R.I.P., Christopher Hitchens

He could be so right, and so wrong.  When he was announced as a guest on a TV show, I was as likely to say, "Oh no," as to celebrate.  So I was surprised by how sad his passing made me.

He was not a slave to any strict party line, as I'm afraid I mostly am, and I can respect an independent, honest thinker such as he was.

I've read several tributes from Hitchens's friends today, and a quote by Jacob Weisberg sums up the way I feel as well as anything.

"Here's what I learned from Christopher Hitchens in the 25 years I knew him. Don't let anyone else do your thinking for you. Follow your principles to the end. Don't flinch from the truth. Repeat until the last ounce of strength drains from your body."

Hopeless romantics

I've become convinced that the Tea Partiers, as well as fundamentalists of all kinds, are hopeless romantics.  The idea came to me as I was reading "The Federalist," and realized that the Right still has a hankering for the Articles of Confederation.

Take any long lost cause, and these folks will still be fighting for it.  Never mind that a strong federal government saved the country from dissolution.  People still fear the federal government (why not the state government?)  Never mind that unregulated markets have crashed the economy twice; people still have a fervent belief that an unfettered free market will put everything right.  Never mind that prayer nearly always fails; people continue to pray, and come up with ever more elaborate reasons when it doesn't work.

No matter what the evidence, they will tell you that we have failed because we have not been pure enough.  Not strict enough.  We must go back to whatever we tried that didn't work and do it right this time.

I suppose that calling them hopeless romantics is just another way of saying that they are true believers.

Delusions of grandeur

"[Democrats] have tried to say I'm the reason Republicans won't raise taxes. That's not nonsense. The Democrats want higher taxes. That's off the table. It's been off the table for a year. The Democrats are a little hard of hearing."  -- Grover Norquist



There are people in this world with an inflated sense of their importance.  Some of these egos are hyper-inflated.  Of course, Grover Norquist has a certain amount of power, but you just have to laugh at an asshole like that.


Grover, buddy, you will someday die, just like the rest of us.  You may not believe me, but it's true.  No, really, I mean it.


If anybody remembers you, there will be much dancing.

Suggestions for Herman Cain's campaign

Validating my post from yesterday, a new poll says that Herman Cain's sexual harassment problems have not hurt his popularity a bit.  So I've got some suggestions to put him over the top.

Dear Herman,

Beat a servant.

Wave a gun crazily during a campaign speech.

Drown some kittens.

Shoot a bald eagle.

Republicans like 'em tough.

Respectfully,
Monty

What makes a Cain voter?

I saw a Cain for President bumper sticker the other day.  Another message on the same car was that the driver was "proud to be everything liberals hate."  Fair enough.

Now and then we hear the defiant pronouncements of these proud folk.  An acquaintance of mine scoffs at people who buy hybrid cars.  One guy opined, faced with the probability that a man executed in Texas wasn't guilty, that it "takes balls to execute an innocent man."

I'm not sure we should press Cain on his multiple cases of sexual harassment.  It might win him votes.

Sometimes people don't think things through...

"It's not okay. It's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be." —RickSantorum on contraception


One could ask Rick Santorum an endless number of questions about this quote.


"Mr. Santorum, do you fly in airplanes?"


"Mr. Santorum, do you go to the doctor when you're sick?"


You get my drift.  "How things are supposed to be" pertains only to selected things.

Dueling quotations

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." -- Grover Norquist


"How is it possible that a government, half supplied and always necessitous, can fulfil the purposes of its institution; can provide for the security, advance the prosperity, or support the reputation of the commonwealth?  How can it ever possess either energy or stability, dignity or credit, confidence at home, or respectability abroad?  How can its administration be any thing else than a succession of expedients temporizing, impotent, disgraceful?  How will it be able to avoid a frequent sacrifice of its engagements to immediate necessity?  How can it undertake or execute any liberal or enlarged plans of public good?" -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #30


Hamilton was trying to sell the nation on the new Constitution, which would create a strong federal government.  The Articles of Confederation government was failing for a number of reasons, but what it boiled down to was that the governments of the several states had more power than the the national government, and the states were reluctant to help each other out in times of trouble.


The Constitution won out, of course, and it has worked as advertised for a good long time.  But the battle for states' rights continues unabated.  The current crop of so-called conservatives, I think, would really like to return to the days of the Articles.  It's just another example of the mentality that wants to keep reviving ideas that never worked.

Are you a musician?

So, I'm sixty years old, and I just got my first tattoo.  I'm a very cautious individual, and I'd been mulling over the possibility of getting a tattoo for thirty or forty years.  A tattoo is forever, so I needed to get one that meant something.

Seeing the various things people had wrapped around their biceps--barbed wire, etc.--gave me the idea of musical notes in some configuration.  I love the look of sheet music, so I thought I should use the two staves, treble and bass, and an actual song.  But which song?  I was thinking of something like Clapton's guitar solo from "Sunshine of Your Love," but I couldn't find that music immediately.  My favorite band is The Who, and I was able to find a book with the sheet music for several of their songs.  I didn't think that the book could possibly contain Pete Townshend's "Tattoo," but there it was!

So now, twining around my right arm, from elbow to wrist, is the music for the first three measures of the guitar intro to "Tattoo."

I'm very pleased with the way it turned out, and I get lots of attention, which I'm finding that I love.  I do find myself answering two questions quite often, though.  The first is, "Is it a real song (if so, what is it)?" The second is, "Are you a musician?"  I hadn't expected the second question.  I don't consider myself a musician, although I can strum a guitar a bit.  I don't read music.  But I am very much a music lover.

My favorite variation on the "are you a musician" theme came from a man who appeared to be in his seventies.  "Are you a professor of music?"  The question was followed by, "I've never seen one like that before.  Now I've seen it all!  I've seen it all!"  I wavered between thinking that the man hadn't managed to see much in his seventy-some years, and being immensely proud of the uniqueness of my ink.

Sinners in the hands of an angry God

My friends on Facebook have been up in arms about Michele Bachmann's joke about the earthquake and the hurricane being messages from God.  I don't let that bother me in this case, since what bothers me more is that I don't know that she was joking.  A good number of people really believe that God sends disasters to punish people, notwithstanding that the good always get punished along with the bad.  This is a belief that belongs somewhere in the long ago, say the 14th Century, but never mind.

The thing that interests me in this case is the amazing facility people like Michele Bachmann have for changing the rules when the game is going against them.  When disaster strikes in some perceived iniquitous zone, say New York or New Orleans, or any blue state, the religious fundamentalist says that God has a message for the sinners who live there.  Now, this particular earthquake struck smack dab in the middle of Eric Cantor's district.  Suddenly, God has a message for us all.  Why not just for Eric Cantor?

The talent these true believers have for changing the rules, for accusing their opponents of the exact sins that they themselves (and they only) commit, for attempting to rewrite history, for presenting lies as facts, is quite amazing.  It comes from practice.

What are people whose lifelong beliefs are constantly being debunked by the growth of scientific knowledge to do?

If they have power, they can make the new knowledge a crime.  Or they can create a false counter-science.  In short, this resistance to easily seen facts that challenge ancient beliefs creates a special breed of compulsive liars.

It's too bad.  The world of the rational is the world of light.  It's much less scary than a world with a possible eternity of hellfire.

Yo! Dominionists!

Once again, the teachings and life of Jesus are an inconvenience for some who claim to be Christians.

It probably won't make a bit of difference to the Dominionists if I remind them that Jesus had more than one chance to set up an earthly kingdom, but refused. "My kingdom is not of this world," he said.

Well, perhaps that part has been excised from The Conservative Bible, along with anything else that made Jesus Jesus.

Summer

Summer has been everything a man could want. Skirts are shorter than they have been in a long time, shorts are skimpy, and the necklines are amazing. Fabrics are soft and diaphanous.

I'm no romeo; in fact, I'm really out of the running. Summer comes every year, but I've been in autumn for a while, heading toward winter. I'm still not blind, thank goodness.

And I like to think my mind is young. I'm sixty now, and I just got my first tattoo last Wednesday. I'm getting lots of compliments, even from young women. I know the compliments are just for the tattoo, but I like them anyway.

Idiots

The craziness continues, and it's been coming so thick and fast, I haven't been able to focus on one thing and write about it. All I can think of to say today is that the Right wants to get rid of the minimum wage, make the poor poorer, and then make everybody pay for their own health care. I'm going to start raising chickens so I have something to give my doctor for services rendered.

Two worlds

Many people inhabit two worlds. The everyday world, which we all take for granted, is full of amazing things made possible by science: Modern medicine, air travel, cell phones, automobiles, satellite TV. And scientists are constantly building on existing knowledge, and finding out more and more new things. They are using a tool that works: The scientific method. They take it for granted. We take it for granted.

Some of the people who take the results of science for granted, however, also inhabit a second world: A world of supernatural belief. Their religious convictions cause them to disbelieve many of the scientific principles that make the everyday world possible. This puzzles me.

The world they believe in is not the world they live in. What a piece of work is man.

Evanescence

Most of us don't wind up in our dream jobs, and although the things we do might be important at the time we do them, if we look back, their impermanence diminishes them.

Really, the things we remember most, and care most about, seem to be what we might describe as trivial: Games and other idle pleasures.

Perhaps the most important thing we do in our lives is to entertain ourselves and others. That is what seems to last.

Friends don't let friends vote for kindergarteners

I am going to take back--no, merely modify--something I said about the Republican attempt to wreck the Obama presidency. Oh, they're trying to do that for sure, but I had blamed their racism, and their racism only, for that. I'm still convinced of their racism, but now it's clear to me that they would do the same to any Democratic president. For the radical right, it's a long term strategy.

In a recent op-ed, Deval Patrick recounts a meeting in which Grover Norquist was expounding on the "permanent Republican majority." When challenged that, surely, there would be Democratic presidents in the future, Norquist replied that Republicans would simply not allow them to rule as Democrats.

We can see the strategy at work in the current House of Representatives. They simply say no to any Democratic ideas. If they have to ruin the economy to get the spending cuts they want, they are willing to do so. One wonders (if he or she is a reasonable adult) why the radical right refuses to accept very generous offers from the Democrats, any offers that come to less than 100% of what they want. One shouldn't wonder. These are emotional three-year-olds. My calling them kindergarteners gives them too much credit.

And the hubristic "permanent Republican majority?" The "thousand year Reich" lasted less than twenty. This, too, shall pass.

Why gold?

In these uncertain economic times, investing in gold is making a comeback. And the folks who believe that we should go back to the gold standard start coming out of the woodwork.

Gold is relatively scarce, of course, and you can make pretty things out of it, but it doesn't have magical powers. Why not base monetary policy on platinum? Or iron? Or lead?

Some people fixate on gold as the ultimate answer. Some people think the Bible is the only book anybody needs.

Irrational obsessions.

My friend in heaven

A dear friend of mine died earlier this year, and it has only slowly dawned on me what a close friend he was and how much I'll miss him.

His brilliant mind had much more to give, but his body gave out. A tragedy.

He was the most scientific of men, a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic. He had an encyclopedic memory, and an opinion on any and all matters that came to his attention.

He and his wife were devoted to each other, although she is something of a spiritual seeker. At his funeral, there was an Eastern Orthodox priest, as well as several Buddhist monks, enough firepower to get anyone into heaven.

And now I imagine my friend in heaven. He is there, perhaps, against his will. He looks around, gets the lay of the land, and declares, "I'm not impressed." He says, "It's OK, but if I were in charge, I'd do things differently."

That was my friend.

In which I am a broken record

Too many times, I've tried to explain that 1) the only guarantee of freedom of religion is the separation of church and state, and 2) the Founding Fathers did not intend to make ours a Christian nation.

I do not argue that most colonial Americans were not Christians. In fact, most were, but they were all different kinds of Christians, and that's the problem with a Christian nation, if being a Christian nation means having a Christian government.

The Founding Fathers knew this because of the world they were trying to escape.

To better understand The Diary of Samuel Pepys, I looked a little into the reign of Britain's Charles II. The King was a fairly tolerant fellow, but he did bring back the Church of England after the defeat of Oliver Cromwell.

An interesting thing I found out is that the Scots offered to fight for the coronation of Charles II, but only if he would convert to Presbyterianism.

You see where I'm going here. In Great Britain, you had Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Puritans, and more all vying for power. All of them Christians. All of them fighting each other, simply because there was an official religion, and they all wanted to be it.

If the U.S.A. becomes an officially Christian nation, who is to say which type of Christian is the purest Christian? The question can be answered only by numbers of votes. Or by violence. And everybody else loses. Everybody loses eventually.

Baptists and Methodists fighting in the streets. No, thank you.

Is this becoming a poetry journal?

Hardly.

Some lines (2) on 17th Century mores

I'm reading the diary of Samuel Pepys,

Who I'm sure would give modern women the crepys.

Hawking and heaven

Stephen Hawking calls heaven "a fairy tale." That there is no heaven should come as a surprise to no one who wakes up and finds himself or herself in the twenty-first century and takes a look around and interprets what he or she sees honestly.

Does Stephen Hawking have the last word, the final truth? No, but his interpretation of what we can see nowadays is... light years ahead of the interpretations of 2,000 years ago. Let it go, and you'll feel so much better. There's a whole raft of questions you won't have to worry about ever again.

You will die, of course, but that's nothing new. You may think you know what happens after that, but nobody does. Nobody.

p.g. montgomery: The Complete Poetic Works

The Sum of It

We live, we die.

We don't know why.

I was a holy boy, living in a holy house. Every week, I went to Sunday school, where I in fact received gentle, affirming attention. Mine was not a fire and brimstone church, and I loved going there. I paid attention to scripture, and I worried about the things the religious worry about--if I sin in my mind, is it the same as if I'd actually committed the sin?

I was taught that life on Earth, being temporary, was less important than preparing myself for the eternal life to come. Don't gain the world and lose your soul. I firmly believed that when I was a child.

But soon the little doubts asserted themselves, and I would ask my mother. "If all the religions of the world think they are the only true one, how do we know ours is?" We just do. "If God made everything, who made God?" You'll just drive yourself crazy asking questions like that. Just don't worry about it.

I wasn't satisfied with my mother's answers, of course, but I figured that the smarter, more educated Christians would eventually give me better ones. But as I grew older, and started participating in Bible study with grownups, I began to understand that their answers weren't much better than my mother's. I began to wonder why, if the beliefs I grew up with didn't square with other facts we all take for granted in every day life, people spent so much time and effort trying to fit the square pegs of faith into life's round holes.

I've come to think that what is planted in our minds in childhood is hard for many to uproot in their later lives. In fact, far from wanting to do any uprooting, many people water and fertilize as much as they can.

In my case, the seeds fell on rocky soil. I have no talent for religion.

Now, my believing friends wonder how I can stand to live without the promise of eternal life and the comfort that comes with that promise. I have no choice, I reply. Salvation and heaven are only comforts if you can believe in them. I am incapable of belief.

In the olden days, philosophers attempting to prove the existence of God reasoned that the idea of God couldn't exist in our minds without having been planted there by God. But thinking about that, I can see how certain ideas might arise. There are two things about the world that all beings (at least the animals) are aware of once they have a little experience of it: First, the world is a place of beauty and delight, and it meets our primary needs abundantly. Second, the world is a dangerous place, a terrifying place where, if you're not careful, you could be dead in the next moment. I think that, perhaps, these twin facts might be the origin of most prayers. "Thank you for this bounty." "I am in danger. Please don't let me die now."

Now, I came to a lot of these conclusions over time, and I am lucky not to have suffered much trauma over my loss of faith. I really don't think the loss of what never existed is much of a loss. Only recently, however, have I been struck forcefully with the question of why other people in these modern centuries can believe in absurd things that can only have made sense to the ancient, prescientific mind. I never believed in scoffing out loud at the beliefs of others, because I am a kind person and I don't like to hurt people's feelings.

But sometimes I want to shake the world by the shoulders and say, "Wake up!"

The more mystically inclined would miss the world of miracles, virgin births, resurrections, but not me. The mundane world contains more wonder than a person can absorb in a lifetime. I think the greater sin would be to not embrace the world while I have the opportunity to live in it.

What the Birthers are all about

I thought we'd seen the end of the Birthers, but that asshole Donald Trump is out there stirring them up again. If there was any doubt that his purpose is to exploit racial fears, his response to the release of Obama's long form birth certificate erased all of it. Trump then started asking for Obama's grade transcripts. He painted Obama as that mediocre black man who got into Harvard instead of some invented white person who was more deserving.

I stated back in September of 2009 that the crazies who came out of the woodwork after the Obama election were people whose world had been shaken by the election of a black president. Some of them still haven't gotten over the shock. A black president is an impossibility. It cannot have happened. They'll get to the bottom of this if it takes the rest of their lives.

Their wasted lives.

Blessed are the outside agitators

Rest in peace, Ben Masel.

A good attitude

I've remarked in this space that religions could be improved by being willing to change when time begins to make their beliefs harder and harder to defend. In Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, he feels compelled to note what he calls "a singular instance in the history of mankind," a religious sect that is not sure it has everything right for all time.

This sect was called the Dunkards (or "Dunkers," as Franklin calls them). Franklin meets one the founders of the Dunkards, and describes a conversation they had.

"He complained to me that they were grievously calumniated by the zealots of other persuasions, and charged with abominable principles and practices to which they were utter strangers. I told him this had always been the case with new sects; and that to put a stop to such abuse, I imagined it might be well to publish the articles of their belief and the rules of their discipline. He said that it had been proposed among them, but not agreed to, for this reason; 'When we were first drawn together as a society, says he, it had pleased God to enlighten our minds so far, as to see that some doctrines which we once esteemed truths were errors, and that others which we had esteemed errors were real truths. From time to time, He has been pleased to afford us farther light, and our principles have been improving, and our errors diminishing. Now we are not sure that we are arrived at the end of this progression, and at the perfection of spiritual or theological knowledge; and we fear that if we should once print our confession of faith, we should feel ourselves as if bound and confined by it, and perhaps be unwilling to receive further improvement; and our successors still more so, as conceiving what we their elders and founders had done, to be something sacred, and never to be parted from'" [Emphasis mine, of course.]

How very refreshing.

I can't believe we even have to talk about this.

I just received a link to an Amnesty International blog that says quite a number of Americans believe that torture is justified to get information from our enemies.

http://blog.amnestyusa.org/waronterror/new-survey-finds-tolerance-of-torture-in-the-us/

I've had arguments about this with people from time to time. Now, many professional interrogators have gone on record as saying that torture does not get the truth out of a prisoner, who will say anything the torturer wants him to, so that the torture will stop. Some people, of course, don't buy this argument. Fine.

Here's my argument. I don't give a fuck if an act of torture saves the world. Torture is wrong.

Primary sources!

Perhaps you've heard Mike Huckabee's quote, that he wishes that "every single young person in America would be able to be under [David Barton's] tutelage." Never mind the "at gunpoint" stuff, although Huckabee's fantasy of a "simultaneous telecast" of David Barton's messages conjures up delicious images of a Big Brother society.

David Barton, if you don't know, is a fellow whose aim is to get Americans to remember that our founding fathers meant for this to be a Christian nation. Barton has been accused of taking quotes out of context to prove his points, as well as citing quotes that our forefathers may never have said. Those who think as he does, though, are likely to believe that his version of history is accurate.

These days, many people seem to think that these things are just matters of opinion, and that both sides of a story are equally valid. That's why relying on primary sources is so important when you want to know what is really true.

Now, I could sit here and tell you that the government of our nation was formed during the 18th Century Enlightenment, at a time when science had called into question the authority of religion, and that the leaders of the American Revolution were under the spell of science, and were skeptical of Christianity. I could also remind you that, as you learned in elementary school Thanksgiving pageants, our forefathers left Europe for religious freedom, and that they couldn't get it there, because their governments were entwined with one church or another. But because you know that I am a Democrat, and that I am not a religious person, you might have reason to question my objectivity, and, therefore, my truthfulness.

Luckily, we live in a free society, and we have access to primary sources: That is, we can read what the founders themselves wrote!

I have mentioned before that Thomas Paine (whose name is often invoked by Glenn Beck) was not a Christian. He believed in one God, and he believed in the afterlife. The list of things he didn't believe was a very long one.

Don't take my word for it. "The Age of Reason" is available for anyone to read.

I may have also mentioned that, while Thomas Jefferson believed that the teachings of Jesus constituted a great philosophy of life, he did not believe in the miracles, the virgin birth, the resurrection, and other mystical trappings of Christianity.

Don't take my word for it. Jefferson published his own version of the Gospels, in which he included the teachings, but removed all the miraculous occurrences. It is available for all to read as "The Jefferson Bible."

Benjamin Franklin believed that there is one God, that there is an afterlife, and that people will be rewarded and punished for their deeds, either in this life, or in the next. I do not believe he considered himself a Christian, strictly speaking. He developed a thirteen-point plan for self-perfection, point number thirteen being to emulate Jesus... and Socrates.

Don't take my word for that. Franklin left behind his wonderful Autobiography.

Now, you may disagree with Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin, but their own writings reveal what their religious beliefs were. If they had thought that America should be a Christian nation, they would have said so.

Already, the proponents of the mingling of church and state have sought to distance themselves from Jefferson. You may have heard about the pressure on textbook writers to place less emphasis on Jefferson--only the author of the Declaration of Independence!--and more on people like Joseph McCarthy!

Anyhow, Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin were not our only Founding Fathers, so maybe I'm placing too much emphasis on "outliers." But I'll soon be reading "The Federalist," which covers Hamilton, Madison, and Jay. I don't expect them to be clamoring for a Christian nation.

You can read it, too. Don't take my word for it. Don't take David Barton's word for it. Don't take Mike Huckabee's word for it. Don't take Glenn Beck's word for it.

Now, I understand that there is a whole set of true believers who already know what they believe, and who will not pollute themselves with primary sources. I can't help them. But perhaps you are a young person, whose mind is not already made up, and who really wants to figure out how to make his or her way through the jungle of conflicting claims.

For you, I recommend primary sources. I recommend finding out for yourself.

We have met the enemy and he is us.

Okay, back in the olden days when I was young, the Republicans felt they were being victimized by paying taxes that went to welfare for the jobless. It's a fairly defensible position, if one assumes (as Republicans do) that people don't work because they're lazy. Now that the welfare system has been somewhat dismantled, they're attacking the greed of... people who work for a living. Evil Labor!

How long will it be before the Republicans start gnawing off their own hands and feet?

Another quote to live by

A family member who is a fellow birding enthusiast sent me a book called The Verb 'To Bird'. At first, I found it a rather silly book, full of bad jokes and too many digressions; its author, one Peter Cashwell, I had pegged as a silly man.

But I soon started to get into the book and enjoy it, and in one chapter, Mr. Cashwell makes an important point of the usefulness of tossing aside preconceived notions, and allowing the process of observation to take over when trying to solve a problem. He quotes Huang Po, a Chinese Zen master, as follows:

"The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see."

I think those few words sum up what I so often try to hammer home in this blog. The quote could serve as the foundation of my world view.

Discovery and human endeavor

I still get a lump in my throat when I see a Space Shuttle landing. Of course, there is a component of relief in knowing that the mission is complete and the astronauts are safe, but there's more than that for me. I am just amazed at what some very smart, hard-working, and capable human beings can accomplish. It's breathtaking when you really think about it.

I spend a lot of my time fretting about human imperfection, so it's nice when something we do makes me feel so good.

For DKF, d. 2/27/2011

Dennis, old friend,

Spring is just around the corner,

The girls promise to look as pretty as ever,

But you're gone,

And things won't be as good as they were.

There is power in a union... and let's keep it that way.

I have heard complaints from younger acquaintances about labor unions and the rules they impose in the workplace. I don't know if these acquaintances are conservatives, or whether the passage of time has made them unaware of why there are unions in the first place, or what it was like for workers before they organized.

Now that many radical Republicans have taken power, it is important for us to remember the conditions that existed without labor unions, and what the unions did for all of us.

There was a time in this country when some laborers had to live in "company towns," and were paid in scrip instead of money. The scrip was no good outside the company town, so you had to buy your food at the company store. You paid rent on your dwelling to the company. You worked as many hours as the company saw fit. The workplace was dangerous. The workplace was an abusive place, and a laborer could work endless hours and still not make anything like a living wage.

The unions changed all of that. I have never worked in a union shop, but I recall the panic of a company I worked for when some of the employees tried to organize a union. The company promised to match the wages and benefits that the union would negotiate. The union was ultimately not brought in, but the power of organized labor was felt nonetheless.

I came along at a time when companies offered many benefits, and it is easy to see why a person not acquainted with pre-union conditions might believe that companies are just naturally benevolent. But all these benefits were fought for, before I was born, in sometimes bloody battles with company goons and the police.

In case I am not persuasive enough, here are some quotes I stole from a website that describes itself as a resource for writers. Hope they don't mind!

"History is a great teacher. Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts." -- Molly Ivins

"Every advance in this half-century: Social Security, civil rights, Medicare, aid to education... one after another- came with the support and leadership of American Labor." -- Jimmy Carter

"The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute and, above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. When in the thirties the wave of union organization crested over the nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society." -- Martin Luther King Jr.

"All that serves labor serves the nation. All that harms is treason. If a man tells you he trusts America, yet fears labor, he is a fool. There is no America without labor, and to fleece the one is to rob the other." -- Abraham Lincoln

In which I out-paranoid the paranoid Right

I have mentioned before that the Right in this country is unimaginative, in that they can only conceive of one boogeyman: the government, of course. Never mind that a good government can protect us from crime, disasters, disease, pollution, terrorism, the depredations of corporations... see how many boogeymen?

But no, there's really only one, and they fear every move it makes.

A friend of mine on Facebook recently posted a petition that's been going around, trying to stop the Republicans from defunding PBS and NPR. Boy, the Right hates that liberal slant.

And why shouldn't people distrust government sponsored media (even though the government doesn't really put much money into it any more)? So many times, despotic governments broadcast propaganda through state-run outlets, and close down any independents who criticize the government. It's natural to assume that government funding is dangerous to the truth.

But what a funny country this is. NPR and PBS, while not perfect, broadcast thoughtful, sober, in-depth news coverage and other programming. And I think the programming was better when the government footed more of the bill.

And what has the worshipped, sacred Free Market given us for news? A propaganda engine called Fox News, which lies constantly (and transparently, if you don't happen to be a true believer). America has given birth to a Corporate Pravda!

Gossipping dogs

I've been making my way through Montaigne's essays for the last month or so (and, yes, dead white males are really interesting), and I was thrilled to find that he thought it was presumptuous to assert that there was any large gulf between humans and other animals. This is something I think about a lot, in my own rather aimless way. Here's a little of what he has to say on the subject.

"How does he know, by the force of his intelligence, the secret internal stirrings of animals? By what comparison between them and us does he infer the stupidity that he attributes to them?

"When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?"

He goes on to note that, since humans and animals don't share the gift of speech, neither of us understands the other, and it really cannot be determined that this is a deficiency in the animals, any more than in us.

"We must notice the parity there is between us. We have some mediocre understanding of their meaning; so do they of ours, in about the same degree. They flatter us, threaten us, and implore us, and we them."

I think that humans, as highly verbal animals, assume that speech is the highest form of communication. I also think that this assumption causes a blind spot in our perception of the ability of other animals to communicate with each other.

One of the more well-known examples of non-verbal communication is the dance bees do to tell other bees just where they found the nectar. Observers have also deduced, by observing the behavior of elephants, that they grieve for their dead. But I think that, on the whole, our inability to experience the world as other animals do puts us at a disadvantage in understanding how they might communicate.

A weird flight of fancy follows.

I got to wondering whether other animals with one or another highly developed sense might use it to send and receive messages. For example, the dog experiences the world through its nose to a very high degree. When you take your dog for a walk, what piques his or her interest? The dog sniffs everywhere. But you notice that there are certain places en route that are more interesting to the dog than others. The dog sniffs, then the dog pees in that same spot. The stronger the smell, the more likely your dog is to sniff, then pee. And you notice that your dog never empties his bladder in just one place. A little bit here, a little bit there.

Now, suppose your dog can subtly control the chemical composition of his urine to leave messages that other dogs can understand with their superior sense of smell? What if every fire hydrant is a message center? Does every dog in America know all about Michael Vick?

Pure speculation, of course, without a shred of evidence, but it illustrates my idea that our own form of communication dominates our idea of what communication is to such a degree that it's hard for us to imagine any other.

Anyhow, I once tried to write a story about a scientist who discovers this secret of dog communication, and through chemical analysis, discovers the hidden world of dogs. I've never succeeded in writing fiction, so if you like the idea, it's yours.

Nothing important

Seems to me that those of us who rely on reason and logic are attached to them with a fierce emotion.

Metaphor

First of all, I would like to compliment Sarah Palin, or her minions, for knowing what a metaphor is. I would never have suspected them of such depth.

I have taken a day to digest the catastrophe of yesterday's shootings in Tucson. Yesterday, I was dazed. Today found me enraged. I find that this is the proper mood for me to be in if I want to write this decidedly uncivil note. Ms. Palin, Ms. Bachmann, Ms. Angle, your cute little word games, your "second amendment remedies," your crosshairs (and I know them when I see them), your "locked and loaded," and all of your other treasonous, murderous words have now borne fruit. "Awwwww, who, us????? Dontcha recognize a metaphor when ya see one?" Oh, so cute, so clever. So fucking stupid.

No, I will not be civil with people like you.

As I have said in this space before, people who shout others down at town hall meetings have no interest in democracy. People who wear their weapons to public events are not proudly celebrating their second amendment rights. These people are interested in getting their own way through intimidation.

Who are these people, and how did they get this way? These are people whose ideas hold no water, but who cannot bear to give these ideas up. The only way they can persuade others of the validity of their ideas is by force.

Here are some facts:

Republican policies have ruined the economy. For the second time. Understanding of cause and effect allows me to predict that, if these policies continue to be followed, things will get worse.

Barack Obama was elected president, by a wide margin, democratically. Nobody stole America from you.

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. The proof of this is abundant, unless you are an idiot.

The earth is not 6,000 years old.

God did not make the earth in seven days.

The world was not covered by floodwaters, and Noah did not save all those animals.

Elijah did not go straight to heaven without having to die.

Jesus did not rise from the dead.

There are no such things as witches.

Homosexuals are quite normal human beings. They are in the minority, but nature makes a certain number of them, just as she makes a small number of left-handed people, and has done so since there were animals on the earth. As human beings, they do not deserve to be persecuted, and they should have the same rights as anybody else.

Barack Obama is a black man. He is, far and away, smarter than any of you.

You don't believe any of what I have just said. These facts have not found a way to penetrate your thick skulls.

Because your brains are having trouble assimilating this information, may I suggest taking all these facts and shoving them up your asses? That act will be more constructive than anything you're doing right now.

Democrats: Improving the quality of American life since 1932!

The Right Wing (hereafter referred to as the Insane Clown Posse) is trying to destroy Social Security. Now, I have remarked before that there is some sort of madness on the loose in America these days, so I shouldn't be surprised.

Once upon a time, the Right wanted merely to end the welfare state, reasoning (yes, they once reasoned, just like you and me) that the shiftless and the lazy were living off the taxes of the righteous holders of jobs. This was a selfish point of view, in my opinion, but it was logically consistent.

What in the world possesses anyone to want to get rid of Social Security? It's not a giveaway. We pay into it, and we expect to get some of that money back. And I, for one, would like to get every penny that I have been promised, with no sneaky changes in how old I have to be when I start collecting.

We must hold on ever more tenaciously to the social gains we have made while this national madness is afoot, and hope that the country will snap out of it before the Right destroys everything we hold dear.

Ideas

Back in the early 1980s, some of my co-workers were among the first Neocons I met. One of them talked politics all the time, and was very excited about the new breed of conservative politicians who were talking about "ideas." He said the word with wonder and reverence, as if nobody in history had actually had ideas before their invention in the 1980s.

All of these ideas boiled down to two concepts. People should be able to keep nearly every penny of whatever stack of money they could amass. And, perhaps, if this were not too revolutionary, that maybe our democracy would be better off if only those who owned property were allowed to vote. The rabble could not be trusted to understand what was good for the country and themselves.

I think my co-worker assumed that the uneducated would vote Democratic; perhaps nowadays he's pleasantly surprised at how well the Republicans have done with the common man.

Another assumption my friend made was that the election of somebody as liberal as Ted Kennedy to the presidency would "ruin the country." Let's examine these "ideas," which are, after all, not new, against the evidence of fairly recent history.

You have, perhaps, heard talk of an event called the Great Depression. This happened against a background of reckless speculation, a lack of regulation of the stock market and the banks, and a belief in the invisible guiding hand of the free market.

Things were so bad, for so many people, for so long, that most became convinced that the government had a role in giving people some security against the roller coaster ride of the free market. Now, there's an idea! The rough road of life can be smoothed by government programs. Franklin Roosevelt began the "New Deal."

I was born in 1950, and my life has been lived in the protection of New Deal policies. Social Security. Federal insurance to keep me from losing all my savings should my bank fail. Regulation of the stock market that did not allow a person to "buy" stock at fifteen cents on the dollar, gambling that he'd make his money back when the stock went up, as it surely must.

During my lifetime, the economy has been relatively stable, without severe ups and downs. This is not something I'm guessing at or making up. This is what I have observed, what I have experienced. My parents were not rich, but we got by, and I was able to go to college and do well for myself.

Then came the Reagan Revolution. The Neocons do not believe in the regulation of business. Never mind that regulated businesses have done quite well, and that America has thrived in the years since the Roosevelt administration. Since Reagan, the politicians with the same "ideas" that ruined our economy so many years ago have been working to chip away all of the New Deal protections. They did their job well during the George W. Bush administration, and by its end, the economy was on its way into the toilet once again. The same policies, therefore, had been pursued twice, with the same disastrous results.

Now, back to the subject of "unmitigated gall." Our villain from my last post, Rep. Darrell Issa, is searching for the answer as to why the economy has gone bad. The evidence is clear. The free market does not lead to a better standard of living all by itself. It needs regulation. But Mr. Issa is unable to see evidence that is in plain view. The reason? Ideologically-induced blindness.

Check out Darrell Issa's agenda for the House oversight committee:

"The committee will query business leaders 'about the government regulations that are doing the most harm to job creation efforts' and 'examine how overregulation has hurt job creation.'"

Yes, I feel so much safer with these reverse Robin Hoods in charge of the country.

Unmitigated gall

Ever since the resignation of Richard Nixon, the Republicans have been trying to settle the score. In their eyes, the Nixon investigations had nothing to do with his crimes, and everything to do with politics. Their first attempt at revenge was the Clinton impeachment proceedings, which failed, so the Republicans still feel one down.

The George W. Bush administration is another one that lied, committed crimes against the Constitution, and war crimes to boot. But far from pursuing these matters, President Obama has actually prevented foreign courts from prosecuting members of the Bush administration. I think that Obama probably hoped to break the revenge cycle, but the rabid bunch of Republicans elected in 2010 shows no signs of letting go.

Darrell Issa, the new head of the House oversight committee has called the Obama administration one of the most corrupt ever, and seems intent on hounding the administration on as many fronts as possible. This is the thanks Obama gets for trying to get along with thugs.

Should we liberals be learning ruthlessness from the masters? I'm torn.