Life, people, the world, society, politics, countries, current events

This blog is for my own benefit, to help me organize, analyze, rationalize what I think and feel about the events in my day. These include but not limited to news events, personal interactions, reading, comments, if any are ever left on this blog. Bernard Paris has written a book, Bargains With Fate, which applies his interpretation of Karen Horney’s concept of personality to Shakespeare’s characters. The concept holds we all develop an idea, frame, belief that if we act certain ways the world will magically and not merely in a direct, cause-effect way, respond as we wish is beguiling, but ultimately of limited valid application. We all believe we can by taking certain actions obtain certain outcomes. This approach is different, it posits we expect or believe the results come thru non-real world power. For example, if I behave kindly and generously to others, they will behave the same to me. If I work hard and smart I will succeed. Not in each case because people naturally react as they are acted upon nor because hard smart work must naturally solve problems and overcome obstructions. But because the world is so arranged by a higher power that good acts returns good acts. Or because reward/success is ‘given’ to the virtuous and hard smart work is virtuous. There is no allowance for sociopaths, or psychopaths, for narcissists, there is no allowance for disease and accidents maiming and killing the ‘good and virtuous.’ Perhaps the European Nazi holocaust convinced many that this view of the world is naïve and dangerously incomplete. Perhaps this view was prevalent in Shakespeare’s time when church attendance was mandatory, information for most was thru conversation and anecdotal, and in England of that time the government was based on the firm belief that God had specifically ordained the monarch to rule the realm. Indeed, as nearer to god than her subjects, Queen Elizabeth performed ‘laying on of hands’ at the pleading of her subjects to cure disease and bring ‘good fortune’. The mindset must have been very alien to us. So yes Paris’s approach may have explained how Shakespeare and his audience framed the characters actions, feelings, and motivations. Shakespeare the genius has presented characters, many so life like and ‘rounded human’ that they can still touch us, be comprehensible to us, but we do not see them in the same way perhaps he and his audience did. The disillusionment and cynicism of the post WW1 ‘lost generation’ and the incomprehensible, horrific but undeniable truth of the holocaust have demonstrated to much of the western world that there is no Fate at all that will hold up its end of a Bargain.

they have a point but they are wrong

The HCR requires everyone to purchase Health insurance. Libertarians are right, it does. However here is the situation which liberarians don't address. An emergency medical situation, car accident, industrial accident, plane crash, train crash, multiple injured persons, many appaearently serious, some unconscious. If they are given med treatment, as we would all insist happen, who pays if they have no insurance, the cost of medical care for serious medical conditions is so high, only the richest of us can afford it out of our own resources. We insist hopsiatals admit and treat emergency cases, publicly supported hospitals are required to by law. The public does pay in the end to fund public hospitals. The numbers out are about $1,000 per person per year on all of us to support hospitals we require treat everyone. Young working people who choose not to purchase insurnance and have acquired little resources in their short working lives, children whose parents do not purchase insurance for them, un employed, etc, etc all do get treatment and we pay for it. We ouls not tolerate sick children thrown oout of hospitals untreated becasue parents are not paying for health insurance. We would not tolerate accident victims untreated lying on the street or the factory floor until their insurance can be verified. Why is the president not making clear in a national speech why mandatory insurance mere relabels what we already do, and if anything requires us citizens to act responsibly about our health care. We demand it for each of us when we need it, but some of us choose to evade the costs. Libertarians ought to be suppoolrting this, or advocating some type of qucik read implant so each of us if unconscious and injured can have our insurance verified, those who have no insurance, let 'em bleed to death on the street. The Administration should make this and other aspects of HCR a daily mantra to counter the daily chorus of lies. It is never enough to build a better mousetrap, not if the competition have a vital welf interest in destroying you.

why is Sarah Palin

Someone who refers to the law department of the whitehouse lacks knowledge of the basic structure of the federal executive. When asked Palin said the "office of Law" at the whitehouse would reject ethics compaints against the president. This statement was given in a video interview with andrea mitchell broadcast yesterday. The issue of Palin's lack of knowledge is not new, what I am curious about is the supported for Palin who either jsut as ingnorant or more and therefore doesn't see Palin's ingnorance, or the supporter who does not care. Well if you think you have enough information to cast a vote and you think Palin knows enough because she knows as much as you. Well can't argue with a rock. If you recognize she may not know a lot about "stuff" but you don't care. I ask... do you pick your doctor based on whether they express the anger you feel. Do you want your boss at work to feel she/he is a victim of powerful forces arrayed against the company because it is a real american company. Do you want help with your taxes from someone who is not aware of all they legal ways you can reduce your taxes ? What disturbs me most is the assumption by many of her supporters that the shares and expresses their anger, fear, frustration, victimization and that is reason enough to support her as a leader. Certainly a leader must understand and even better feel what her/his followers feel, but there is a level of competaqnce about the functions of leadership without which failure is almost certain.
You have to know how to staqrt a car, how to work the steering wheel , brakes, and gearshift, and you have to know the rules of the road or you will crash.. Sarah Palin does not know enough of that to bew effective and if elected her followers will either have to expend a great deal of energy explaining why her failures are not her fault or come to realize, leadership requires more than shares feelings with followers, a =whole lot more

advice to Sarah Palin

Roger Simon at Politico offers seven bits of advice Sarah Palin should follow to get the Republican nomination for President in 2012. All his advice focuses on creating an image which the hard conservative base would support. Unfortunately while simon's advice may be sound politically, wouldn't the country be better off if he gave her some adive on how to be a better chief executive. She seems to conduct herself in Alaska as a disorganized amateur who doesn't hve a clue how to organize or lead. We just had 8 years of both bad policiy and incompetant leadership. Didn't we learn the best intentions are useless if the leader doen't have a clue what leadership and management are all about?
Someone give this Woman advice how to lead than we can concern ourselves if her policies make any sense.

Briilant, Typical, Typically Brilliant

Pres. Obama's speech made two fundemental philosophical points, one polictical, one religious. As a democracy we can move forward by identifying those areas of agreement and working on them. Whatever we feel about abortion almos t all of us would welcome better prenatal support, better options where adoption is in the picture, and better support for single woman who are parents and for their children. Those goals are supported by the vast majority of voters. There is enough to do here to occupy most of or energy and passion. He did not fudge the fundemnetal differences that exist amongst us, but encouraged a respectful debate. It is certainly easier to grant respect and earn respect when you have worked hand in hand with those you have a fundemental disagreement with. Many of us beleive in God. As our president has said, none of us can credibly claim we know the will of God to a certainty. But all of us who beleive can and should struggle to - do right as we are given the light to see what is right. While all of us must recognize we see as we can, and none of us can see the mind of God. Humility about what his will is for each of us is the sign of true acknowleddgement that God is above and beyond our poor ability to know and to understand.

The Dinner

It must be the combination of the dead pan delivery and the self deprecating 1000 watt smile which comes about 3 beats after the comment which makes me laugh out loud, I feel as though I am shearing an inside joke with the President of the United States. It is as though he is saying with that swmile, just between us, I wasn't serious just now, I was kidding, I can't help but laugh cause what I said was funny. He is such a likable human being and that just comes straight thru the screen.

sometimes the small things signify

This morning Pres. Obama, VP Biden and Sen. Arlen Spector held a joint news conference. In welcoming Sen Spector to the Democratic Party. Pres. Obama mentioned the significance to Sen Spector of the Senator's father. How his father had been a force driving Sen Spector to serve and achieve in the public arena. As the three were leaving the podium, an open mike caught the Senator thanking the President for mentioning the Senator's father. It is that kind of human sensitivity, caring and insite into the emotional construct of collegues which will greatly help the President move his agenda forward. The public also sees this. His personal "likability" is significantly greater than agreement with his policies, all the polls show. How completely different than a Pres. and VP who seemed to know very little about what others thought or felt, and did not care either. Is this a difference between Republicans and Democrats? Well Reagan was the last likable Republican, and Pres Clinton was famous for his ability to empathize. Maybe as the Rebpulican party becomes more and more rigid, racially homogenized, and separated from the real world it will also know and care little for what anyone feels, or thinks. If you beleive gay marriage is the end of our country. If you beleive the idea of free markets is more important to people than jobs and homes, if you beleive our place in the world is to bully allies and use the military against those we disagree with, perhaps the only people who will join you also do not know or care what anyone else thinks or feels.

if anyone read my original April 24

post please just acknowledge that as a comment

They still don't get it

Rebpulican concept of bipartisanship. Do most of what we would do if we were in power. they still do not realize the country has seen that cronycapitalism and the gutting of federal and state government regulatory and service work by contracting out to for profit companies only benefits the companies and those republicans who got campaign contributions and bribes. The people got weaker corrput regulatory actiion and degraded service. Ask anyolne you know who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Sorry Republicans the concept that the "Market knows best and is best for all when unregulated committed suicide. The idea that government services can be delivberied better and more efficiently by private contractors has died of incompetance and corruption.

wrong question

The media seems focused on the question, did torture provide information which prevented terrorist attacks. The sophistcated media asks, could whatever useful information gleaned during torture have really been found somewhere else. The improtant question, unasked so far, is are we going to bypass over 200 years of legal jurisprudence which is continually evolving to balance individual rights and group protections. Are we going to allow namesless, faceless people to determine that individuals can be tourtured. That is the only valid question. I hope someone askes it?

McCain's top adviser sees Republicans as I do

John McCain's top adviser from the presidential campaign urged fellow Republicans on Friday to warm up to gay rights and warned that the GOP risks becoming the "religious party" with its opposition to same-sex marriage. Said on Fox News Today

from the bottom up

John McCain's top adviser from the presidential campaign urged fellow Republicans on Friday to warm up to gay rights and warned that the GOP risks becoming the "religious party" with its opposition to same-sex marriage. 

Michael Steele and Clarence Thomas

Both prove the point that if you are a memeber of a religious, ethnic, cultural, or racial minority and a member of the GOP you are either a fool or a corrupt cynic, trading on your group identity to advance your career.  Does anyone really think anyone involved in appointing Thomas or voting for Steele really thought either was competant or intelligent, nah, just a cynical attempt to put a token out there to try to show the Republican party does not have a white fundementalist base which steers that bus.  I am talking about the Republican leadship here, there are sincere well meaning Republicans out there, somewhere. The powers that run the party on the national and local levels have either sold out or sincerley believe in creationism, a free market which will leave us all at the mercy of predatory corporations, and that the old days where women and minorities knew their places and degenerates ( read gays ) were put in jail were the best days this country has had.  That is the Repoublican base, the "pure core" and watching the buffoonery of Steele and the submissive taging along of Thomas behind Scalia, it just proves my point.  Idiots or cynics.

been a little while

Just have to comment on the Teaparty wavelet.  The bitter underlying assumption is - I don"t wanna, its mine, Wah wah wah.  Really, the original teaparty protested taxation without representation, the new one protests taxation with representaion?  And those are the most rational of those attending.  Sorry we have tried less government since Reagan and we have the biggest bust since the last time republicans deregulated and worshiped business and the free market ( read - took all the money they could get from the rich) - the great depression.  And that one was deeper and longer because Hoover kept trying to balance the budget as things spiraled down.

Sorry you idiots we are not gonna deal with the debt on those children holding signs their parent gave them by balancing the budget and enjoying a 20 year depression this time around.  I guess the best part of the teaparties yesterday was that in a country with over 305 million people only 250,000 attended, about 8 hundreths of 1 percent.  Given the tough times we are in and the strenuous efforts of rightwing media ( Fox-Limbaugh) and The National Republican Party that is a remarkably low percentage of stupid-angry people.

part 2

Books, their size, covers, typeface have a character to me, convey something of their content.  I am sure someone several millenia ago, someone "old" when told about this new way to communicate, by scratching on wet clay.  Complained that the immediacy, the intensity, of listening to a recitation by a speaker was going to be lost, and that was a big loss.  I imagine there was another complaint that the craftsmanship and artistry of the individual scribe which made each hand coped book a work of individual art was being lost when books could be printed on a press.  And now here I am looking at the library I have accumulated over a lifetime and realizing the information it holds is available to be stored in any number of hand held devices.  Some can speak the words to me. Some will allow me to scan and skip anywhere in the text I choose.  It is wonderful for all of us.  The cheaper and broader the dsissemination of information the greater the opportunity we have to interact positivly with each other and the world we live in. The greater the opportunity we have to learn how alike we are as human beings.  Yup I will keep my books, I think there is nothing wrong with nostalgia. But I am downloading works from my local library to read on my laptop and play on my iPod.  I cancled my NY Times daily delivery and read the paper online.  I even blog.

what I realized when I moved

When I moved a week ago, I took as much of my personal library as  could.  I took 6 bookcases and tried to take only as many books as the 6 could hold.  A few days after I moved in amazon announced they are giving free software so your iPod or iPhone can share a kindle file.  I looked at my wall of books and realized they will shortly be oldfashoined, and soon after that antiques. Knowledge dissemination is undergoing another major shift.  Maybe 5 thousand years ago knowledge was transmitted by word of mouth.  Accurate transmission was as reliable as the old children's game of telephone.   Somewhere after that a written language, first on wet clay, than on papyrus, than on rolled animal skin, allowed one person to communicate the exact same message to someone too far away to hear a voice and even those who were not born until after the speaker had died. This process was far less labor intensive than word of mouth communication, but did require a one to one effort between the writer or copier and a single copy of the information. A bit more than 5 centuries ago,  the invention of the printing press allowed a crew of only a few to reproduce multiple copies of information quickly and aqccurately.  Now an individual can be in almost any urban and many non-urban areas around the world and have access to a vast common pool of information, news, books, video while standing on a street corner or walking across a grassy field.

What the Republicans missed, in a nutshell

Americans want help, they don't see business or individuals as a source of that help.  Pres. Obama is right when he says government should and must do what we as individuals cannot do for ourselves.  Governor Jindal's praise for the private acts of help during Katrina show how out of touch the ideological Republican right is with the rest of the world.  Katrina exposed government failure, not private sector success.  It will be a long, hard republican road back if that is the view they take.   

Boston College is right

Some students at BC are protesting the crucifixes which have recently been hung in all classrooms.  One protestor said it is inconsistent with the Jesuit tradition of openminded acceptance of other religious traditions.  The school is a private institution.  It has every right to display symbols of whatever religion it chooses.  The school has every right, if it chooses to require religious study, chapel attendance, ordination, or any other activity which does not violate the law.  No one is forced to go to that school.  No one is forced to take advantage of the excellant education offerred there.  If students disagree with any particular policy of the school they have the right to go elsewhere.  They have the right to apply to the school administration for a change in that policy.  However protest implies the school is committing a wrong.  It is not.

moving out

Getting ready to move.  The new place will be fine, smaller than the old place but all in all okay.  There is something liberating about moving.  You are forced to make a million decisions about what to take, what to give away, and what to throw out.   You find things you don't remember you have and want to keep.  Other things out in plain sight you look at and say I haven't needed it or used it for years, goodbye.  If you have been evan moderatley comfortable where you are, moving to some place that is the same or less is not something to look forward too.  But as Martha Washington said ( at least I read she did ) We bring our happiness with us.  It goes in the same moving box as gratitude for a path forward and the health to go down it.  The most important parts of life, the health and happiness of those we loave and care about, stay in our hearts and move with us wherever we go.

color and behavior

Report in the NY Times today that test subjects performance with detail and creativity were significantly affected by the room color they were in.  Red heightens our ability to deal accurately with detail.  Blue enhances creativity. Other colors affected female attractability, yellow affects hunger and thirst, red and green have other behavioral afffects.  Are these evolutionary adaptations, red associated with primitive hunting, eating, threats.  Blue associated with bodies of water, clear unthreatening sky, no data yet, only speculation.   Up until Freud exposed the hidden workings of our subterranean thoughts and emotions, the European concept of man was of a rational mind fighting with "lower" instincts.  It appears from these studies there is a part of us which subtly reacts to our environment in ways we are not conscious of and which affects our behavior.  All the time we are unaware.  How mysterious we are to ourselves, how unkown to us, we still are.