proverbial forest) that obscures the "truth" we're seeking. Then he or she must capture that "moment of truth" with just the right number of words, chosen for their economy, yet capable of maximizing the "illumination" of the forest. Even the lowly cub reporter, assigned to a period of professional purgatory to the local police blotter should strive to invoke this spirit by examining its apparent lifelessness with the goal of "reading" the unfortunates who appear on it, as well as the system that put them there.

Should we demand that journalists have advanced degrees? "Cerebral" writers are almost universally terrible writers because they have never been encouraged to learn the wonders of the economy of thought or wordcraft. In fact, just the opposite! While traveling the road to their academic credentials, they're actually encouraged to bloviate. They learn early on to hide the fact that they don't really understand their subject, or they have little or nothing to add to the subject. What they learn to do is "repackage" the knowledge that a few great thinkers have already recorded. In order to do this successfully and appear to be honest students, they must "attribute" their plagiarism effusively (with footnotes, etc.) while rearranging, repackaging, or rephrasing original knowledge. That's why their articles in "peer journals" and their books that university presses publish are usually always huge tomes that evidently are valued by weight, as opposed to content. The material usually appears to be so eclectic because of purposeful (albeit often unconscious) obfuscation, it ends up on "required reading lists" of their hapless undergraduate students. PhD candidates are required to pass through a gauntlet of the extraordinary demand to "pad" their theses with words--a process that can take years before receiving approval and awarding of the sheepskin. Then, after finally ascending to professorial positions within universities, the new PhDs soon encounter the dreaded "publish or perish" dictum that must be fulfilled if they are to secure their career safety net of "tenure." Intellectual padding never ends in the life of an academic. Students mostly learn in spite of this form of writing, beginning with their very first essays. It's the rare academic who can meet the honesty and truth standards of journalism. I say, let them continue to write for obscure, scholarly journals--not for mainstream journalism where truth is the object.

I'm modstly qualified to reveal this little secret about academe, having been "inside" it as student. While enroute on that road to intellectual serfdom, I managed to snag two advanced degrees, but when the time came to commit my time and energy to bid for that vaunted ultimate sheepskin, I simply wasn't able to muster the conviction that I would be able to--as they say in the PhD business--"contribute to original knowledge." That's the caveat by which PhD candidates are urged to believe that whatever their thoughts or their word-processors henceforth might produce will be so profound or significant enough to justify using the pretentious and slightly misleading title "Doctor" in front of their names.

O.K., so why require journalists to have a college degree at all? There happens to be a solid case for this proposition. It might surprise some people that journalists don't need degrees, certificates, or any specialized training, for that matter. In fact, there are excellent reasons why non-journalists may well make better practitioners than the ones who have come to believe in their self-importance by virtue of academic degrees awarded by journalism schools. Among the many examples I could cite, my favorite is Mark Steyn, a regular contributer to National Review, who writes brilliantly in any genre he chooses; by his own admission, he has little more than middle school education. Boasting a bit more formal education, there's Andrew Ferguson, who has cut a wide swath in "mainstream" journalism as well as the Blogosphere (although he seems to shift his Weltanschauung a bit too often for my comfort). In fact, my "alma mater," National Journalism Center, capitalized on the assumption that better journalists could be moulded if they participated in six-month long, intensive, hands-on internships without being previously brainwashed by formal university-issued journalism degrees . The success and presence of hundreds of NJC's graduates at all levels of the media over the past 30 years bear concrete witness to this proposition.

So to aspiring "old-fashioned" journalists, take heart! As a motivated thinker dedicated to searching for "truth," you will begin as a liberated functionary in the world of communications. Your task is essentially two-fold: (1) Discover the "forest" with the power of your native-given mind, and, (2) Describe it in such a way that a photograph reveals itself quickly and easily in the minds of your readers. (A note on my earlier comment about "detachment": You needn't be an emotionless, insensitive zombie in the course of searching for "truth," but you never to allow your emotional "content" to color, distort, or spin the truth or--as taught in journalism classes--you must never become "part" of the story). After discovering the "truth" in your subject, you definitely should allow your personality to influence your wordcraft--that's how the good and great journalists achieve distinction and fulfillment in their profession.

A reminder to journalist-aspirants: Your path may not be easy to practice, but at least it's easily visible. Academics may pad their pages with colorless, meaningless words and they may obscure truth using the label "academic freedom." Faddish journalists will come and go with rapid regularity. And bloggers . . . well, in this wild and wooly, unregulated medium, they will have to prove themselves responsible and capable--time and the market place will separate the wheat from the chaff. Your and my kind of journalists have only one goal. Their domain is to practice and deliver economical, bright, illuminating images that reveal the truth--from the first day out on the hustings.

Potpourri

2005-09-23T14:08:00.000-07:00

ODDS & ENDS

The following are seven items I’m not able to treat in depth (probably to your relief), so here's my quick take on these bits of Americana.

iPods & American Concentration Camps: Time Magazine (September 19, 2005) reports admiringly: Steve Jobs is a techie-business genius for making the tiniest, thinnest, most powerful device yet, due to hit Wal-Mart in time for Christmas shopping. Why is this one on the left better than the one shown on an old Newsweek cover? Answer: You can now store up to 1,000 songs and various photos on the one on the left. Therefore, Time predicts it's going to sweep the iPod market (I guess that means teenagers and wastrel young adults who use these things). Someone actually asked me a couple weeks ago why I didn’t have an iPod (until then, I hadn’t the vaguest idea what it is). Although I'd like to think I’m the kind of guy who tries to stay on top of the "tech curve," here’s one gadget I can’t imagine I’d ever be interested in paying for! You've gotta wonder at the emotional level of an average adult over the age of 35 (or a serious adult over age 21) who needs the continual din of noise blotting out the brain waves 24/7. But, struggling to be "cool," I tried hard to imagine under what circumstances I might possibly use a collection of up to 1,000 songs and photographs on a credit-card sized device. The only thing I could come up with is after the Black Helicopters (see my earlier post on conspiracies) have relocated me to a concentration camp--it might be a way to while away the hours after periodic torture sessions by Blackwater Security forces! You do know, don’t you, that the Loony Left has pinpointed these secret camps, authorized by the president and established by ex-Attorney General John Ashcroft? Except for a few camps that contain Muslim and profiled Muslims being held incommunicado and who are daily still being swept off America's streets in the aftermath of 9/11, the others are being maintained in mothball status--ready for action at the drop of an Executive Order (or something). Oh? You didn’t know all this? Well, check it out yourself on American Concentration Camps where you’ll also find lots of other links, in case you want to become the complete expert on the subject.

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Long Overdue. Finally! Dr. Laura Schlesinger, the tough-love, radio therapist shock-jock, announced it yesterday (9/22/05). In a steady, pitched rant, she revealed how the Association of American Psychologists has finally and officially debunked the two-decades-long scam that gave false comfort to thousands of stressed, wannabe-liberated females, while terrorizing thousands of parents and growing into a huge industry. During sessions in the shrinks' offices, women were coaxed to “recall” how someone in the past had sexually abused them--usually someone in the family. Then when these unfortunate patients begin to recall, under increasingly intense coaxing--usually over a period of time (naturally, it typically takes a number of high-priced sessions to achieve full results)--the ladies were instructed by their therapists to accept the fact that all their present problems stemmed from this deep repression (requiring more hourly therapy sessions, naturally).

Even more evil was the related industry of psycho-terrorism that was shaped and wielded by zealous psychologists who "discovered" yet another facet of the human mind which they called the "repressive sexual abuse" syndrome (or some similar mumbo-jumbo). Left to practitioners to experiment with this invention among the inner circles of their university laboratories would have been one thing. But before this hypothesis had been thoroughly tested and rejected as "high art of ridiculousness," the zealots rushed their "discoveries" to the public where they were promoted to the level of modern Salem witch trials, abetted by prosecutors who lost all sense of judicial objectivity and prudence. Hastily trained in this newly discovered syndrome, psychologists wrote manuals on how to coax innocent toddlers to “recall” how their caretakers, teachers, and parents engaged in wild sexual abuse--typically involving bizarre and physically unlikely instruments such as egg beaters, toys, knives and so on. Thank God, this insanity finally has been roundly debunked, although this comes as scant comfort to the citizens wrongly humiliated and imprisoned.

Now, if only someone would also take a shot at the hopelessly distorted and confused field of “Applied Psychology”—to examine how average, normal citizens are being harmed with a lot of Freudian and post-Freudian mumbo-jumbo instead of exposing them to a few basic concepts such as “ethics,” “honesty,” “personal accountability,” and the difference between “good” and “bad.” But then that would mean the rapid demise of a very large industry, including the most recent evolutionary monster that was spawned by the massive failure of Applied Psychology: Pharmo-Psychology: (Definition: "If you can't make 'em conform with psycho-babble, then give 'em a mind-altering chemical --works every time.") A middle-aged psychiatrist I talked to a couple years ago could scarcely contain his excitement over the success he was having with the Orwellian techniques. He outlined how frustrating his career had been for 15 years using applied clinical psychology. "So when I took up the 'pharma' route, I was astounded! I began having a response rate of 90 percent almost immediately." When I asked him (innocently) whether "response rate" meant "cure rate," he lectured: "That's not the point. The fact that a nearly comatose patient, after a few doses of lithium, may actually begin to respond to his environment--now that's exciting." I had the feeling my psychiatrist friend had not leveled with me about some important issues involved in his mind-alteration experiments. When I asked him if he knew the chemo-biological reasons for the reactions, he was incredulous: "What difference would it make if I knew why?" Well, O.K., doc, whatever! What I do know is that the nasty tentacles of this "exciting" new industry already have reached down into classrooms where its practitioners are doping our tots with Ritalin and other new compounds-- whenever teachers complain that their charges display "attention deficit disorder-like symptoms"-- turning them into compliant little zombies, and incredibly--with the complicity of parents! I'm sure glad my kids finished school before this Brave New World descended on them.

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Dr. Laura scores again! Until yesterday, I hadn’t heard much of or about this hard-hitting radio talk-show therapist . But what I heard yesterday raised my hopes for America's eventual restoration. That would mean the discrediting and discarding of a scam that has been perpetrated on American womanhood the past 30-plus years: The liberated woman, as preached by the School of American Feminism. Besides having irretrievably damaged a full generation of women, it is now completing the “demasculinization” of the country's male species. Ever since my own wife became infected with this new gospel and even after trying to understand and accommodate her quest to “find herself” (a slogan later modified by U.S. Army recruiters: “Be all you can be!”--recently morphed into "An Army of One"), I had been trying to figure out what I had done to deserve this treatment. I soon encountered the second stage of a fully liberated feminist-in-progress: Her demand that I surrender my manhood by asking me to compromise the traditional family environment and rearing of my two sons (10 and 15 years old). That was it! I would brook no compromise. Our negotiations came abruptly to an end--divorce was the only option, even though taking custody of children meant the significant redrawing of my ambitious mid-level military career, and considerable disruption and disorientation of the kids. Until now I’ve often been judged as a rigid and an unsympathetic person who, for everyone's better interests, should have found a way to compromise my sons' needs to accommodate my wife's experimental path onto which she had been lured by the surging Feminist Movement. Dr. Laura is now signaling that, in the long painful haul, I am being vindicated in my decision, and that one day, in the not-too-distant-future, the damage that the “Women’s Liberation Movement" has done to an entire generation of men, women, and children will have run its course. Thereafter, we will be able to reconstruct ourselves by nurturing wholesome, uncomplicated relationships between men and women that constitute a healthy family unit--thus returning us to the natural order of things.

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Ohmigod! Ted Turner turned diplomat??!! Sometime this week Ted returned from an unofficial trip (hopefully) to North Korea. Reportedly, he made the trip in order to personally bless initial successful multi-nation efforts in negotiating North Korea’s nuclear program into some sort of suspended animation (in return for promises of lots of critically required things like food and development of the country’s infrastructure).* These days, Ted is increasingly incoherent to my ears. This time, as incredible as it sounded at first hearing, he reported the following: He saw no evidence of hostility toward Americans, even on his tour of the DMZ (hosted, of course, by North Korea). He also saw lots of happy, smiling children—not the thousands who are reported in the Western press as starving. In summary, he allowed as how America can now turn to solving other problems, because the half-century long problem between the U.S., South Korea, and North Korea had finally been solved. Sounding a slightly “radical Left” note, Ted added, “North Korea was never really ever a threat.” Well, the only note I should probably add is that Ted’s slurred speech suggested that he was probably thoroughly soused the entire time he was on tour with Club North Korea and still hadn’t sobered up when he gave his report to journalists as he debarked in LAX. He didn’t say, but I trust he was going to call on and relate details of his diplomatic efforts to his ex--his nutty “flower child” soul mate, Jane “Hanoi” Fonda.

*Don't anyone hold your breath. This sounds suspiciously like the "deal" the Clinton-era Secretary of State, Madame Albright (who also gushed about how "sophisticated" and "charming" Kim Jong-il was) arranged in 1997: Korea promises (wink-wink) to shut off its nuclear weapons enrichment program in turn for American billions in wheat and other grants and subsidies. Remember what happened after Bush took over? The tin-horned, fine cognac-swigging dictator-clone of his deity father, reneged on the bargain with a hissy fit. Simultaneously, he made great public theater out of reopening the country's nuclear facilities, declaring he would resume his weapons production. The motive, of course, was to pressure the new American president who correctly tagged the rotten throw-back to Atilla the Hun a member of the "Axis of Evil." How is it that we Americans seem to fall for anyone who grins nicely, doesn't show the blood of his victims on his dinner jacket, and is able to charm the likes of the doddering fool, CNN's mogul Ted Turner?

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Why do I feel safer? Honestly, I’m not making this up (although I will confess that the thought passed by me briefly after Governor Kathleen Blanco fell apart when Katrina stared her down). I caught the following quip while pounding my keyboard—it came from our blaring TV set in the living room (I keep it on—occasionally the other half of my brain catches significant tidbits). It was a feminine voice responding to one of the endless inane finger-pointing questions from TV interviewers about the New Orleans disaster. She said: “I can’t put my finger on it, but is it wrong that I feel safer knowing a man is heading emergency planning efforts?”

This lady evidently hasn't heard about Mayor Nagin of New Orleans.

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Louis Farrakhan--his latest outrageous statements: White supremacists blew up the levee nearest the black section of New Orleans (I’ve a certain amount of tolerance for conspiracy theories—see my blog post “Is that helicopter overhead coming for me?”—but this goes well beyond my capacity). Speaking of helicopters, Louis has taken it another step--evidently, he's contacted the same spaceship in orbit that was supposed to pick up the California bunch who thought it was waiting behind the Hale-Bopp Comet a couple years back. Louis announced that Allah willed this vehicle and its purpose will be soon known by all of us. And then there’s his pronouncement that Katrina and approaching Rita are instruments of Allah's revenge on the corrupt infidel country, the United States. He called the hurricanes “righteous winds of Allah” (this metaphor reportedly was issued in a recent fatwah by Iran’s chief Shi’ite Iman). If there weren’t so many loonies running loose in the country and ready to believe this and any other nut with a slick conspiracy line, I’d say let’s color ol’ Louis as a vaudeville clown. However . . . .

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Fascism. I’ve had it with those misguided, under-informed people who are misusing this word these days. On C-Span this morning Jonah Goldberg, a politico-comedic writer online reminded me how this word is being so widely and innocently misused by the “sheeple” (sheep-people) who mimic loud political orators using it maliciously. Worse than that, it’s being misused by the Loony Left as a terrible sword to wound political opponents. This latter group also includes academic progressives on many American campuses, as well as the salon-set embedded in various fashionable propaganda organizations--such as the Dr. Howard Dean's Democratic National Committee, down the line to Michael Moore's moveon.org and his patsy, Cindy Sheehan (who today, if you didn't catch it, was spanked by Big Momma herself, Hillary--yes, that Hillary, who is trying to nudge to the political center, and you can't do that by letting "fringies" take your spotlight).

If people had an inkling of what fascism was and how it was employed from 1920 through 1945 by National Socialist regimes in Europe by functionaries of the sickest regime in mankind’s history, then they would be ashamed to use the word "fascism" to characterize an American president or the people in his administration. Because the Leftie Loons have been reading and using his books today, it was unfortunate that all Josef Goebbel's books on how to manipulate "sheeple" weren't also destroyed the day he and his Fuehrer destroyed themselves, their wives and children while cornered like rats in the Berlin "Fuehrer Bunker."

The Nazis' worst nightmare R.I.P.

2005-09-21T09:27:00.000-07:00

The Nazis' worst nightmare! R.I.P.

Talk about pit bulls ! Simon Wiesenthal, Nazi headhunter extraordinaire, was pronounced dead yesterday at age 96. After a half-century, he is credited with locating and coordinating the snatching and take-down of more than 1,000 widely scattered remnants of the short-lived Thousand-Year Reich, including S.S. Colonel Adolph Eichmann, the icily efficient administrator of Hitler's Endloesung ("final solution") of European Jewry.

Mr. Wiesenthal had all the credentials he needed to undertake his self-appointed mission. He spent the war years in Mauthausen concentration camp (near Linz, Austria) as a condemned Jew who, when the American Army liberated him, weighed only 99 pounds. In fact, only a couple days before, with dozens of fellow inmates, he stood looking into an open pit, waiting for bullets from the execution squad behind him (inexplicably, the executioners did not complete their assignment that day).

In 1947, when it became apparent that the governments of the Allied Occupation Forces, for reasons of their own, were not going to ferret out and prosecute the thousands of Nazis who had scattered like rats in the spring and summer of 1945--ending up in sympathetic villages throughout Europe, but mostly abroad--Mr. Wiesenthal established his own Nazi-hunting project.

Wiesenthal was trained as an architectural engineer, not a businessman. So from Day One the project was a shoestring venture, usually tottering precariously on the verge of bankruptcy. Until a Foundation was established in honor of his work in 1977, he worked mostly alone out of the same one-room office in Vienna. Typically, he was always dependent on voluntary office help and had his hat out for contributions. Because he was always on someone's hit list, it's amazing that he was able to live out his very full life in a city known for high intrigue since the Hapsburg Dynasty. At a minimum, to most governments and their working agencies, he always remained that nutty cousin of embarrassing family lineage, who they nervously wished would remain out of sight, hidden among the unseemly and unmentionable family skeletons.

Of course, the U.S. was one of the most nervous post-war uncles, given the fact that it made extensive use of Nazi scientific and intelligence assets immediately after V-E Day--the most widely known, of course, being Herr Werner von Braun, the Nazi's "rocket man," with headquarters at Peenemunde, a village on the German North Sea Coast. Von Braun, of course, became America's bosom pal who led the American space program to victory against the Soviet Union with the Apollo moon landings in the 1970s, using his vast knowledge he had acquired lobbing thousands of "buzz bombs" and V-1 & V-2 rockets onto London during WWII. It's therefore understandable that the U.S. was very late (in the mid-1980s) in establishing an official, active anti-Nazi "search and identify" unit in the Department of Justice. Today, while it's noteworthy that the few bright, enthusiastic government lawyers assigned to the DOJ-Nazi unit are cleaning up the odds and ends of Wiesenthal's work, it's certainly anticlimactic. More significant, however, is a chapter in history he wrote, containing a pertinent, if laconic, political science lesson for us today.

A brief political science lesson: The lesson is that we must rely on reality, as it presents itself (or is perceived) in order to protect itself or to compete successfully among nations (or both). These days, it's fashionable in the salons of political science circles to argue that it was (at minimum) amoral that we compromised many of our professed legal and moral democratic standards by using Nazi brains and administrative skills to achieve our national goals. Or later in 1973 in Chile that we were wrongly complicit in toppling the (perceived) communist physician, Salvador Allende, and replaced him with a pro-American head of state, today's much maligned General Agosto Pinochet. Or more recently that we used the loathsome talents and geopolitical advantages of Saddam Hussein's Iraq to block Iran's anti-U.S. ambitions in the1980s. Ah yes, it's also engaging that, in hindsight, we make much of the newly framed popular paradigm, "future unintended consequences," which can and do arise unexpectedly from today's actions. But, as anyone over 35 should already have learned from personal experience, one has to deal with what is known today--not what one might better know tomorrow.

Those remaining Nazi Fluechtlinge from justice, still desperately trying to maintain low profiles in blue-collar sections in big U.S. or European cities, or in nondescript neighborhoods in countries like Costa Rica, Guatemala, Venezuela, Panama, and Uruguay, are undoubtedly breathing a sigh of relief--the pit bull's grip has relaxed a bit. The U.S. DOJ-Nazi unit, in cooperation with several European agencies, is down to rooting out old, mostly infirm, low-level functionaries such as Ukrainian and Lithuanian concentration camp guards. Considering that they're all by now well into their 80's, these efforts seem anticlimactic at best. I believe we may comfortably conclude that Wiesenthal has won the main battle in his personal war with mankind's worst nightmare-turned-real. It was fitting that he turned the tables and became the real-life nightmare of the Nazi Partei-Genossen. We are all indebted to this man who would not let mankind forget. Let us hope his legacy lives on.

Job well done, sir. A life well spent. . . a true Mensch! R.I.P. Simon Wiesenthal.

A belated postscript: Wiesenthal has his detractors; this link is one of them and is presented for readers who wish to evaluate these contentions more closely. I take no position on any aspect of this "contrarian" presentation, mainly because I haven't researched it.

An e-mail zinger

2005-09-20T14:05:00.000-07:00

FROM THE MAIL ROOM

I just received this e-mail from an anonymous (of course!) reader of my foundling blog-effort. I thought I ought to share it, because: (1) it is instructive in certain respects and, more important, (2) it's the first response of any kind--from anyone--since I launched last month.

Hey, a**hole it's clear your [sic] a f***ing reactionery [sic]. Your [sic] thinking with the wrong end--try reversing polarity and maybe something will come out that makes sense. And maybe you will also discover how to say something with the fewest possible words. Here's [sic] a couple of examples. In your "God" article, you could have reduced it from a boring 3,500 words to this: "God sucks." Want more? In your "Education" article you could have written: "Education sucks." How about your "Black Helicopter" article: "Government sucks." And on John Roberts, "Biden sucks." Get the picture? As it stands now your blog sucks. If you don't unsuck it, the next time I write, I'll tell you what I really think. --Anonymous

[sic] indicates the uncorrected original
* indicates my redactions

My answer: Thanks for your "suc[k]cinct"counseling. I do understand your main points, which are: (1) I should be writing for people who have the attention span of an in-vitro embryo. (2)And the perspective I should convey ought to be as devoid of as much reality as possible--right?

I can hardly wait to get your future follow-up counseling. While I struggle to learn to apply your principles of writing in future posts, I suggest you'll find something nearer your liking by logging on to those websites that spout easy to read and understand one- and two-syllable hate slogans the authors pound out hourly--Michael Moore being the dean of this style. If you prefer more conventional thinking, you can always check with Democratic National Committee under Dr. Howard Dean, or Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Harry Reid. There are hundreds more, of course, but knowing how much you appreciate intellectual depth and breadth, I've cited only the creme de la creme.

Conspiracy here, conspiracy there!

2005-09-18T23:27:00.000-07:00

Is the black helicopter overhead coming for me?

I just got through viewing two hours of a DVD entitled “In Plane Site,” produced by Dave von Kleist, a San Francisco TV/radio newsman-turned-conspiracy-theorist, concerned exclusively with the 9/11 attacks. The presentation—a collection of slo-mo shots of the filmed attacks and some basic factual research (dimensions of a Boeing 757, etc.)—was not conclusive by a long shot, but . . . . well, it was interesting and thought provoking. Von Kleist’s contention is that the attacks were not “as advertised. ” If they weren’t, then the conspiracy before us, is:“Who prompted the attacks? How? Why?” Von Kleist doesn’t venture to answer these questions, but others do—if only indirectly and by innuendo--a too-frequent habit of conspiracy advocates and why I find them less than credible.

Is Able-Danger connected? Frankly, I wouldn't have bought von Kleist’s DVD had I not happened to catch Congressman Curt Weldon (R-Pennsylvania) on C-Span, briefing the press on September 15th. He described Army Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Schaffer’s involvement in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s “Able-Danger” task force (now defunct). Representative Weldon, not known to be a shaky-flaky type, is currently protecting Schaffer who is being encouraged to blow the whistle on what appears to be a clear cover-up of Able-Danger’s 9/11-related intelligence revelations.

In brief - the DIA “Able-Danger” Project: Using mostly open-source analytical techniques, Schaffer said the project identified several of the 9/11 terrorists more than a year before the attack, and associated their activities with upcoming attacks. He decided to alert the FBI about the dangers his project had uncovered. For reasons yet to be explained, the DIA nixed this sharing of intelligence with the FBI. A few months later, when Schaffer was on a covert mission in Afghanistan in 2002, he personally briefed a group of 9/11 Commission staff members about Able-Danger’s findings. The puzzling question is why this vital intelligence never made it into the Commission's final report. More puzzling and alarming was Schaffer’s discovery, upon his return to the DIA, that not only had the project been mysteriously shut down, but all of his office's extensive records and research had been "routinely" destroyed. When Schaffer inquired of his two-star boss, he was ordered emphatically to “drop it.” Since July, Congressman Weldon has been fully engaged and is unilaterally (so far unsuccessfully) trying to get the 9/11 Commission to respond to a simple question: “Why didn’t you include the findings of Able-Danger in your report?”

Self-analysis: My correspondents, friends, and acquaintances—sometimes to their exasperation—know me to lean very heavily to the side of skepticism when it comes to conspiracy theories. It’s true, probably because I’ve been trained to look for facts before believing allegations.* Furthermore, as a general principle, I find it hard to believe that large groups of people, especially government bureaucrats, are clever or coordinated well enough to keep secret massive number of details in the spectacular plots such as are alleged in the JFK assassination, the Roswell Incident, or 9/11—especially when you consider the hoards of reporters and bloggists hovering about--all hungry for a Watergate-type scoop. Not one whistle blower has come forward to expose the alleged government cover-ups of these spectacular events. Von Kleist's DVD and Congressman Weldon have caught my attention, because the conspiracy-theorists are alleging that 9/11 was carried out by people other than Islamic radicals--an outrageous allegation that should be put to rest if possible.

* A British author, Jeffrey Hale, defines my “academic mindset” this way:

The idea that particular groups of people meet together secretly . . .to plan various courses of action, and that some of these plans actually exert a significant influence on particular historical developments, is typically rejected out of hand and assumed to be the figment of a paranoid imagination. The mere mention of the word 'conspiracy' seems to set off an internal alarm bell which causes scholars to close their minds in order to avoid cognitive dissonance . . . .

O.K., now that I’ve confessed to a certain degree of rigid mind-set, I also freely concede to his description of people who do act secretly and in concert with others in order to promote their own interests:

At any given point in time, there are dozens if not thousands of competitive political and economic groups engaging in secret planning and activities, and most are doing so in an effort to gain some advantage over their rivals among the others. Such behind-the-scene operations are present on every level, from the mundane efforts of small-scale retailers to gain advantage [over their competitors] by being the first to develop new product lines, to the . . . attempts by rival secret services to penetrate and manipulate each other. . . .

Now that I have acquired a more balanced psychoanalytical perspective, it's time to do a light examination of the subject, to see whether we ought to take a closer look at 9/11/2001. In doing so, I confess a certain tension building: The question is already beginning to gnaw on me: “What if I discover that the press accounts of the 9/11 attacks were not ‘as advertised?' ”

A Brief Survey

As a reminder, perhaps the oldest unsolved conspiracy theory of note are the circumstances surrounding the death of the Jewish prophet, Jesus of Nazareth. After almost 2,000 years, no one has been able to satisfactorily or conclusively explain the mystery of Jesus’ disappearance following his execution and interment. Unfortunately for many of us, it has been explained away by yet another mystery (transubstantiation), spurring not only continuous debate and conflict among rival religions, but established the Catholic Church and all the splinter groups that followed.

The Roswell UFO wreckage,1947: Controversy still swirls around the alleged wreckage of a crash-landed UFO and the discovery of at least one injured other-world alien on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. This alleged event became a instant conspiracy-theory event when the local newspaper reported its findings, which were then denied almost a day later by the U.S. Air Force. The Roswell Incident still provides grist for the conspiracy mill in the form of endless TV “documentaries.” It also provides a modest income to the folks who run the “Alien Museum” in downtown Roswell. (Between 1951 and 1954, I attended New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell--that was just a four years after the alleged event--but I never saw an alien, unless it was the dreaded upperclassman known as “Blackie” from Lawton, Oklahoma; “Blackie” tormented and hazed me for nine months during my first cadet year as a “rat.”) The local rancher’s discovery and the later revelation of the secret Area-51 range in nearby Nevada have spawned variations on the basic conspiracy question: “Why is the government covering up its knowledge of UFOs and related events?”

JFK’s assassination, November 1964: Within hours of Jack Ruby’s murdering Lee Harvey Oswald with a point-blank shot in the gut during his transfer to a secure facility from Dallas police department, conspiracies instantly became an industry—mainly because Oswald continued to claim, even seconds before Ruby murdered him, that he was a “patsy” and had not shot at or killed the president. Questions arose at once. “Why did Ruby, small-time shady owner of a seedy nightclub, undertake the assassination of the assassin on his own?” Then there was Oswald’s strange life after his discharge from the Marines—renouncing his U.S. citizenship, settling in the U.S.S.R. after marrying a Russian girl, declaring himself a Communist, making trips to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, and a secret trip to Cuba. Without Oswald to ply with these questions, many normally clear-thinking people became skeptical of LBJ’s Blue Ribbon Commission that blamed the deed on one odd young man, who launched one very savvy bullet from an old mail-order Czech-made bolt-action army rifle from an unlikely distance, not only killing JFK instantly, but wounding the accompanying Texas governor. Oliver Stone’s 1991 epic attempted to throw in as many of the theories still around 30 years later, but Stone’s conclusion that the CIA was the culprit didn’t put an end to the mystery. The question still circulates: "Who really killed JFK and why?"

9/11/2001, the World Trade Center, Tuesday morning

Here's a summary of the “as-advertised” event as outlined in the 9/11 Commission Report:

Mohammed Atta and 18 other Al Qaeda terrorists hi-jacked four Boeing 757 commercial aircraft at the same times from separate airports in Boston (Logan Airport); D.C. (Ronald Reagan Airport); New Jersey (Newark International); and Herndon, Virginia (Dulles Airport). When the airplanes were airborne, five terrorists on each flight, (except for the Boston flight, which lacked a fifth), using box cutters, hijacked the flight crew and commandeered the aircraft by taking over the flight controls. The first strike was on the south tower of the WTC. The second was on the north tower 15 minutes later. The third was on the Pentagon. The fourth, almost 45 minutes late taking off from Boston, was circling back toward Washington with the White House or the Capitol Building as its target, when passengers heroically prevented the terrorists from completing their plan, causing the plane to crash into an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all on board. President Bush, visiting an elementary school in Florida, was advised after the second plane struck the WTC, then waited seven minutes before leaving the school room. All 4,873 IFR flights aloft and all other air traffic were ordered grounded for almost three days following the attack, except, as it was later revealed, special flights that exited the U.S. carrying resident-members of the Saudi royal family. President Bush announced that the responsibility for the attack was Osama bin Laden with training headquarters in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden confirmed his complicity in TV tapes. In November U.S. and allied forces attacked Afghanistan, scattering Osama and his Taliban friends into the mountains. A pro-western government was elected a year later. The U.S. and Pakistan have been searching for Osama bin Laden ever since.

The 3 main variations on the 9/11 theme:

Except for the U.S. explanation for the attack (variant #1 below), the reasons for the attacks in variants #2 and #3 are less developed in specifics, but whispered in innuendos and implications. They all are rooted in the scenario that President Bush and his political neo-cons, together with “corporate oil interests” and in league with the Bush family's royal Saudi friends, actually prompted and underwrote the attacks.

Variant (#1): That Osama bin Laden’s recruits were trained, coordinated, and used in the manner widely reported in the world press; that is, the passengers, crew and hijackers on commercial airliners were sacrificed in airliners used as piloted missiles. Of course, conspiracy buffs reject this explanation.

Doubters point out problems with this variant:

The photos of the bellies of the airliners that seem to show an unusual pod; pronounced flashes, just before the airliners impact the towers, are theorized to be triggering devices of "bunker busters" that explode just before impact. In the case of the Pentagon impact, the outer wall impacted by the alleged Boeing 757 showed no airplane, only a ball of flame; one camera showed a date-time stamp of 9/12/01, one day after the actual event; news TV shots show the outer wall with a 16-feet diameter hole--much too small to account for an aircraft with a wingspan of 124 ft. and a vertical stabilizer height of 44 ft.; the outer wall around the 16-ft. hole did not collapse until approximately 30 minutes after the impact; no debris of the aircraft was found inside or outside the impact site; no human remains were found. In the case of the Shanksville crash, the impact site (photographed soon after the impact) is questionably too small and is said to be showing grass growing on the sides of the cavity; furthermore, they point out that there are no signs of debris near or around the site.

Variant (#2): That a secret cabal of conspirators, authorized and empowered by the president of the United States, using hijackers and civilian aircraft as “diversions,” directed the attacks with other military assets: A remotely controlled F-16 fighter (not a commercial Boeing 757), rigged with a “bunker buster” bomb supposedly attacked the Pentagon, and three other Boeing 757-type aircraft, also rigged with “bunker buster” bombs and special electronic guidance pods on their bellies, were involved in the WTC and Shanksville impacts.

Problems with this variant:

I haven’t discovered how the conspiracy theorists explain the obvious: If the U.S. military was involved, where was it carried out (the rigging of aircraft with electronics and special bombs)? And what happened to the passengers in the commercial aircraft we know disappeared--if not into their targets, then what happened to them? And, as I always ask, how is it that these extensive preparations involving hundreds of people were made in absolute secrecy--not producing a “Deep Throat” or even one low-level whistle blower?

Variant (#3): That someone outfitted the two towers and the smaller adjacent 42nd street building with explosives sometime before the aircraft strikes; this, as best I can discern the theory, was necessary to insure that the powerfully strong towers would collapse under attack by the large Boeing 757 aircraft—that is, the aircraft strikes in and of themselves would not guarantee their collapse.

Problems with this variant:

The theorists present scant evidence to support this, except for some news sound bites shortly after the collapse of the twin towers, with voices saying they heard “explosions,” before the actual collapses similar to commercially controlled implosions of large, multistoried buildings. And purportedly, the building manager of the building at the foot of the WTC towers, was taped saying: "I pulled the plug on it." While this scenario is conceivable, it seems highly implausible that crews of expert dynamite riggers would have spent hours planting explosives in these skyscrapers without some non-plotter not noticing and reporting the activity.

The motive for the U.S. attack on itself--according to conspiracy theorists:

To occupy and colonize the Middle East, thus creating not only expanded and secure oil and natural gas resources, but also obtaining the following beneficial outcomes:

--Provide a powerful geopolitical position from which the U.S. would be able to influence the direction of political and economic events in the Near and Middle East,

--while exercising an enormously powerful fortress on the doorsteps of Russia and China, from which defensive and offensive military-political campaigns could be launched for the next 100 years

--Islamic radical governing Iran would be neutralized

--Russia’s historic desire to move to blue waters to their southern underbelly (control of the Turkish straits and the Bosporus Straits out of the Black Sea) would be blocked or “controlled.”

--Saudi Arabia and the Emirates would be grateful and obedient for American military and economic protection, while guaranteeing the U.S energy sources at stable, reasonable prices, through an OPEC now dominated by the U.S. and that would continue the Saudi’s firm-fisted price control and production policies.

I'm very partial to this Bismarckian thinking of the conspiracy-theorists (their thinking happens to coincide with some of the thinking attributed to those dreaded "neo-cons"). If the U.S. could pull it off, it’d solve many future problems for decades to come. Furthermore, the idea seems to comport with the general thinking that “neo-cons” like Paul Wolfowitz and fellow-thinkers are said to favor and have been promoting for many years. First, even if such a neat, epic scheme exists, I am suspicious that Mr. Wolfowitz or the combined efforts of conspirators in the Bush-Saudi dynasty could successfully coordinate the thousands of people and details that would be required to execute the plan over any given span of time. And once more, I find it hard to believe that the massive planning--of such sweeping, epic proportions--would not have come under the scrutiny of the "fourth estate" by now. Of course, the conspiracy-theorists will answer my objection by emphasizing that The Master Plan has been under the most secure lock and key governed by extraordinary classification policies.

Ummmm . . . maybe! But does anyone remember Daniel Ellsberg, the guy who came upon and photocopied the “Pentagon Papers” in 1973? This document was also a super-sensitive, highly classified set of papers that contained the details and “the real story" of U.S. involvement in and planning (military, economic, and political) for the Vietnam--including post-victory planning. Daniel Ellsberg, a mid-level government employee, copied and delivered it to the Washington Post. Today, if there exists a similar “Grand Scheme” for a new American "imperialism" under heavy lock and key, surely it’s just a matter of time before it makes its way into the public domain.

Do the conspiracy-theorists have solid grounds on which to pursue the conspiracy angles? My old “rigid academic mindset” still whispers to me, “Don't believe them without solid evidence.” However, I freely admit that today I am a little more sensitive to good, sensible questions that are ignored or left unanswered by responsible government officials. In particular, I'm very concerned about the Able-Danger affair. With the facts we now have, something just doesn't smell right. Does my concern signify that I have unwittingly joined the ranks of the conspiracy theorists?

During my stint in the DIA in the Pentagon I recall the impenetrable wall called "need to know" could be slammed shut at the drop of a hat--and it was always a hat belonging to some general. The highlight of Colonel Tony Schaffer's last days in DIA, according to his own testimony, was that a "two-star general" told him to back off and forget Able Danger. This is obviously one of those unanswered questions: "Why was Able-Danger intelligence ignored?" And "Why was the DIA project shut down, in light of our new watchfulness under the Homeland Security Act?"

There's no question about it-- many questions are left begging for answers, but in the meantime I am not going to succumb to the paranoia that the helicopter whirring overhead my house at one-o’clock in the morning is bringing the secret police to lock me up--some part of my brain tells me that it's our local hospital medevac helicopter coming from or going to Tucson with an unfortunate accident or heart attack victim.

John Roberts vs. Joe Biden: game, set, match!

2005-09-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

Game, set, and match! or “You can go to the showers now, Senator”

Photos right: Will the real professional politician please stand up? Er . . . on second thought, please sit down.

The Scene (9/13-14-15/2005): The Senate Judiciary Committee’s partisan hearing for D.C. Appeals Court Judge, John Roberts, nominee for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Photographers crowded cheek to jowl on the floor in front of the U-shaped, magisterial dais draped in pleated red felt. Seated facing his Democrat and Republican Inquisitors at a table covered in government felt, an imposing, boyishly handsome man. He's extemporaneously and confidently fielding--without notes, briefing books, or the whispers from aides--Senators’ questions, most of which are reasonably restrained and orderly, because of Chairman Arlen Specter’s firm rein on the committee's proceedings.

Enter Senator good ol’ folksy ‘Joe’ Biden. Senator Joe tried unsuccessfully to test Specter’s strong hand. You see, good ol' Senator Joe had a plan to uncover the too-perfect nominee, but more on that below. Joe Biden, after 32 years in the Senate and having achieved his fellow Senators’ grudging acceptance of the informal title of “Senior Senator”--he's just never been able to gain control over his hugely overblown view of himself and his imagined importance--especially when any kind of camera is nearby. Joe, like the other senators on the Committee, had a 30-minute session to question Roberts, but he just didn’t get it! Specter refused to allow him to run over his allotted time, after Joe had spent 20 minutes of his 30-minute limit grandstanding and overacting before allowing Roberts to respond. Poor ol' Joe chafed, objected and then pouted when he couldn't get additional time--under his privilege as a "senior senator."

Ah, yes, good ol’ Joseph Biden (he prefers to be called “Joe”—he wants everybody to think of him as just a regular guy), Democrat Senator of Delaware. Delaware may be a Mighty Mouse in stature, but it's clearly a Goliath when it comes to business. Corporations everywhere love Delaware because it’s a little like the off-shore havens for companies and individuals who crave maximum freedom, less taxation, and minimal oversight of their business activities.

As I said, Senator Joe was bent on “finding the truth” about this suspect nominee of President Bush, one of the most qualified candidates ever to come before the Senate for the Supreme Court—an admission from even many Democrats, on and off the Committee. Problem is, Joe just isn’t sufficiently on an intellectual par to joust the law with Roberts—he had long ago proved this insufficiency during his law school studies at Syracuse University where he had to resort to plagiarism to pass at least one course.

So instead of trying to take on Superstar Robert's legal mind, Joe figured he might have an even chance of making points with his famous touchy-feely, emotional approach--to demonstrate to TV viewers that the Judge may be an intellectual legal giant, but that he lacks a common “Good Heart” (great tactic, Joe, ‘cause everybody knows mean-spirited Republicans don’t take care of the folks). This tried-and-true emotional-appeal approach has always worked well for the senator, starting with his first senatorial campaign in 1971-72. So he laid his trap, using the endlessly controversial “right-to-life” issue--you can't get more emotional than this one, unless it's whether the pledge of allegiance should contain the words "Under God." (Note: Out of respect for the reader of this essay, the following is an extremely abbreviated version of Joe’s actual presentation--but you'll get the flavor of the senator's intention from this snippet.)

[Biden with his most sincere demeanor for the camera.]“Judge, now we all know you can’t answer specific questions on matters that might come before you on the bench, and I don’t want you to. What I want to do is to look at things from a human perspective, you know, like us regular Americans would. So pretend you’re the father, mother, son, daughter, or other relative of a senior citizen, clearly at the end of his or her normal life span, or maybe comatose after an accident [Joe’s really crafty here—he’s referring to the recent Terry Schiavo case that made so much national news], lying there helpless, hooked up on artificial life support systems . . . someone you love and admire. And, taking it one step further, let’s say that this person had told you, before he or she had arrived at this unfortunate state, that they wouldn’t want to live artificially like this. And it’s in your hands—it’s up to you, not someone else, to decide. Now, like I said, just pretend you’re a regular person—not a judge or high official—just a person like me or anyone else in this room. What I want to know is, what’s inside your heart, judge . . . forget the law for a minute, quit thinking like a lawyer. You know how we lawyers think [good try, Joe, trying to elevate yourself to Robert’s intellectual level]—we’re always trying to cross the T’s and dot the I’s, but I don’t want you to do that here. Just tell me what’s in your heart. Please, judge, the American people have a right to know What. . . Is . . . In . . . Your. . Heart. Look deep inside your heart, Judge Roberts. As a human being, a person, a caring person. Please tell us. Tell us what's in your heart, Judge. We Americans deserve to know!”

Roberts, without even clearing his throat, looked sly ol' Senator Joe in the eye and briefly summarized reality: (1) Because the right-to-life issue is a running controversy that inevitably will be back in Court sometime during his own future tenancy, he would be breaking the judge’s canon of ethics if he were to give a “heart-felt,” personal opinion that would be later held against him—resulting in self-recusal, and (2) In his capacity as an future impartial Supreme Court Justice, he is obligated never to put his “emotions” in front of the facts, which litigants would expect him to evaluate impartially. “Facts,” he reminded Joe, must always trump “feeling,” if the law is to be respected and justice achieved. That’s why, Roberts explained, for good or ill, the universal symbol of justice is the blindfolded lady holding a balancing scale. Touche, Senator Joe!

That was it—short, simple, anticlimactic, and diplomatic (as much as Roberts could possibly be, having to talk about the obvious to a mature politician). In his brief response Roberts had managed to destroy Joe’s simplistic—o yea, juvenile— attempt to substitute logic for emotion, while simultaneously depriving the good ol’ senator from scoring any political points with even the most touchy-feely listeners out there on the fruited plains.

Senator Biden has succeeded as a life-long politician because his electorate is tiny (Delaware’s total population is a mere 783,000--less than Tucson’s population) and has, in its best years, an electorate turnout for national elections of about 30,000). But more important is that Joe discovered a long time ago that if he sidles up to the business-legal community that Delaware nurtures as the nation’s “friendly incorporater,” his longevity would be virtually guaranteed for as long as he wants. It requires just the sort of “good ol’ boy” image that Joe is comfortable with and finds easy to exude. This image would not only ingratiate himself with the business scions that call Delaware home, but would be an adequate cover for his lack of native intellect and/or legal skills. To demonstrate his versatility, if you've listened to this eight-term (32 years) pol over the years, you'll realize that Joe has acquired several regional dialects (ranging from Alabaman back-country to Bostonian upper crust)-- both in idiom and accent. He's also able to put on a terrific “aw shucks” routine that would disarm the hardest ladies in any local garden club in the country.

This time the Senator failed to score. In fact, he probably managed to create a considerable back-lash component, even from among his own Delaware constituency. The problem is that Judge Roberts has been successfully fine tuning his mind and his personality since he was a high school student at the demanding, all-male La Lumiere Catholic boarding school near La Porte, Indiana. As some pundit commented recently, he’s almost too-perfect a nominee to replace the late Justice Rehnquist who, ironically, was one of Roberts' many friendly stepping stones on his way to the pinnacle. It is evident that the Senate Judiciary Committee, left and right of the aisle, recognizes that when a giant the likes of Roberts comes along, equipped and willing to serve this country in such an important capacity, you'd better snag him before he gets too discouraged.

It’s likely that Joe’s Delaware voters also recognize and admire these qualities, in spite of Senator Joe's failed attempt to find some dreck to dump onto the nominee. Yes siree, Senator--I’ll bet on John Robert’s genuine “Good Heart”—based on what he’s done with his mind, his heart, and his life, all of which came across well on the picture tube--as opposed to the twisted, hard-hearted image you hoped to shape from Judge Roberts' dedicated, disciplined life.

After Roberts' three-day marathon ordeal, it was clearly "Game, Set, and Match!" Senator Biden, you've proven yourself to be the consummate professional Washington politician of whom Americans have grown weary. More than once, you've immodestly confessed on the Sunday talk shows your belief that your greatest strength lies in being possessed by great common sense--the "gut" feelings you often use to make decisions in the Senate.

We note with alarm that you believe you should now elevate your "feelings" to the office of the U.S. presidency in '08, and that you've already started an "exploratory" effort in this direction. Joe, based on your performance the past three days, it's our "gut feeling" that it's time you head for the showers.

Tatooing: finally "respectable"?

2005-09-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

Socially redeeming or demeaning self-abuse?

Not that long ago, tattoos were something "respectable" folks never talked about, much less acquired. Now, however, it seems we've landed in a different era in which it's not only O.K. to talk openly and even admiringly about tattoos, but some even consider it a socially redeeming activity for the middle and upper classes to dabble in.

I should begin by confessing how relieved I feel about finally publicly airing my attitude toward tattooing: I can imagine it must be a little like how a homosexual feels when making his/her debut out of the closet!

In my solid middle-class, aspiring-to-be-upper-class upbringing, a tattoo was clear and convincing evidence of . . . well, how to say it without appearing to be unduly nouveau blue blood . . . no, there's no other way to say it: Low Class. Trashy. I wasn't formally schooled to acquire this attitude; our family never discussed tattoos. We talked about a lot of things at the dinner table, but they were usually "uplifting"-- never such trivial and anti-social subjects such as tattooing. My sister and I intuitively knew tattoos were Low Class. My disdain for them probably derived from my Dad's silent treatment, but it was probably also connected to the vulgarity of tattoo themes we saw on drug-crazed biker toughs and their molls in photo essays in Life Magazine. A skull and crossbones, a heart pierced with an arrow over "Mom" and similar crude scrawls were sufficient proof to us that those who sported these abominations were either criminals or unappealing anti-social types.

The only tattoo-wearing class that seemed to escape our condemnation were enlisted navy swabs-- probably because the tattoo had a certain honorable historical naval tradition going back at least as far as Admiral Nelson. Popeye's anchor tattoo on his forearm that swelled after a slug of spinach also helped soften too harsh judgments about our sailor boys who wore tattoos. That notwithstanding, the lingering subliminal taboo effect was unquestionably at work during that fateful moment in the spring of 1955, when I had to choose which service to enlist in: Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, or Marines.

I passed up the three water-oriented military recruiters in Denver--I shuddered at the thought that, after basic training, I'd have to go with my fellow trainees into one of those seedy tattoo parlors outside the military bases. Tattooing, I understood, was an obligatory rite of manly passage for any young sailor or Marine. I wasn't about, just for the sake of camaraderie, to bear "Mom" or a skull and crossbones on my shoulder the rest of my life! I heard that the Air Force had no such a tradition of tattooing its enlistees--so it was into the wild blue yonder after signing an enlistment form on March 16, 1955.

Many years later, while reuniting with my sister, I was thunderstruck when I noticed a delicate, discreet flower tattoo on her ankle! I pretended I hadn't noticed. But it threw me for a loop. My mind raced. My own sister? At her age? Had she at some time during all those years I hadn't known her, stepped out of her wannabe-born-to-the-manor caste? Had she been a Hell's Angel moll in a youthful, wild fling sometime during the past 50 years? After all, she had lived a long time in California where, everybody knows, motorcycle gangs and other questionable social experiments originate.

For the sake of reconciling those reactionary, misanthropic thoughts, I'm happy I have since discovered that tattoos are no longer the wide social taboo they once were. Therefore, even though I'd still not dare ask my sis, "How come you?," I've made peace with her ankle tattoo with the discovery that an increasing number of female citizens are practicing this brutish craft today.

That said, I've got to get it off my chest: Although tattoo parlors are now called "clinics," "art centers," and other euphemisms, in my mind they're still "parlors," a word that to me connotes something akin to a 1940s or 1950s seedy pool hall or . . . a tattoo joint. Curiously, even though these modern parlors are "out" today, boast full-color Yellow Page ads, and are dubbed "socially responsible businesses" by local media in search of Style Section stories, the characters who wield their needles seem to retain throw-back images of the olden, seedy days. For example, the "artists" featured in articles all seem to have that professional grubby look of yore--long stringy hair sometimes done in pony tails (sometimes not), often ear- and nosed-ringed, unshaven, sandal-shod, tee-shirted--hardly the white-coat clinical image one might hope to see of a thoroughly reformed profession. But then, I suspect that's part of the mystique in getting punctured--it wouldn't be the slightly naughty, daring, rebellious act, if it were done in a sterile clinical atmosphere by well-groomed, clean shaven operators.

The only significant difference I've noted is that you can no longer see dirt under the operators' fingernails or their nicotine-stained fingers, because in the full color photo-feature articles, they're shown wearing latex gloves as they needle their clients--undoubtedly an imposition on their artistic freedom, as mandated by state licensing authorities. Licenses! Now that's a welcome improvement, I think. I suspect, however, the state examinations (in those states that require a license) might be less than rigorous, consisting of leading questions such as whether the applicant knows the difference between needle sizes, and other challenges such as TRUE or FALSE: "As long you get their consent, you may work simultaneously on two different clients without changing your gloves."

Is it art? Let's define terms: "Art" in my old-fashioned book means the original expression of inspiration, bolstered by unusual skills wielded by the few gifted among us. In other words, patrons of the tattoo industry have hi-jacked the word "art." So let's use the word properly. If you believe "art" consists of tracing templates on someone's shoulder or backside and then filling in the numbered spaces with a designated color of ink--then you and I have an unresolvable problem in semantics. I associate this procedure with the same level of skill required to complete the paint-by-number kits that sell briskly in artsy-craftsy stores to bored housewives trying to "find themselves" and elementary school teachers unqualified to teach art.

So with your concurrence, let's use a different word to refer to tattooing. How about "craft?" People who deliver tattoos would then be called "craftsmen" or "craftswomen." These are not demeaning terms at all. In fact, they differentiate comfortably between original inspired art, while still allowing for a fair amount of recognition that the tattoo parlor technician is a skilled professional (recognizing the curious need Americans today harbor--no matter what his/her particular toil, it's more satisfying to be able to call oneself a "professional") who must exercise a great deal of care in not screwing up the elegant templates (created by others) on the unforgiving human canvas. Or not transmitting diseases via their needles. Admittedly, that does require considerable critical skill and craftsmanship.

I do have one positive observation to make about today's state of the tattoo craft: It has come a long way from the pirate skull and bones or the "mom" valentine heart. The more successful parlor operator has a bewildering assortment of templates and can deliver just about anything the Freudian Unconscious Mind can dream up--great advances over the crude "mom" of yesteryear. If a young Marine or sailor today must acquire a tattoo, wouldn't it somehow be more uplifting if he (or she) would be able to sport a multicolored Shinto Dragon symbol or a New Age mod comic-book configuration--sure, they'll cost more, but if tattooing persists in our culture, think what an improvement in aesthetics it would mean to the individual, as well as reflecting somewhat less harshly on our society's sense of "taste."

Look, if you or yours want a tattoo, be my guest. But if you do, don't ask me to accept your decision as some sort of socially redeeming or meaningful event. I realize that from time to time, anthropologists, in pursuit of their "publish or perish" obligations to their institutions, go out into the bush somewhere to live with an aboriginal tribe, then emerge "enlightened" several months later. They publish quaint stories in obscure academic journals about the mores and customs of their primitive hosts, even implying that there are some idyllic reasons that we adopt or better appreciate their habits. Of course, after being charmed and amazed upon reading these reports, one realizes it's all ivory-tower babbling.

Practical reasons not to tattoo yourself:

(1) If you need a permanent picture on your valuable and not easily replaced skin to make a "statement," then evidently you've lost or never acquired effective communications skills.

(2) If your self-esteem is so low that you require a permanent picture on your frame, you're emotionally deprived--best you seek a shrink for relief, not a tattoo parlor craftsman.

(3) Despite the "new reputation" being sought by the parlors, they are still transmitting diseases to their smarmy clients . . . it's a dirty little secret you will run across by Googling "tattoos."

(4) No matter how cleverly dermatologists turn a phrase about laser technology in their late-night TV pitches, tattoos are not completely removable without repeat treatments, which themselves will leave scarring in place of the graphics. Furthermore, the process is very expensive, painful, and time consuming.

(5) Tattoos are socially limiting for anyone aspiring to promotion in their careers. I've yet to hear about a company executive sporting a visible tattoo--unless it'd be a tattoo company. Any corporate boss inevitably will view anyone sporting tattoos as suspect. Why? Executives are supposed to be stable, decision-making individuals. In management's eyes an aspiring corporate employee with a predilection to tattooing would, according to corporate standards, identify himself/herself as suffering the emotional afflictions described in #1 and #2 above--neither of which will inspire much confidence in fellow employees or in the corporation's clients who are entrusted to the company's representative. If I were the employer, I'd be thinking, "Why the hell was this guy(gal) wasting time and money getting the tattoo instead of spending time on education of some kind? Will he/she being wasting company time the same way? Will he/she be able to attract the respect of the people he'll be working with?" If a salesperson, "I wonder how his sales prospects will react to that interesting bloody vampire on the back of his hand?"

The misleading social-psychological origins of tattooing:

Aside from the simple desire to adorn oneself--an oedipal reflex some people succumb to--there is another reason others yield to the tattoo syndrome. They have been deceived by the thought that they are subscribing to a desirable social commonality that identifies them with "ordinary" folks: workers, athletes, military, bikers, etc. That notion comes from a remnant-idea left over from the 1960s hippie era, that was originally stimulated by the Marxist premise of class equality, in which we were told is a characteristic of a social order consisting of happy, smiling clones. Curiously, this odd notion still exists on some American university campuses where it is being pushed by "progressive" poly-sci and sociology professors. However, as most people since 1990 know, the alluring Marxist siren songs are proven dis-harmonies that were composed by authors of gigantic social and political scams. Tattoos, therefore, mark their wearers not as shining individualists, but as dull clones who have been dragged down to the least common denominator.

What's disturbing, if statistics quoted by the admiring media are correct, is the growth in popularity of the practice in our country. Would that mean we're headed toward a dull, clone-like society, instead of that shining city on a hill? I'll leave it to others to answer that.

There now, that's it. Tattooing is not a complicated subject. In fact, it's really a very primitive practice that has advanced very little, except for the technology used to inject ink. I've searched my thoughts and done some research in hope of discovering something "deeper" about what attracts a reportedly growing number of occidentals to tattooing. I can't find a satisfying answer. However, I have been able to conclude that just because Fiji Islanders, aboriginals, and other primitive cultures widely practice tattooing, is not a compelling enough reason that we should adopt it or even find it an acceptable habit.

Body bags: One size fits all!

2005-09-09T21:08:00.000-07:00

“One size fits all, will do jes’ fine.”

Evacuate New Orleans: Has the mayor really thought this through?

Seems that the confused mayor of the city he abandoned on August 29th is now trying to assert the authority he failed to exercise in the wake of Katrina!

Where is this man getting his inspiration? It sure couldn’t be from his disaster-preparedness handbook, which evidently hasn’t been written yet.

Now we learn that today he ordered the total evacuation of the beleaguered city—including the 25% of the city that was virtually unaffected and is intact. Evidently, he didn't count on the wrath of residents who might even resort to weapons, if necessary, to meet the force he’s promised to use to evict them.

I was encouraged by the pluck of one black man (the owner of his own home) lying on his chaise lounge on his porch while CNN interviewed him. The 73-year old said, “I ain’t movin.’ Why should I? Everything’s workin’ here now. Phone, water, electricity. And 'sides, where would I go? To lay on a cot in some school gymnasium, with a bunch of gun-totin’ cops marchin' up and down to make sure I stays put?”

Asked by the interviewer why he thought the mayor was insisting that people like him evacuate, the old man didn’t miss a beat: “Wanna know why? I'll tell you why. ‘Cause when we’s gone, who do'ya think’s gonna be lootin’ my house and everyone else's 'round here?”

Umm . . . the old boy's hallucinating--that kind of thinking is . . . well . . . conspiratorial. But wait a minute, do you suppose he’s onto something? After all, he's old enough to have heard about and maybe's even been personally touched by Huey Long's long shadow over Louisiana. Keep your eye on the ball in coming days and weeks. The name of the ball: CORRUPTION.

“No, sir, I been here 53 years, and I ain’t leavin’—they’ll have to carry me out in a body bag.”

A young black woman next to him, hands on hips, chimed in: “Yeah, one of them cops that keeps going up an’ down the street tol’ me today, if’n we don’ move out, he was gonna bring back an extra large body bag to haul us all out.”

She continued: “Well, I jes’ tol’ him, he’d save ever'body a whole lotta trouble, if’n he’d jes’ bring back a bunch of ‘one-size-fits’ all bags. I’d fit jes’ fine in one of ‘em. We ain't leaving here."

A couple hours later, TV reports began to come in to us armchair analysts that the mayor and governor are wringing their hands in more indecision (not necessarily in agreement over details) . Whether and how to apply force on those who wouldn’t obey the evacuation order? General Honore, in charge of active duty Army troops--including elements of the 82nd Airborne just back from Iraq--said he wouldn’t take part in such an order (posse comitatus, you know). The general in charge of the Army National Guard said the governor hadn’t issued him orders yet. Well, maybe the Nola Police Chief would know.

So the TV interviewer turned hopefully to the man in the trenches. The Chief said he worked for the mayor and "I'm sure not gonna go against him." Under continued questioning by the interviewer, the Chief demurred: “I'm not at liberty to answer that question.” Then, as if an epiphany had just occurred to him, he deferred the question to the city attorney, whom he said the mayor had appointed to handle “these kinds of problems.” His boss the mayor had ordered a mandatory 100% evacuation, but evidently hadn't told his police chief how to deal with his recalcitrant citizens, who were already beginning to growl. Imagine! If the Chief can be believed, his boss the mayor, delegated his fundamental responsibility to the city attorney—the city attorney, of all people!

Where did the mayor learn the managerial technique of delegating responsibility? Watching Catch 22? We certainly know he doesn't believe in Harry S. Truman's "buck stop principle."

Meanwhile, the governor remains barricaded in the taxpayers' mansion in Baton Rouge, answering demands for news interviews by sending out her daughter. In a brief moment when the guv was unavoidably caught by reporters outside her office yesterday, she testily brushed off questions about her inaction before and after the hurricane, or about her contentious relationship with the mayor of New Orleans—“I’m still focused on saving lives” she said. Oh sure! Somehow that assertion rings eerily like a line from a Kafka short story.

I’m not putting my money on the governor or the mayor—they’ve had more than their share of opportunities to prove themselves--and they’ve utterly failed. And I won't play the Left's utterly hypocritical and cynical game by blaming the U.S. president who, if reports are accurate, did more than he was obligated when he tried to cajole the Louisiana governor to turn over her state's problem to the feds the day after the hurricane passed.

Even if this report isn't entirely accurate (although Nola's mayor corroborated it during a TV snippet), it is not morally, nor has it ever been legally Washington's problem to provide first-response assistance to states and municipalities. Those who believe that America was founded on the "Big Brother" top-down principle of government are the very people who must stand accountable for the Orwellian dependency attitude, which some observers are now trying to connect to the human disaster in New Orleans.

No siree, Bob, I’m putting my money on those property owners (yes, Virginia, there are blacks who own their own homes) who’ll be damned if they’re going to let bumbling bureaucrats evict them from perfectly sound homes—their only sanctuary and equity on this planet. These folks are practicing a basic tenet of freedom under trial by fire: You cannot trust the words (or lack of them) of any government. Especially after their functionaries have amply proved their incompetence.

Mr. Mayor, your resignation is way overdue. Why don’t you hand over the reins to your city attorney who probably is much better prepared to govern the city? Then perhaps your governor will also follow suit—surely there’s some bright young clerk on her staff who would do at least an equally good job--probably even better.

Now that Nature has done her work, followed by the ineptness of earthbound officials, New Orleans and the state of Lousiana will recover much faster and with fewer snafus, if these clowns will just keep their hands off the people, listen to some of them, and let them rebuild.

Warriors: Perfumed & Pampered?

2005-09-06T06:31:00.000-07:00

Perfumed and Pampered Warriors?

The local daily published my following op-ed piece about overhauling the generous military retirement system. Needless to say, the subject is controversial, so it wasn't a surprise that most military (officer) retirees rejected my vision--according to a survey conducted by one especially offended retiree (an Air Force colonel). Nevertheless, this subject is timely, considering continued pressures on diminishing resources, so I believe it deserves wide review, which might stimulate constructive debate. I'd be especially interested in hearing reactions from non-military readers. You may use the "comment" link below:

If you thought Social Security reform was the politician’s untouchable “third rail,” just try touching the invisible, fatal “high voltage live wire”--the military retirement system.

In his capacity as the Pentagon’s undersecretary for personnel and readiness, David Chu was interviewed in January by the Wall Street Journal. Chu described the impending hard choice confronting our leaders of allocating money between “guns” (weapons systems and their operators) and “butter” (retiree pay and medical benefits). He noted that the increasing benefits being won and awarded to military retirees and their families are “detract[ing] from the nation’s ability to defend itself.”

The response from the military lobbyists was bloody and swift. Chu was publicly demonized by top retired brass as, among other unflattering epithets, a “traitor.” They called for his immediate resignation. This wasn’t a mere skirmish—this was battlefield “shock and awe.” Not much has been heard from Chu since.

At the risk of alienating virtually every retiree and veteran about to retire, it’s my contention that sooner or later Congress will be forced to make those hard choices. Although this letter cannot adequately describe the details of my vision, I believe the concept should be aired and debated.

I’d begin by overhauling the present retirement system that rewards every eligible veteran (with only 20 years active service) with 50% of active duty pay at the highest rank held upon retirement (and increased by annual COLAs for life). Instead, I’d create a system that would award points on a scale crafted by priorities. The highest number of points would go to those possessing a war-fighting occupational specialty. The scale would award additional “points” for every battle campaign in which the veteran served as an actual combat “warrior” (fewer points would go to in-theater rear support personnel). This scale would award bonus points for each year of voluntary service beyond 20 years.

I would award the fewest points solely by virtue of the serviceman’s rank at retirement. In Particular, it makes absolutely no sense to reward a field-grade or general-officer rank a lifetime retirement at the present 50% formula. These high-ranking individuals enjoyed the rewards of their achievement in terms of pay, privilege, and responsibility when they were on active duty. The largest and most deserving class of retirees are those enlisted men and women who served in combat specialties and in combat zones.

The most important component of my overhaul would be a special life-time retirement plan for the wounded and maimed in combat zones--no matter how many years they served. It is a shame on our system that these warriors are too easily neglected and forgotten once the clash of swords has quieted.

The least rewarded would be reserve component members who accumulated “retirement credits”without ever serving a stint of active duty in a war-zone. However, my system would generously reward these reservist-warriors for every time they were ripped away from their jobs and families to serve in war.

The three important outcomes of my plan: 1) To induce individuals to acquire combat-related skills, i.e., the creation of a true “warrior class.” 2) To induce longer periods of active service or, put differently, to weed out those who enter service with a retirement mindset. 3) To reallocate diminishing resources to critical operational readiness.

No one will deny that these hard decisions are on the horizon. Following the most recent and extensive Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, the military itself should initiate such reforms before congressional “amateurs” eventually mandate them--a trend that is already underway in less noticeable bits and pieces.

Our senior military cadres, active duty and retired, seem disinclined to provide such leadership. Unfortunately, they’ve become just as brainwashed as the most entrenched welfare recipient from whom Congress finds it nearly impossible to wean. That's because they’ve come to see their tax-paid benefits as their “right.” The ugly hypocrisy is that military retirees also have come to believe that their generous benefits, derived from an archaic, one-dimensional system we can no longer afford, are of a “higher order” than the publicly subsidized claims of, let’s say, an unemployed or injured construction worker.

The powerful military lobbies that silenced David Chu underscored this mentality when they roundly condemned an honest public servant, himself a veteran, who is trying to prevent the sacking of the quarterback on his own 5-yard line. It is disturbing to witness just how deeply entrenched the welfare state mentality has become among what some (including Colonel David Hackworth,RIP,the Army's youngest and most decorated soldier)call a “perfumed and pampered class.”

Signed: "Grant"-- himself an officer retiree (USAF)

Katrina survivors: Have you got the "right stuff"?

2005-09-05T04:57:00.000-07:00

The "right stuff"-- a hurricane postscript!

Shame on you who are watching and commenting, from the comfort of your armchairs and TV sets, about the tragedy caused by Hurricane Katrina--and blaming those unfortunates for becoming victims of a tragedy not of their making!

"Why didn't they get out when they were warned?" you ask. For crying out loud! Those 40,000 souls who didn't have vehicles or the money to buy bus, plane, or train tickets or the means to sustain themselves away from home (some of these unfortunate and unlucky souls included the sick and elderly evacuated from their care facilities, as well as some unlucky tourists) -- they did take shelter! They made their way to the Superdome and the Convention Center, exactly as they were supposed to do! To find no lights, no security, no food, no water, stopped-up toilets, no medical aid--zero, zilch, nada! No siree, Bob, New Orleans wasn't about to let some poor Third World country outdo the world's wealthiest country--the country that habitually crows about its moral, technological, material and spiritual superiority.

Like wharf rats! So after the storm passed and the breached levees began to flood their city and homes--an event not of their making--these poor souls were isolated. And those who were able, couldn't even walk out of town. They were trapped. They found themselves abandoned. The sick, the old and the young--left to fend for themselves. Where was their governor? Their mayor? Answer: They sure weren't in New Orleans--we know that now.

Malfeasance: the real culprit. The moment the storm had passed, the city mayor, the state governor, and their first-response disaster teams should have moved immediately to send in security and minimal pre-positioned life-sustaining water, shelter, food, and basic medical care! If they didn't have those minimal resources (and they should have), then why didn't the governor immediately pick up the phone and ask Washington for federal assistance? FEMA was standing by, ready to move. Instead, we now hear that the governor balked and, for whatever reason, insisted on another day before agreeing to "federalization." Presumably, she must have finally consented, because federal troops began to move in Friday morning--four days later.

No, it's very clear--the two elected Louisiana "leaders" abandoned their most basic responsibilities--for reasons yet to be investigated. I suspect that post-mortem inquiries (if they are conducted without political interference) will reveal that corruption peculiar to Louisiana politics, long a tradition since the days of Huey Long, was at the bottom of what is, in my view, criminal malfeasance.

"I'm pissed," blustered the mayor of New Orleans on a TV interview, after returning to his city from his comfortable accommodations in Baton Rouge. Well, Mr. Mayor, so am I and millions of Americans who are outraged and embarrassed by your (and your governor's) incompetence.

The tragedy became a massive accident, caused by the levee breaches after the passing storm! To turn on the trapped unfortunates for their failure to "help themselves" is like blaming victims of a catastrophic automobile accident. Would we say to the bleeding, broken bodies waiting for rescue in mangled vehicles: "Why don't you get out of your cars and get yourself to a hospital!--Why do you just lie there, helpless, moaning for someone to help you? Be brave! Be an individual! Quit looking to someone else to help you!"

Libertarianism and Individualism: I'm about as close as anyone to being a libertarian who believes in minimal government interference in the ordinary rhythm of the lives of citizens. But even the most radical libertarian would recognize that as much government as necessary is required in those instances where Man is unable to help himself. How much more deeply a society wants its government to interfere in the lives of its citizens (that is, creating "dependency" attitudes, etc. ) is a different subject altogether and has no place in our assessments of this tragedy. Let's get our priorities straight!

Shame on you self-serving, condescending, so-called "individualists" out there! I should be so unfortunate someday when you might come upon me or mine after suffering a catastrophic accident! If we should be severely wounded, we might not have enough of your brand of "right stuff" to save ourselves. I hope you would have a change of heart and lend us a hand, whether we be black, yellow, brown, white, rich, or poor.

A postscript: Have you bold individualists, sitting at home and criticizing from afar, done anything at all to help relieve their plight? If you have not, shame on you again! Go to this link immediately and begin your apologies by contributing: Red Cross