Plead Ignorance

High Court Orders Redo of Texas

2012-01-29T01:42:00.000-08:00

My son-in-law, Adam, has been finding the news feeds to his i-Phone quite entertaining - specifically the 'truncated" headlines as they are trimmed to fit in the small window of his news app. So amusing an numerous are these that he has decided to publish them on a site he's named Bad Headlines:

http://badheadlines.tumblr.com/

In the mean time I am taking a couple of weeks off to flop under the tropical sun of our very own Hawaiian Islands. While there I'll been checking the validity of our President's birth certificate. So for now, until I return in mid-February, enjoy Bad Headlines.

~ Aloha, RtS

A Jury of his Peers

2012-01-23T12:36:00.000-08:00

It was August 2007, I had been called to Jury Duty. Most people will agree that this never happens at a convenient time. This was particularly so for me but this was particularly so at this time - I was called to report on a Monday; the subject of my recently completed documentary, Jerry Andrus had just died of advanced Prostate cancer two days previously on Sunday. My mother-in-law, Wanda, had just been released by the hospital; she was at home under the care of Hospice.

The jury had been selected and I was included. The defendant had been charged with Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle. The case laid out something like this:

Two guys were roommates sharing a rental in another city. “Skinny” had some decades old high-mileage muscle car, a GTO. His roommate,“Heavy Guy”, wanted to buy the car from his roommate. The arrangement between them was that Heavy could drive the car all he wanted until he could scrape enough money together to buy it from Skinny.

This arrangement went along fine until one weekend Heavy took the GTO on a long trip to our town. Heavy had borrowed the care for long trips before, however, during this trip the car broke down. Heavy managed to limp this clunker to his girl friend’s house where it sat in her driveway until the repair shop opened on Monday. Heavy managed to get the car to a shop but he didn’t have the money to pay for the repairs; Heavy would need to ask his mother to wire some money to him.

In the mean time Skinny notices that Heavy hasn’t returned the car following the weekend. Word gets to Skinny that his car is broken down in our town; pissed, he calls the police here. The police find the broken down car in the local girlfriend’s driveway. The situation is explained; everyone knows where the car is. The next day Heavy is arrested for essentially stealing the car.

So I’m sitting in the jury box listening to this testimony all the while wondering what the crime is? This seems more like a major misunderstanding has occurred, and a lack of courtesy... but a crime?!I am wondering why the prosecution even brought this trial to court; did a junior prosecutor need some practical court room experience? Remarkably during the entire trial, NO physical evidence is submitted, not one shred – the case is based entirely on whether Skinny gave Heavy permission to take this car. It's Skinny's word against Heavy's.

Skinny appears in court as a witness in a smart suit and tie; he’s young and good looking. His pretty girl friend is with him in court. Heavy, the defendant is overweight and not all that attractive; his shirt is untucked and clearly could use a hair cut.

The judge sends us into deliberation. This being my second time on a jury I decide I will set myself up to be the Foreman. I purposely sit myself at the head of the big conference table in the Jury room. I’m wanting to drive this process so I can wrap this up quickly and I can get back to my family and dying mother-in-law. I ask if anyone else wants to be the foreman; nope – so I am now foreman.

I summarize the case: Skinny has allowed Heavy borrow his car repeatedly over a period of months on the hope that Heavy will by this Junker from him. The junker breaks down out of town and they have a problem. I’m thinking most of the jury is thinking as I; what we have here is a failure to communicate resulting in an over-response by a pissed off car owner. I ask for a view of hands how many of the jurors think Heavy is NOT guilty.

Three people raise their hands. My jaw drops.

The standard for determining guilt in a criminal trial is that 10 or 12 jurors must believe that the defendant is guilty Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. Apparently what looks to me like a simple misunderstanding is going to result in a felony conviction for a guy who I don’t think deserves it. I’m surprised to find myself in the minority opinion.

The afternoon wears on, we deliberate. We note there is no evidence, no third-party witnesses or testimony other than the defendant and witness. We note that these guys are not total strangers, that the defendant made no attempt to hide the vehicle, sell it, etc. In fact, he was actually trying to have it repaired at his expense. He's had the car to the shop to get an estimate for repairs, he just needs the money to do the work.

It’s getting dark, the court clerks takes our dinner orders. I call agian for a vote – half the people want to send this kid to prison. The deliberations become heated. One guy, one of these types who wears baggy shorts and his baseball cap on backwards, has clearly developed a grudge against me. Another woman is crocheting; this jury looks like it was put together by Central Casting. What has become abundantly clear to me is that the term “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” is analogous to these people as “I believe truly truly in my heart of hearts”. We are deadlocked. It’s late Monday night; we go home to sleep and must reconvene tomorrow.

I go home despondent. I can’t talk about the trial to my wife, but I can tell her how upset I am. She has spent all day with her mother who is slipping in and out of a coma. Out of town family have arrived at her mother’s home; her end is very near. I feel I am the only person standing between people who would send a guy to prison over a stupid disagreement. I am convinced that if the defendant were a good looking, nicely dressed young man, he’s probably walk. My jury figures that if the guy has gone to trial, that alone must mean he's guilty. I have a poor night’s sleep.

The following morning I arrive early in the jury room before anyone else has arrived. I write on the white board with red markers:

"Preponderance of Evidence"
"Clear and Convincing Evidence"
"Beyond a Reasonable Doubt"

I don’t sit, but stand at the head of the room next to the white board as each juror comes into the room and takes their seat. After the final juror arrives, I begin to speak.

I explain that there are several different standards for making decisions in a court case. For example in a civil case, each party may be partially responsible for what happened. In order to come to a decision we jurors wold have to decide which party is more likely guilty than the other. But we cannot do that in this case. I draw a big X through Preponderance of Evidence.

I then say that again, mostly in civil cases, one side says the other is guilty, the other says they aren’t. In these situations a jury needs to decide which side’s position is more substantially true than not. But again, we are not allowed to send a man to jail because we are leaning more this way than that. I draw another big red X through Clear and Convincing Evidence.

That leaves us with Beyond a Reasonable doubt. It doesn’t mean you are pretty convinced Heavy is guilty; it doesn’t mean that you feel it in your gut that Heavy is guilt – it means that you have NO DOUBT whatsoever that Heavy is guilty.

I point out that it is Skinny’s word against Heavy’s. There is no evidence to weigh one mans word over the other. There are no witnesses to confirm what either of these men said to one another. I further say that Heavy may indeed be guilty, but is there a possibility that he is NOT and that this is a misunderstanding that has blown out of proportion? If we don't know FOR SURE we must acquit him.

I call for a vote – 2 guilty, 10 NOT guilty. In Oregon it only requires 10 out of 2 to decide a trial. I don’t even attempt to turn the two remaining jurors; backward hat boy voting against me, not his conscience. Crochet woman is an idiot. But I cut my losses, quickly informing the clerk we have a verdict before anyone changes their mind. Moments later everyone is walking out of the courthouse.

As I rush directly from court to my mother-in-law’s home I chisel two important facts into my brain: The name of Heavy’s defense lawyer so I NEVER hire him as my defense attorney, and secondly, that if I am EVER accused of a crime, I’ll NEVER ask for a jury trial but instead leave my fate to a judge.

Later that evening Wanda slips briefly out of her coma. She is surrounded by her family, children and grand children. She peacefully loses consciousness and is gone.

[Between composing this story and posting it; I received a summons in the mail to appear for jury duty]

The End of Suburbia

2012-01-17T22:54:00.000-08:00

I was hungry, so I did what most Americans do, I grabbed my car keys and drove over to the local Burger King. Within three minutes of ordering, I strode out with a burger with onion rings and BBQ sauce for $1.99 which I paid for with a credit card.

In this country, we take this extreme level of convenience for granted; this is our “normal”. Yet outside the USA, this level of self-indulgence is rare – hell, in most of the world, its unheard of.

Consider that the burger came from beef raised on a “factory” ranch. The cattle feed is mostly feed corn; a crop that requires a significant volume of fossil fuels to produce. The onion for the rings may have come from Mexico; transported (using fossil fuels) to its ultimate production. The energy to cook this meal (out West here) was produced by hydro-electric power. But in most areas of the country, electrical energy is generated using coal or natural gas.

The car which I so conveniently used to retrieve my burger was produced at a huge energy cost; again fossil fuels were consumed in massive quantities to turn iron ore into steel, plastic and other raw materials; then fabricating these materials into the final product, delivering it to a dealer… and ultimately (yes, fossil fuels) to turn the key and drive the quarter mile to the Burger King.

The United States of America represents a small fraction of the global population yet we account for over a quarter of the world’s energy resource consumption. Though few of us give a second thought to the huge energy cost of indulging what we here in America almost consider a right, they should. You see, the luxuries we take for granted is on a downward trajectory, it is coming to and end and it will be permanent.

I recommend everyone watch a little known documentary titled “The End of Suburbia”. The title is somewhat misleading, though the rise and fall of the suburbs is the central focus, the peak of our world oil production, in view of ever increasing demand, will become a global issue. The hard fact is that ALL economic growth is completely dependent on the availability of affordable energy - and the continued availability of that energy, in the opinion of MOST experts, has peaked.

By “peaking” I am referring to the top of a bell curve where all the easily accessible, and therefore low cost, petroleum and natural gas has passed. Domestic (within the US) energy production peaked in the 1970’s. The “fracking” issues recently in the news are the results of attempts to force the more difficultly obtainable petroleum to enable extraction. This bears repeating: Most experts believe that world production has already peaked; or will within the decade at best!

Though the focus on this startling documentary is on the eventual decline of our post WWII middle class way of life, this film produced in 2004 is almost prophetic in shining a glaring spotlight on the overall decline in living standard of the Western World and the United States in particular.

Most AMAZINGLY, many of the economic predictions described specifically in this film made in 2004 have already happened:

“Seven-trillion dollars lost out of the US Stock Market. Two-Million jobs lost in the United States. Federal budget surplus gone; state budget surplus' gone. The middle class disappearing.” This film accurately predicted the global recession we are currently experiencing as the cost of energy continues to rise as demand outstrips supply. New power generating facilities are not being built as investors know there are no additional sources of energy to fuel them. The situation is dire.

Alternative sources of energy are, and will be, insufficient to supplant the huge cheap, and formally abundant, fossil fuels. There is insufficient land mass on the planet to generate wind, solar, nuclear or bio-fuel source energy at the rate the world consumes fossil fuels. There is great concern that converting food production into fuel production will result in increased food costs, lingering recession and a lower standard of living, the likes of which Americans cannot even begin to imagine.

I have repeatedly expressed throughout this blog that I believe that our generation has lived in the best times man ever has, and ever will have, in the history of this planet.

False Heroes - Revisited

2012-01-06T09:17:00.000-08:00

Back in October 2010 I did a post, False Heroes, about men who had faked their military service, mostly lying about being Vietnam War veterans. Most of these men had psychological problems, resulting in bad behavior, which they attempted to justify based upon their (supposedly) traumatic experiences during the war. The overriding tragedy is that this MYTH of the psychologically deranged or homeless Vietnam veteran has instead taken hold in the country as practically a cultural meme... even though there is little truth to the belief.

Recently I was listening to old Podcasts of American Public Radio's "This American Life" programs when I discovered they had done a story on this very subject which I blogged about in my False Heroes article. If you haven't already, I invite you to go back and read it. But in either case I recommend you listen to the 3-minute segment of the Podcast prolog below. If you have been following my blog for any length of time you will recognize the reoccurring theme in my blogging which is that things (and often people) are not always what they appear to be.

This American Life, Episode 138: "The Real Thing - Prolog" (Runtime: 3m:30s)

Christmas 1955

2011-12-24T15:27:00.000-08:00

Christmas 1955 - I was seven years old and my little sister was age two when this photo was taken of our Christmas tree and all the loot underneath it. My Dad was a veteran of WWII, he had just gotten a good paying job as an engineer and we had moved out to the San Francisco suburbs only a few years earlier. My Mom was the stay-at-home kind.

The motivations for practicing Duck-and-Cover drills at grade school were beyond my comprehension; I was living in total middle-class heaven. Needs I didn't even know I had were met with excess. I could look through the Sears Catalog toy section and be reasonably assured that some of those treasures would end up under our tree. The only downer for the season was when I opened a gift that turned out to be a shirt or sweater - I felt gypped.

I must have gotten an new bicycle every-other Christmas. The toys were always cool - Erector sets, Tonka trucks, Lionel train, even an Atomic Canon once. These things made up for my Dad drinking too much on Christmas Eve and my Mother going to be crying. I took the toys in my room and played by myself with the door closed. These were times of excess - materialistic and alcoholic... and everything in between.

My parents struggled. My mother went to a psychiatrist and took Milltown. My Dad drank. There were no marriage counselors (other than the Catholic priest) and no self-help empowerment books. My parents foundered in guilt, self-pity, anxiety and cruel words between them.

A Christmas of "stuff" never really seemed to make up for it, though it did provide escape. I wasn't able to truly escape until I went away to college. And even then, I had to return home during Christmas break. Nothing had changed.

Today my wife and I spend practically nothing on Christmas; we don't buy gifts and we don't even attempt to compete with the other grandparents showering our grand kids with toys. We put up lights on the house and a lovely Christmas tree... it even has an angel on the top. We Atheists celebrate the holiday like most everyone does, with family and friends and good food, wishing for peace on earth and good will toward us all.

Media Generated Empathy

2011-12-20T04:08:00.000-08:00

The following type of stories appear repeatedly in the news: A person or family, down on their luck due to unforeseen circumstances, perhaps due to illness or economic downturn. The story airs on national news... and suddenly they become the recipients of a huge outpouring of contributions of money, job offers and scholarships.

For example recently the CBS news show “60 Minutes” ran a story about homeless children in Florida; parents laid off work, living in their car, using a gas station restroom to clean up for school. The story had a huge impact on viewers; so much so that a follow-up story was broadcast about viewers sending in nearly one million dollars in contributions. One of the little girls in the story was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the name of a university – that particular university offered the girl a full scholarship. ^[1]

I see these stories and think: "Great… but what about the hundreds of thousands of other families who weren't lucky enough to appear on '60 Minutes'. What do they get?"

The answer is, they get nothing! People see these stories in the context of an isolated incident. They know that there is widespread poverty and deprivation in the world, in their community. But until it becomes personalized, most people are blind to issue.

Yet oddly we recognize that most humans are generally obsessed with a sense of morality. Granted how we each of us personally defines morality varies widely from individual to individual. But a sense of morality infuses a large percentage of how we interact with others. A number of scientific studies have actually been conducted in an attempt to find a biological basis for our sense of morality. At the biological level, we know that when levels of oxytocin are raised in the blood stream, we feel more magnanimous and interested in moral abstracts.

Interestingly the mere acting or invoking of empathy actually causes the oxytocin; some have begun to call it it the “moral molecule”. But oxytocin has a very short half-life and our ability as humans to summon empathy is equally short lived. Empathy rapidly attenuates as the demand for it becomes more widely spread. A story about four specific homeless children in Florida strongly evokes empathy in a large population of television viewers. But a story instead about the hundreds of nameless, faceless homeless children, often entirely misses the empathy bulls-eye. In fact often the opposite happens; the sense of morality instead generating indignation and the feeling that empathy is undeserved.

I often find myself dealing with negative emotions when, confronted at some check-out counter at a store or restaurant, there is the seemingly ubiquitous slotted can next to the cash register: "Help little Timmy get that liver transplant, his parents have no insurance." I’ve even dropped spare change in such cans myself. But I wonder what would that store would look like if there was a slotted contribution can for every needy Timmy, Johnny, Sally… all the thousands of needy people just in my area alone? Slotted cans would be stacked on every surface up to the ceiling, all over the floor and rolling out the door!

I find outrage in the realization that most people are unable to generate even the remotest sense of empathy, and remote sense of morality, to those they have no way of individually connecting to? Who decides who has earned a donation jar or nightly news story in their name and who will continue to suffer silently in anonymity?

---------
References:
1. Homeless teens on "60 Minutes" get free college, December 3, 2011

Fear of Flying

2011-12-15T02:31:00.000-08:00

In the course of five minutes, Air France flight 447 dropped from cruise altitude down into the Atlantic Ocean; none of the 228 passengers and crew on board survived. There was nothing mechanically wrong with the aircraft until it hit the the surface, sinking two miles to the ocean floor.

The opposite was true of US Airways Flight 1549 whose twin engines flamed dead out after climbing through a flock of birds during takeoff. The captain and first officer ditched the plane in the Hudson river; all 115 passengers on the flight survived.

The reasons for the diametrically opposite outcomes between these two airplane crashes reside entirely within the differences in the brains of their pilots. It involves the response of the human mind to situations of stress, fear and cognition.

Statistically half of all airline crashes can be attributed to “pilot error”.^[1] However, these statistics are not entirely unequivocal. For example there are cases of what is termed: “controlled flight into terrain” where pilots, completely unaware of a dangerous situation, believing that they were fully in control and on course, still crashed their aircraft. Then there are fatal incidents directly resulting from the pilot’s incorrect responses to emergency conditions; disregarding warnings or not following accepted procedures.

The latter was the case of Air France 447. While at cruise altitude and on automatic pilot, ice caused the plane’s airspeed indicator to read incorrectly. Unable to reason through the situation, the co-pilot did the unthinkable – failing to consult the checklist for this situation, he disengaged the autopilot. Attempting to fly the aircraft manually at that altitude, he pulled back on the controls, placing the aircraft in a stall condition.

Student pilots learn from their earliest training that pulling back on the control is exactly the WRONG response to a stall; a condition where the nose is lifted up to the point where the plane loses all lift. Even through every pilot knows that placing ANY aircraft in a nose-down attitude is the proper recovery procedure for a stall, the Air France co-pilot continued to attempt to pull back on the controls until the plane hit the ocean. Why?

Analysis of the cockpit voice recorder revealed that the co-pilot in command at that moment (the pilot was away from the flight deck) was apparently overcome with fear, unable to stop and reason through the predicament. Psychologists who study people’s reactions during periods of extreme fear sometimes refer to this inability to think a situation through as a “brain lock”. Deep within our brains the Amygdale processes our fear responses. If these responses override the Frontal Cortex, the “reasoning” portion of the brain, the person mostly likely will respond using instinctive behavior.

The crew of Air France 447 had almost five minutes to attempt to diagnose and recover control of their aircraft. Conversely, Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger in command of US Airways Flight 1549, had mere seconds. But Sully did possess the benefit of both years of experience and specific training which had been programmed into his cognition. When the engines flamed out on his Airbus, his rational frontal cortex overrode the fear. By thinking and responding rationally Sully and his First Officer saved 115 lives. Reacting to fear without thinking cost the lives of 228 Air France passengers.

Fear can cause us to believe things that are not true, to draw to incorrect conclusions and take inappropriate actions; fear often is a response out of ignorance. The antidote to fear is knowledge – education, training, experience and critical thinking.

In 1993, Chinese pilots flying a U.S.-made MD-80 were attempting to land in northwest China when the aircraft crashed on approach killing all on board. The pilots were baffled by an audio voice alarm from the plane's ground proximity warning system. Recovered from the wreckage, the plane's cockpit voice recorder picked up the Chinese pilot's last words: "What does 'pull up' mean?"

References:

1. PlaneCrashInfo.com accident database and represents 1,300 fatal accidents involving commercial aircraft, world-wide, from 1950 thru 2009 for which a specific cause is known.

Over the River and Through the Woods...

2011-12-10T03:58:00.000-08:00

Recently some friends were visiting us from out of town. The evening wore on and it was getting late; they had about a two hour drive ahead of them if they were to make it home by midnight. A couple of days later they called to thank us for the lovely evening and relate how their late evening drive home ended up being a 4-hour ordeal.

When my wife and I head north to Portland, we generally make the 12 mile jaunt over to the Interstate then cruise the remainder of the trip North at freeway speeds. But this is not the most direct route to Portland: Highway 99 is the old highway.

From our house, our friends had programmed their GPS to home and simply followed the device’s directions. Calculating the most “direct” route, it took them off the old highway, routing them along rural county roads until they reached the banks of the Willamette River. However, there was no bridge across the Willamette at this point on the route!

The GPS program didn’t know that the point where that little yellow line transverses the Willamette is actually the Buena Vista ferry; a small car ferry that stops operating at 7:00 PM. Our friends had to back-track on windy rural country roads to make their way to secondary roads which would eventually lead them home.

This isn’t the first time people have been led astray by errant GPS systems. In 2009 an Oregon couple on their way to Reno was directed up a remote Forest Service road by their GPS; it looked like the shortest route. They spent three days stranded in the snow before being rescued. These are not isolated incidents; there are countless stories of drivers being led astray by blindly depending on their onboard navigation systems. They may calculate the most “direct” route, but that may not necessarily be the quickest or most efficient route.

If I use Google Maps, for example, to direct me to the beach about an hour west of our location, the directions have me taking a circuitous route of twisty rural back roads before connecting into main route to the coast. But I know that if I drive three miles out of my way to the main highway, I can make it to my destination more quickly and comfortably.

I prefer to depend on maps. But even maps can lead one astray. I’ve seen bright yellow printed lines on a map that, in reality, don’t go where they indicate they do. Still maps give an overall perspective of starting point and destination. This allows you to strategize your trip rather than rely on simple “turn here” directions. Frankly, I like to see the the big picture, and I like to know roughly where I am at any point during a trip.

I appreciate that some people like not having to have to pull over and consult a map; and perhaps having that reassuring voice confidently directing them on their journey is comforting. But I probably won’t get a GPS anytime soon. Besides, I'm sure it would just keep asking: “Are we there yet?”

I love this Allstate Insurance ad:

Robert Reich: "The REAL Public Nuisance"

2011-12-05T00:33:00.000-08:00

I recently came across this video by Robert Reich. I believe his is as significant a warning about the hijacking of our Democracy as the George Carlin video I have posted previously.

Please invest 2 minutes and watch this video, then pass it on.

Three Principles of Self-Defense

2011-11-29T16:06:00.000-08:00

Earlier this summer, a pair of very violent criminals, 31 year old David Joseph Pedersen and his 24-year-old girlfriend, Holly Grigsby , went on a criminal rampage through our area. They allegedly killed a young man who had attended a concert in Newport, his body was found in the coastal hills a few miles from where we live. The pair continued their killing spree until they were apprehended in California. ^[1]

In 2004, college student Brooke Wilberger was abducted from a nearby apartment complex. Her body was found in 2009, again, in the nearby coastal hills; her murderer was convicted and is serving a life sentence. ^[2]

These dangerous criminal surely had driven on the same road that passes just blocks from our house. Yet we don’t live in a crime ridden urban inner city; we live in a small university town known for it’s academics, science and engineering. Still, these crimes, and others just as horrid have happened here in the past, as they do everywhere in the country.

We tend to hold mythological ideas about our probability of being victims of violent crime. We may wrongly think that we are safe at home while or while on vacation, or that we are in danger of harm when we may be perfectly safe. We may also believe that we are safer by having a loaded gun in our home – though statistically, the overwhelming majority of gun violence victims were family members rather than the extremely rare (0.5%) unknown intruder.^[3]

So I recently read with great interest a blog posting by Sam Harris titled “The Truth about Violence”. I believe this is very important information about the reality regarding our personal safety; so much so that I sent the link to my wife and children to read. I am now passing this on to my readers as well as I think it provides some very CRUCIAL and PRACTICAL information about how to survive personal attacks of violence. I urge you to read it and to pass it along to others.

Among the most important points of the article are:

Avoid conflict:
This is a tough one for adult males whose ego is often difficult to disengage from their self image and whose provoking words can quickly escalate into physical combat. In truth, there is nothing anyone can say to you that would justify instigating physical violence. Unless you are clearly defending yourself from physical attack, you could be charged with criminal assault and potentially civil lawsuit.

Do not defend your property:
Your stuff is only stuff. When I worked in bank operations we repeatedly advised tellers to hand over the money quickly and politely to bank robbers. There is nothing in your wallet or purse or in your home that is worth your life or injury or the life or injury of another person. Let it go.

ESCAPE at all costs:
This is a difficult one, if you are approached in a parking lot, for example, and someone tries to force you into a car, RESIST AND FIGHT WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT. Yes, you may be injured trying to escape, but if someone exerts their control and gets you to a remote location, you are probably going to die anyway and likely in a more horrible way if you don't do everything in your power to prevent being taken to an isolated location.

Lastly, and this is a very tough decision; but if someone takes a family member hostage and demands your compliance – ESCAPE, even if you leave the family member behind. If the criminal takes control of both of you, it will not end well. By one of you escaping, the criminal has lost control and knows now that help may be soon on the way.

Here is the link to the article. Read it, pass it on, and be safe!

The Truth about Violence - 3 Principles of Self-Defense
by Sam Harris.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-truth-about-violence/

~~~

References:
1. Pair can face trial in Washington in three-state killing rampage, Los Angeles Times.

2. Brooke Wilberger Found: Killer Gives Location of Remains to Avoid Death Penalty, ABCNew.com

3. Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home, New England Journal of Medicine.

Eye of Newt

2011-11-22T19:12:00.000-08:00

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

clueless — adj
slang helpless; stupid, ignorant, uninformed

I haven’t been blogging much about the political climate, primarily because my blood pressure is currently under control without need for medication; but seriously, far many other bloggers cover politics much more eloquently than I can.

However, I was forced to do a double-take as I caught a glimpse of a clip of Newt Gingrich railing about the Occupy Wall Street protesters – specifically when he said this about them on national TV:

“… get a job right after you take a bath!”

Hello Newt… anyone in there? You have got to be absolutely without question most blatantly f*#king CLUELESS politician on the planet!

Newt, Baby, the OWS protesters would absolutely LOVE to have a job… some of them at this point would take pretty much ANY job! I know it’s a bit over your limited intellect to understand but, as it turns out, the lack of jobs is EXACTLY WHY they are occupying Wall Street!

You see, you and your conservative cronies and their corporate handlers have systematically dismantled the working class in this country over the last 30 years. You guys basically sent their jobs to China, remember?

But hey Newt, I am in agreement with you; let’s get those lazy louts with their hundreds of thousands of dollars of unpaid student loan debt, out of those parks. How about asking your “Job Creator” friends, you know, the Bush Tax Cut recipients, to let us all know when all those unfilled jobs you want the OWS people to take will be kicking in? We're all still waiting, you little rascal "Job Creators" you.

I’m thinking I need to write to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary Company to suggest a new picture to be associated with their definition for the word “Clueless”. Unfortunately I’m having a bit of difficult deciding which of the two pictures above best illustrates that definition. Perhaps my readers could help me decide.

Which is more stupid; being stupid or being stupid on camera? You decide.

Wandering in the Desert

2011-11-15T15:29:00.000-08:00

The "shock and awe" of having survived a rather nasty open-heart surgery earlier this year has pretty much ebbed; as a result, I find myself now somewhat adrift in the doldrums (isn't that a great word?) Acquiring focus or grasping onto anything even moderately interesting eludes me at the present moment... obviously blogging and following my friend's blogs among them. I have a new shot at life, but for the moment, I don't quite know where to aim.

I have avoided browsing my Huffington Post app on the i-Pad and have opted for watching Jeopardy and Seinfeld reruns over the nightly news. The whole of America's strategic long-term planning extends no further than November 2012 - as a result, my predictions for our future are as remarkably easy to predict as they are dismal... and this is regardless of which party snatches the Oval Office. It looks like the NBA players and owners cannot come to an agreement so there will be no basketball season this year. I am completely bored by basketball anyway, so there ya go!

On a lighter note, this last weekend my granddaughter accompanied me to the Portland Humanist Film Festival where my short, The Fairy Scientist, starring my granddaughter Lydia, won an award. During the short Q&A session following acceptance of our award, most of the audience wanted to know if Lydia still believed in fairies. Her answer: she doesn't have enough "proof" yet. She is so bright!

So for the time being I'm just lurking. For those of you who inquired if I was "alright", (Nance, Ohren and others) thank you... Although I will add that I have had my fill lately of doctors and procedures. I am fine.

Regarding the header photo. I tried to find out if this sign was a hoax; I found nothing on Snopes.com or anywhere else so I am guessing it may be legit.

Are You Talking to Me?

2011-10-21T01:40:00.000-07:00

A few years ago if you were to stroll by the First Baptist Church in town a sunny Saturday afternoon, you might see two older white-haired gentlemen in dirt-stained baggy slacks, un-tucked shirts, doing simple landscape maintenance around the church grounds. One might easily take them for a couple of homeless men; possibly earning a nights meal in exchange for manual labor around the church.

In fact on this day, as the younger of the two elderly men was flinging fertilizer pellets from a coffee can over the lawn and shrub beds, a nicely dressed gentleman walking by the church stopped to watch. Then man then addressed the two older gardeners in a condescending manner, admonishing them: “You guys shouldn’t be putting that stuff on that lawn.”

Stopping their work, the man continued lecturing the two older groundskeepers, “You shouldn’t be putting harmful chemicals on the lawn; you should be using ‘Natural’ fertilizers instead.”

The two older landscape workers smiled and took off their worn work gloves; holding the coffee can to the face of their self-appointed Sidewalk Supervisor, one of them spoke: “This can contains Carbamide, a synthetic combination of ammonia and carbon dioxide, a Nitrogen fertilizer more commonly known as Urea. Mister, if there’s anything more ‘natural’ than Urea, please correct me!”

Sharing a smile between them the two old men in soiled clothes turned away from the man and went back to their work on the church landscaping. They were Dr. Melvin Westwood and Dr. Albert Roberts, both highly published research scientist and distinguished professors of Agriculture at Oregon State University.

Atheism Is Work

2011-10-16T14:56:00.000-07:00

There are many critics of Atheists but one charge one can’t level at atheists is that they are lazy. It is believing that easy – it requires no thought, preparation or investment of time or energy. Believing carries with it a huge payoff; it is comforting, reassuring, and removes the mental discord of stress, doubt and concern. Many believers wrongly think that Atheism comes to us easily; we simply dismiss acceptance of a deity. But this is not true; Atheism is difficult and demanding, quite often lonely and occasionally even disquieting.

On any Sabbath in our small Liberal town with several dozen churches, multiple Mormon ‘wards’, a synagogue and a mosque, hundreds of faithful convene to praise their versions of god. Conversely, only once a month does our local secular society attract a dozen or so non-believers. In The USA, ‘none-of-the-abovers’ are estimated to make up perhaps 20% of the US population. This fact contradicts those who charge that Atheism is, in itself, a religion. If that were true I would ask where is the Atheist Church located, who runs it and what is its tax exempt status? Or as I like to respond to this assertion: if stamp collecting is a hobby, is not collecting stamps a hobby as well?

Many believers hold myths about Atheists: that we are angry or disappointed at god, that we are closed minded about the possibility of his existence. To try to address these myths our little organization hosted two public forums we titled “Ask and Atheist”. Instead of being in lecture format, we would instead open the floor to comments and questions from believers to try to educate them about our position. We conducted two of these public forums, handing out survey forms which attendees turned in at the end of the sessions.

What we found were only a very small number of believers actually showed up. It was obvious who they were; the two or three who quoted from the ‘holy book’. They weren’t interested in why we were Atheists; they were there in vein attempt to save us from damnation. The majority of the audience, we found, were already other non-believers. We were preaching to the choir, it seemed. We had hoped that our little public forum might at least serve as publicity and perhaps draw new member to our group. That was a disappointment as well. Unlike believers, Atheists don’t need to regularly convene to reassure one another of their non-beliefs. It is simply a non-issue.

Like many before me, my path to Atheism has been difficult. It’s work! A recent Pew Research Center poll found that among the general population, Atheists and Mormons were more knowledgeable about other religions than religious people knew even about their own particular religion. Atheists may know more about Catholicism than most Catholics, for example, because they have taken the time and effort to find out. Atheism is driven by their need to find out the Truth. We ask the hard questions and demand answers.

Still Atheists understand people finding comfort in belief. In fact, comfort is the answer most often given as the reason people cling to religious belief. Belief affords the (illusion of) hope; hope that things out of your control are under god's, hope that you will live beyond death, hope that prayer will divert the natural course of events which appear threatening.

There is a comforting social component to being a believer, particularly if one attends church. Churches are communal, convivial; here one can associate with like-minded people with whom you share a common connection and bond – here they are part of your “tribe”.

But there is news recently that religious belief is on the decline. Clearly it was much easier to attribute to god(s) back in a time when man did not understand how clouds, weather and storms were formed; that bacteria caused disease; how the earth, planets and stars were formed and move throughout the universe.

Every day science adds to the body of man’s knowledge regarding the context of our existence – religion adds nothing new. Man is driven toward knowledge... and to achieve this, one must venture away from the desire for comfort.

2011-10-12T03:26:00.000-07:00

The photo at the left is of a five inch high stack of unsolicited (junk) mail credit card solicitations accumulated since the start of this summer. This is not all the junk mail I have received; the stack pictured represents ONLY bank credit card solicitations, primarily from Chase and Citi banks.

Pictured next to the pile of credit card junk mail is a coffee mug gift from our former mortgage company, Washington Federal Savings and Loan. Not to be confused with Washington Mutual Bank which was the largest bank failure in US history in 2008 and eventually taken over by JP Morgan Chase, the much smaller Washington Federal Savings and Loan has completely survived the financial mortgage breakdown of 2008 and continues to prosper during these tough financial times. They haven’t taken a cent of government stimulus buyout or been acquired by another company; to my knowledge they are not hemorrhaging under the cloud of excessive home foreclosure nor have I heard of them laying of a single employee. Why?

A bit of personal history first – During the first half of my professional career I worked in banking. My entry level job with the bank was repossessing cars from people who couldn’t make their car payments. The idea behind that training path was to ensure that future loan officers had intimate knowledge of what a bad loan was… so as not to make any themselves.

Later one of the first loans I ever made was to a couple who had previously declared bankruptcy. Each morning the branch manager would review the loans made by his officers the previous day. When he saw the loan decision I had made he sternly asked me to justify my decision. I explained that even though this couple had had their loans forgiven in bankruptcy, once back on their feet, the repaid their debts even though they were no longer required to. The sense of ethic this customer had shown convinced me they were a worth risk; my branch manager accepted my decision.

Back in those days interest rates were controlled by Federal and State regulations. There were “usury” laws on the books; it was illegal to charge excessive amounts of interest, fees or penalties. If you bought a car from a car dealership, you needed 20% of your own cash down for bank financing. A mortgage loan on a home required 10% down unless it was a federally guaranteed loan; 20% if it was not owner-occupied. There were strict debt-to-income and loan-to-income ratios in which a loan applicant needed to fall within for the loan to be approved.

Savings and Loans (like Washington Federal) carried mortgage loans on their own books as long-term investments. Banks such as my employer sold their mortgages on the “secondary market” at a discount for funds which they could turn around and lend out commercially for shorter term at higher interest rates. The system worked, and more importantly, it was stable.

But after I left the banking industry, the whole financial industry changed radically. “Whatever the free ‘market’ would bear” became the new rule. Usury laws were scrapped; credit card rates soared to amounts that “Loan Sharks” previously extorted from hapless debtors. Banks dropped completely out of car lending as the car companies (GMAC, General Motors Acceptance Corporation, Toyota Credit, etc.) could provide new car financing for 0% down over five years. Mortgage brokering took off as brokers, hungry for lucrative commissions, helped unqualified borrowers “fudge” their applications to make them appear that they qualified. Housing prices soared as demand from a new class of borrowers flooded onto the market. People were “flipping” houses, buying and reselling them for a profit a mere month or two later. It was the Wild West of Finance – the rule was that there were no rules.

Washington Federal Savings and Loan still makes loans the “old fashioned” way. They recently gave my wife and I each a lovely coffee mug as a thank-you gift for the half-dozen or so now paid off loans we have had with them over the years. If we ever need another loan or another mug, we know exactly where we are going to go.

The other day there were only four items received in our mail box; two pre-approved credit card solicitations from Chase Bank, two each for my wife and me. I added them to the recycle pile pictured above. I am going to keep adding to the pile until the November 2012 election.

The Elephant in the Room

2011-10-08T20:11:00.000-07:00

My few followers may have noticed a gap in my usually regular posting. I confess I have been going through somewhat of a “why bother” phase. I have written down some thoughts but have discarded them as not truly worthy of your consideration. During this period I have not visited my follower’s blogs as well.

Of late my mind has been occupied with pondering how both lucky and unlucky sets of incidences had brought me to, and pulled me back from, the brink of death. These experiences has jelled within me with certain finality that any belief in a “higher being”, god, whatever one wants to call it, is both extremely infantile and monumentally ludicrous. Any sense of awe and appreciation and wonder and purpose in my life I find most profoundly among the people who make it WORTH living – my wife, my children, my friends and more. And it is the ultimate finality of those important relationships that makes them so critically vital and worth embracing NOW.

I recently stumbled upon a talk by naturalist, Sir David Attenborough. He was speaking about the eminent extinction of various animal species, specifically about the number of reports and studies which have pointed to these causes; global climate change, destruction of habitat and so on. But what he found remarkable in each and every report was the one basic common contributing factor NOT mentioned:

Fifty years ago (when I was age 12) there were 3 billion people on this planet. Today there are 7 billion, more than doubled IN MY LIFETIME – world population increases by 250,000 people a day, by 10,000 an hour. Each and every one of these individuals will require space – room to live, eat, survive. But as a Naturalist, Sir David points out in stark and undeniable truth: “there cannot be more people on this earth than can be fed”. Sir David refers to the concept of “sustainable growth” as an oxymoron.

True, increases in productivity and food sciences have fed billions; and likely more advances in this area are forthcoming. Yet these advances only hasten the inevitable. Sir David quotes economist Kenneth Boulding:

“Anyone who believes indefinite growth in anything physical on a physically finite planet is either a madman or an economist.”

The key ingredient driving the advances in food production is energy, specifically energy from petroleum. Petroleum provides the chemicals to enhance food production and distribution. Petroleum is a finite commodity the demand for it is increasing and the supply of it is becoming more expensive. The cost of petroleum, and therein food, is manipulated by economic interests. The demand for food will only increase and with it, the cost. Those who will, and are now bearing the full brunt of this inevitability, are the poor… a number which is also steadily increasing world wide.

I note with increasing disgust the amount of time and energy that is wasted on the banality of the political process in this country and around the world. The “N-word” painted on a rock at Rick Perry’s hunting lodge, fear that same-sex people will get married, that elected official, Mitch McConnell has stated his sole purpose in Congress is to ensure against President Obama having a second term… All this meaningless nonsense saps our energy - while these morons fiddle, Rome burns.

Between now and the 2012 presidential election, 98,500,000 (ninety-eight million, five-hundred thousand) more people will exist on this planet. Their fate will be either in the hands of an invisible omnipotent benevolent/malevolent being - or more likely, Not.

Sir David Attenborough’s full talk can be viewed here.

The Future Is Here, Tomorrow

2011-09-25T02:51:00.000-07:00

I'm no blogger "purist" so I have no hesitation about falling back on content from YouTube on occasion. And because I recognize that most followers have short attention spans (at least I do) I try to keep video segments short.

Such is the case with this gem which I stumbled upon recently: "Eve, AD 2000!" A news reel clip from the 1930's showing the fashions women will be wearing in the "future" (eleven years ago).

Hey I'm still waiting for the flying car and personal jet pack that, back in 1957, promised to get me to and from the office! Enjoy!

Runtime: 1m:30s

The Endless Summer

2011-09-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

Events in the news recently, in particular the latest sickness to come out of the Republican Debates earlier this month, has me avoiding wasting any precious brain cells on anything happening outside of my property line. As a result, I decided to build that garden shed I have been promising, and putting off, all summer.

So for the time being I have abandoned the computer to re-familiarize myself with power tools, lumber and other masculine objects of interest.

Oh and the picture - yes, it really is a garden shed and not a 4th bathroom.

Deputy "RD" Westwood

2011-09-13T03:46:00.000-07:00

Pictured here, my wife’s Nancy’s great grandfather, Deputy Sheriff Richard Dallin Westwood. “RD” as he was known in Moab, Utah, had been elected as the first sheriff of Grand County. Back then the county had no jail, so Sheriff Westwood would bring the prisoners to his home. The desperados were incarcerated in one room of the two room cabin, separated from him and his wife by a thin curtain in the doorway between the rooms. Mrs. Westwood provided the meals to the prisoners.

RD stepped down as sheriff but was often pressed back into service over the years when the county needed him. It was then on the fateful day of September 5th, 1929, RD was serving as a deputy under then Sheriff J. B. Skewes when he was killed – gunned down in a jail break by two escaped bank robbers.

This area of Utah was made famous after the release of the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Butch and Sundance were real outlaws and passed through Grand County after their heists to take refuge in a secluded fortress like area of red rock backcountry called Robbers Roost. The Butch Cassidy gang was more of a nuisance to the citizens of Grand County; rustling the occasional cow for food or stealing a fresh horse should they encounter one. For the most part, then Sheriff Westwood had little contact with the famous outlaws.

Still the Utah backcountry was a haven for men on the lam. Such was the case in 1929 when bank robbers R. H. Elliott and Dilbert Pfoutz wandered into the mercantile store on the main street of Moab. The two men handed the clerk a bag of coin asking if he could change it into bills for them. A second clerk, suspicious of the men, called the sheriff; Skewes and deputy Westwood arrived on the scene.

Lawmen Skewes and Westwood had been alerted by Mesa County Colorado Sheriff that a bank had been robbed in Grand Junction. Westwood checked out the men’s Chevrolet parked in the street; it was full of camping gear and it had Colorado plates.

Back in the mercantile Sheriff Skewes asked the men if they were carrying any guns. No, the two men replied. But their suspicions aroused, Skewes had Westwood take the two back to the new jail and hold the men until deputies could arrive from Grand Junction. RD, now age 66, was put in charge of watching the prisoners while Sheriff Skewes went home to eat dinner. Within a half hour, the sheriff received a frantic call from the jail.

Skewes arrived at the jail and broke through the throng of people huddled around the door. There on the floor in a pool of blood lay deputy Richard Dallin Westwood, two bullet holes in his shoulder, one in his left side and one in his arm.

The desperados had hidden a stolen gun in their pants. Once they were alone in the jail with RD, as he opened the cell to give the men their dinner, they murdered him with the hidden gun, bolted for the door and ran for the Colorado River hoping to find a boat in which to make their escape.

As dark was falling a posse was assembled to ride out at dawn to look for the killers. The two had split up, heading in different direction. But cold, wet and hungry, and fearing they would be shot by the angry posse, the men surrendered after being found some miles down river.

Fearing another escape attempt, the men were lodged in the more secure Carbon County jail in Price, Utah. The men eventually were tried and convicted of murder and given long prison sentences. One of the men died in prison, the other was eventually released on parole.

Deputy Richard Dallin Westwood is memorialized by the Utah Law Enforcement Memorial, in the “Fallen” section. Nancy’s father was 5 years old when his grandfather was shot and killed in the jailbreak. He says he can still remember the funeral.

This article was written with the help of remembrances of Nancy's father, Melvin Westwood about his grandfather and from a photocopy from an old "Startling Detective" magazine article, date of publication unknown.

Fading from Gray to Black

2011-09-09T14:16:00.000-07:00

My wife is witnessing the gradual but steady decline in her father’s mental capabilities. She often refers to herself as the “Social Worker for Her Family” and such is true. She helps her sisters, her children and now her father who cared for her all those years.

Her father lost his car in the inevitable car accident earlier this summer. It is a relief that no one was injured. Any illusions about him continuing to drive were hauled away along with the crunched vehicle. But more and more is being heaped on her shoulders as friends and family call to speak with her about their concerns following their interactions with her father.

The anecdotes now come in daily; he doesn’t remember the names of his fellow staff from the Horticulture department when they meet for their monthly coffee. He recognized a photo as being his nephew, but he couldn’t remember the boy’s name. Memories of events only months ago he places instead decades back in history. She wonders on what day it will be that he will take his daily walk and forgets how to find his way back home. These weigh on my wife; loving daughter, watching her father sink ever deeper into a murky mental abyss.

Her choices are none; she can only keep on and try to keep up. Likely soon she will take over writing his bills as she cannot find any remote semblance of order in his random piles of paper and clutter. She drives him to his appointments and the few social events he can manage; the Hort department meeting, no longer on campus, might as well be on the moon now as far as her father knows. She takes him there but he doesn’t know where he is.

He continues to work in his yard, push mower and hand held hedge clippers. Keeping the yard up is his measure of his independence. Plants he gathered on collection expeditions from all over the globe now planed in his yard he for which he no longer knows their names. The ladders have been taken away as a precaution.

I am of even less help to my wife; all I can do is watch. We bring her father over for dinner once a week where he endlessly repeats the stories of his research at the university and his experiences during WWII. I have heard them all so many times; but all I can do is nod and hope he doesn’t notice that I have long since stopped listening.

“I’ve lived too long”, he remarked to his daughter recently – a tacit acceptance of his realization that his brain is declining more rapidly than his body. All we can do is watch as the inevitable unfolds and prepare what we can; what he will allow. All that he was is in the past; he has no future – and sadly, he knows this as well.

Death with Dignity

2011-09-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

I have absolutely no patience with telephone solicitors, and even worse “robo-calls” Who in their right mind would listen to an unsolicited cold call RECORDING!? So much for jobs creation, even Boiler Rooms are now outsourcing jobs to technology.

If you are on a No Call List, people or institutions you have done business with in the past are still allowed to phone you. So I listened to the spiel when the guy identifying himself being from the Oregon Death with Dignity organization called.

In 1994 Oregon passed a landmark law allowing people with terminal illness to end their lives; this is sometimes referred to as physician-assisted suicide. The law was brought into effect through citizen initiative and handily passed the popular vote. However, in 1997 the law’s opponents (primarily the religious) mounted strenuous opposition, eventually placing a new ballot initiative attempting to repeal the law. The attempt failed, the repeal was voted down. Oregon voters had now made it abundantly clear, TWICE, that people should have the right to determine their own quality of life and chose the terms and time of their death.

The opposition was vehement; claims were made that the law would lead to euthanasia – a wholly preposterous claim as a patient must be terminally ill with a life expectancy of six months or less. The patient must be mentally competent and able to understand the consequences of their decision. Two physicians must review the medical request of the patient prior to approval of the application.

It was then claimed that Oregon would become a Mecca for terminally ill patients, flocking to the state in droves to take advantage of this law – It’s NEVER happened. Critics even charged that the law would be applied disproportionately to the poor, physically disabled, psychiatric patients, even racial minorities – Not even remotely true. Opposition rests solely with religious belief; who believe only god has the right to end a life. But such restrictions should not apply to the fifth of the population (and growing) who don’t believe in god.

Still George Bush’s Attorney General, John Ashcroft, an evangelical Christian who “speaks in tongues”, in 2002 petitioned the got the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to approve the suspension of medical licenses of doctors who prescribed life-ending drugs to dying patients. But in 2005 the US Supreme court ruled 6 to 3 that Oregon had the right to regulate the practice of medicine. Oregon’s Death with Dignity law “survived”.

Neighboring Washington State has since passed their own Death with Dignity law in 2008. A similar law is now being proposed by the people of the State of Massachusetts.

On its web site, the Oregon Death with Dignity maintains an information page on “Religion and Spirituality”, listing all the major religious institutions and their official position regarding suicide. Not surprisingly the vast majority are in opposition. Religion, you see, not only wants to dictate how you live your life but when and how you are allowed to end it. But then religion is seldom about choice.

I told the caller that I would contribute to help with the campaign to pass a similar law in Massachusetts.

http://www.deathwithdignity.org

It's a Miracle

2011-09-01T02:23:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month 12-year-old Dale Ostrander was swimming in the cold Pacific Ocean; pulled from the shore by a dangerous undertow, he nearly lost his life by drowning. The boy, visiting the beach with his local church camp, was finally pulled from the frigid water after a second earlier unsuccessful rescue attempt, given aggressive life saving first aid, then rushed to the emergency room.

The three major national media networks reported the story but with a decidedly different publicity spin - focusing on the AP photos of Dale's distraught friends praying for him on the beach, the term “miracle” was repeated over and over by the news anchors. The overtly clear implication: the boy was alive through the result of "divine intervention" – it was a Miracle.

It was estimated that Dale Ostrander was under water for as long as 20 minutes. However there have been recorded incidents of people being revived after being submerged in freezing water for a much as an hour. The Pacific is cold, about 56º F in this area of the coast.

Dr. Mark Morocco, an emergency room doctor at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles: “Your chances of surviving are better if you’re young… when people are plunged into cold water. The heart rate slows down and blood is diverted to the brain and other core organs. This so-called diving reflex is more pronounced in children, allowing them to better survive in frigid water.”

“Swift treatment helped." Morocco credited the rescuers for continuing resuscitation efforts even though Ostrander had no pulse and appeared dead.

Dale was received CPR from rescuers immediately upon being pulled from the water. Emergency Medical Technicians then on the scene continued to ventilate him until he arrived at the local hospital. There he was placed on a respirator until he was taken by Life Flight to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, part of the Oregon Health Sciences University Medical Center.

The doctors at Doernbecher were unsure if Dale would continue to be able to breathe on his own. Having been on a breathing tube myself, I know there is only one definitive way to find out if a patient can breathe for them self – remove the breathing tube. Fortunately young Dale began breathing on his own.

Weeks later when Dale was released from the hospital the story was updated by the national media. Though Dale will continue to need physical therapy to full recover, the Media continued promoting the “miracle” story, repeating how Dale’s fellow church members knelt on the beach praying for him during his moment of peril.

I pose this question about claims of divine miracles: what most likely was the significant factor that saved young Dale Ostrander from death ...

This...

Or This?

Photo credits: AP News

Watch the "miraculous" ABC News Coverage of this story.

The End of Work

2011-08-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

In 1995 economist, Jeremy Rifkin, wrote his book, “The End of Work” in which he predicted the global decline of the work force in the industrialized would. This happy occurrence, he predicted, would then result in people having more “leisure” time. New industries revolving around this new leisure market would then flourish. When I heard the initial buzz about this book the first thought that occurred to me was: Wouldn’t people working less hours therefore have less disposable income? Who is going to be able to afford all these “leisure” activities?

Fast-forward to the Recession of 2008. To a great extent Rifkin’s prospective has indeed come true. Rifkin had accurately had predicted the eventual demise of the middle class. Increased productivity, including “automation” (the old term) has indeed lessened the demand for labor. Even the “new” economies that are touted as the future economy do not necessarily require a lot of human labor.

The newer profitable companies with huge market capitalization, such as Google and Microsoft, don’t really employ a lot of bodies. The same is true for financial institutions; they too don’t require a lot of people to generate wealth. The hottest consumer items on the market today, mostly technological products like phones, touch-pad devices – None of them are manufactured in the USA. Even the Chinese are aggressively outpacing our “innovations” in solar and battery technology.

I think back to my first job out of college, working in a clerical unit in Greyhound Bus Lines. The manual sorting tasks required in my job back employed several dozen people to manually sort out paper ticketing trails. This kind of tedious work has been now wholly replaced by simple bar codes, scanners and computers. One can easily imagine how this simple technology across the board of bureaucratic functions alone has easily replaced millions of jobs that were once completed by humans.

Later after I landed a “real” job working in banking, I embarked on what I assumed would be a career. The assumption was that you worked your way up through the bank eventually becoming a loan officer. I am not sure how many of you have applied for a loan at your local bank recently, but if you have, you may have noticed a lot “empty space” where all those bank employee desks used to be. Today your application is faxed, or e-mailed up to a centralized loan approval center where a few designated “loan officers” actually make those decisions. Seriously, why would the bank want to staff all those highly compensated suit-and-tie bodies in the local branch bank when instead they need only lower-paid staffers to assemble and pass along your loan paperwork to the few main office employees empowered to make those decisions?

It is true that technology itself spun has off new career paths – and I followed one of them. When I later worked for the state Department of Human Services as a Welfare Caseworker, much of the paperwork was eventually shifted over to software running on networked personal computers. This productivity change opened up a new career path for me as a Computer Network Technician… and at a nicely increased salary. But even technology is subject to productivity enhancements. Eventually the work I did in the local offices was “centralized” elsewhere; less and less of the work I did as a technician in the field was deemed necessary. By the time I retired I felt like my job was little more than as a “PC mechanic”.

The national and global economies are still reeling from the aftermath the Debt Ceiling Circus. Economists are talking confidently of Double-Dip Recession and postulating on how long it will take for the economy to pick up again. Of course the two major political parties are even now strategizing on how the prolonged recession will play out to their respective advantages in the upcoming election of 2012.

My longer term prediction is much darker: It won’t matter which party prevails. The economy will never get better more than marginally or temporarily. To me, the fate of our standard of living on this planet boils down to a simple math problem:

World population will soon hit 7,000,000,000.
Increases in productivity in every sector (agriculture, technology, finance, etc. will continue to require fewer people to perform them. The living standard of middle class will continue to shrink and economies based on consumer spending will founder.
Income disparity between the very rich and the middle and lower classes will increase.
The last of the “easily obtainable” natural resources have (or will have) peaked during our lifetime.
Food will become more expensive as bio-fuels consume more of the food producing land and resources needed to produce it.
Global climate change will continue to have a negative impact on all of the above regardless of whether people “believe” its happening or agree on what the root cause is.

I have stated countless times that I believe that my generation, the Baby Boomers, has lived during the best times man ever has, and ever will have, on this planet. I feel sad for my kids and my grand kids; they're going to have a Brave New World to contend with.

The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen

2011-08-23T03:04:00.000-07:00

Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen (1720–1797) was a German nobleman known in his time as a weaver of tall tales and humorous anecdotes. Over the years many anonymous authors republished Münchausen’s stories; then in 1785 Rudolf Erich Raspe published “The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen”, an unflattering collection of Munchausen tales which forever labeled the German story teller as a liar.

Fast-forward to 1951; Dr. Richard Alan John Asher published a paper in the medical journal, "Lancet" describing a particular psychosis whereby patients were intentionally making themselves ill in order to gain attention and sympathy. Dr. Asher named the disorder: Munchausen’s syndrome after the old baron.

At the Skeptic’s Toolbox, forensic psychologist and clinical professor, Loren Pankratz, gave a talk about Dr. Asher and the ramifications of the discovery of this interesting psychosis. Munchausen’s syndrome, and in particular its derivation, Munchausen’s by Proxy (whereby parents cause their children to become ill in order to gain attention and sympathy) has become a controversial topic in recent years. As physicians and social workers became educated about this syndrome, it began popping up with increasing frequency in their practices. So much so that soon child protective services workers were removing children from their parents amid accusations of causing their children’s illnesses.

So were physicians and social workers truly witnessing a monumental increase in child abuse through Munchausen’s by Proxy? As a forensic psychologist, Loren Pankratz has been called as an expert witness in the defense of parents accused of causing their child’s illness. Over the years of treating patients for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Pankratz had encountered significant numbers of patients who lied about their own illnesses. During this time the VA was investing significant mental health resources in treating Vietnam War veterans who claimed they suffered from PTSD resulting from horrific war experiences – only to find, upon reviewing their service records, some had never even served overseas.

Pankratz found that medical professionals were now suddenly diagnosing Munchausen’s by Proxy precisely because they had become aware of it in lectures and journals. However the problem was that the physicians were not adequately trained to conclude such a diagnosis; it was not their field of expertise. The result was that mothers genuinely concerned about the health of their children, and often aggressively advocating for their child sometimes to the point of irritating the doctor, were having charges of Munchausen’s by Proxy leveled at them.

This is yet another way in which intelligent people can go wrong; assuming that if they are competent in their chosen field of study, they will be equally competent in another. It is not uncommon for even scientists to check their rationality at the door when venturing into fields where they lack expertise.

Occasionally possessing a little knowledge, incorrectly applied, can be outright dangerous. Or as the old saying goes: “Sometimes when one has a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail”.

Intuition - More Science from the Skeptic's Toolbox

2011-08-18T01:52:00.000-07:00

From the TV sitcom Cheers:

Norm: Woody, do you believe in intuition?

Woody: No, though I have a strong feeling that someday I might.

Intuition is a very common decision making process, most of us at some time make use of our “gut instincts”. Often intuition is assumed to be the opposite of thoughtful rational thinking, and it is – however, sometimes our intuition serves us remarkably well.

Intuition is defined as “the direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension.” Where rational thinking can be slow, reflective and involve a lot of work, intuition can be applied quickly and with much less deliberation and cognitive investment. Intuition relies heavily upon perception; unfortunately our perceptions may often be false. Upon going with our gut, reasoning may then simply come into play in rationalizing our decisions. This causes us to use our cognition instead to support a bad decision based on the misperceived or incorrect observation.

However, studies of decision making based on intuition have shown that this rapid-fire and low cognitive cost thinking process can yield effective results. Over time much of our decision making is based on our previous experiences. For example, let’s say you need to determine how many gallons of paint will be required to paint your living room. Knowing the square footage each can of paint covers, you can measure the room and calculate the number of gallons required depending on the total surface area of wall to be painted. However, a professional painter may be able to more accurately predict the number of gallons required simply upon walking in and looking at the room. Here a low cognitive investment has yielded an accurate result.

The dangers with relying on intuition are obvious, however. Decisions can not only be rendered based on misperception, but also our cognitive bias’ can come into play as well. The implication is that intuition can be strongly influenced by wishful thinking; driving our decisions toward satisfying a possibly unconscious desire.

Here is where the importance of reasoning comes into play – humans are not well adapted to applying logic, probability, and decision theory without special training. More abstract problems are not easily linked to personal experience. It may also be subject to other outside influences such as peer pressure; the “Band Wagon” effect.

Consider, jury duty, for example. In a criminal trial the bar for rendering a guilty verdict is confidence “beyond a reasonable doubt”. I have served on juries where it was abundantly clear to me that some jurors took “reasonable doubt” to mean that they believed in their heart-and-soul that the accused was guilty. Yet when asked to justify their decision, they were unable to articulate any factual elements which supported their decision – they just “knew” the accused was guilty.

We all have been exposed to the differing responses expressed by different factions of public opinion from some of the more prominent criminal trials in recent history – from OJ Simpson to Casey Anthony, they illustrate the critical importance of distinguishing difference between intuition and rational thinking.

~~~

References:
Intuition and Reasoning: A Dual-Process Perspective, Jonathan St B T Evans

When Smart People Go Wrong

2011-08-14T18:20:00.000-07:00

I attended the Skeptic’s Toolbox this year put on by the Center for Inquiry (CSI), an organization dedicated to promoting scientific inquiry and critical investigation of extraordinary claims.

The topic of focus this year was “How Smart People Go Wrong”. Society generally regards intelligence (IQ) as the measure of how “smart” people are. And yet, very intelligent people can often go very wrong in their thinking and behavior. One need only look at the supposedly smart investors who were suffered monumental financial losses by trusting their money to the likes of swindler, Bernie Madoff.

But history is replete with examples of smart people gone wrong. Take for example Sir Isaac Newton, who is credited with developing the most elemental foundation laws of physics, who essentially invented calculus and theorized (correctly) that light was composed of many different wavelengths (colors). And yet, this monumental genius devoted significant amounts of his time in the pursuit of Alchemy.

Then there is Alfred Russell Wallace, a contemporary of Charles Darwin who worked with equally strong conviction to support the Theory of Evolution. Yet this brilliant scientist also working tirelessly, attending and recording his observances at séances to promote what he held strongly was the validity of the spirit world and a “fourth dimension”.

Few of us don’t know about the legendary forensic detective, Sherlock Holmes, created out of the imagination of Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle. The mind that conjured up the brilliant intellectual detective, who used observation and science to solve crimes, was also a believer in spirits and fairies. So much was Conan Doyle a believer that two school girls from Cottingley England fooled the author, and many prominent scientists of the day, with their pictures of actual fairies taken in their garden with their father’s camera. Most interesting, even after the girls confessed that the fairies were merely cardboard cutouts, Doyle and others continued to believe in fairies.

So what is going on here? If intelligence is a measure of “smarts”, how is it that intelligent people can be so easily fooled? The answer is both complicated and multi-faceted. As it turns out, IQ is not necessarily the best or only measure of “smartness”. It is possible for intelligent people to not properly apply Reasoning Ability. Or to put it another way; if Intelligence is the measure of mental “capacity”, Reasoning is the process of employing that capacity. And often times we don’t do a good job of that; often because we take shortcuts.

Consider the following problem – try to answer it before reading the solution:

Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person?”

A) Yes ~ B) No ~ C) Cannot be determined?

As it turns out, more than 80% of people incorrectly answer the question “C”. The problem does not reveal if Anne is married or not, so people take the easiest inference without fully thinking through the problem; they are effectively being Cognitive Miser.

But if one applies reasoning the correct answer can be obtained: If Anne is married, then the correct answer is “A” – Anne is the married person looking at George who is unmarried. But if Anne is NOT married, the correct answer is still “A” – Jack who is married is looking at the unmarried Anne.

This type of thinking is called “Fully Disjunctive Reasoning" – it considers all the possibilities. Rather than accepting that we do not know Anne’s marital status, we instead consider the possibilities to determine the answer to the question. The suggestion that we do not have enough information causes us become Cognitive Misers, (Dysrationalia) and take the easy way out.

IQ tests are often employed as a measure of smartness, but to fully understand how smart someone is, tests measuring Dysrationalia provide a more widely encompassing measure.

Next: More from the Skeptic’s Toolbox and how Smart People Go Wrong.

Death of a Statesman

2011-08-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

Oregon’s former Senator Mark O. Hatfield died yesterday at the age of 89. I recall voting for him back when I too was a Republican. He was a man of Conscience; a man of my father’s Republican Party… quite unlike the Borg Collective of today's GOP.

Hatfield was the sort of statesman that allowed for a Republican to hold the governorship and senatorial seats during both long term political careers in this quite Liberal state of Oregon. He is often most known for differing from his party in his opposition to the Vietnam War. A devout Christian, he did not fully support his party’s embrace of Christian Evangelicals who he believed represented intolerance and divisiveness.

There are any number of well-written and thoughtful obituaries and remembrances of Senator Hatfield that one can easily Google, so I won’t even attempt to do so here. I will just say that it was intelligent, moderate and caring men like Hatfield that made me feel good about my Republican Party back then. And it is the loss of statesmen such as Hatfield, the party today of John Boehner, the Tea Party and the vitriolic Fox News collective that have turned me away from my Republican roots.

Sadly there seems to no longer be room for statesmen like Senator Hatfield in today's GOP. This is a sad indictment for our country on so many levels.

"Witch" Way to the Water?

2011-08-04T20:36:00.000-07:00

The other day I was waiting for my gas tank to get filled (I live in Oregon where the citizens are not considered sufficient competent to pump their own gas), when I noticed a landscaping project being conducted at the church on the opposite corner. The grass had been sprayed out (dead), a couple of dump piles of topsoil here and there. But what caught my eye were the two guys wandering back and forth over the dead grass – They were “dowsing” presumably to locate the underground irrigation pipes.

One guy held two bent L-shaped metal rods, one in each hand; the other had a can of orange spray paint. The guy with the metal rods paced a few steps forward then backward. He would then direct the guy with the spray paint to mark the ground in front of his feet. These guys then wandered to another area of the dead grass and repeated the dousing – each time the dower was satisfied there was an irrigation pipe under his feet, the spray paint guy would mark it.

Had I the time I really would have loved to stop and talk with the guys and have them demonstrate for me their dowsing “skill”; unfortunately I had other time constraints. As I watching them dowsing and marking, the thought occurred to me that I would fully expect to find irrigation lines under a previously planted lawn. So what’s the surprise here?

Dowsing is among the more thoroughly debunked psychic phenomena. Most dowsers will provide enthusiastic confirmation that dowsing works. This is because they usually find water (or whatever they are dowsing for) where they expect to find it. This type of fallacious conclusions is called “post hoc” reasoning. Dowsers often will also misinterpret statistical results of their dowsing success. For example, a dowser may feel that if they successfully find water in 2 or 3 out of 10 tries, this is confirmation of their dowsing success. Of course such results are less than what one would expect from random chance.

Controlled scientific tests have been conducted on dowsers; not surprisingly, their success is never better random chance. Dowsers don’t just attempt to detect hidden water; dowsers claim they can find oil, gold or treasure or even detect illicit drugs. Modern dowsers have even tried to sell bogus dousing equipment to the US Military… to dowse for roadside bombs. Considering such dangers, unscientific bunk such as this tips the scale from the realm of silliness to being outright deadly.

I drove by the church landscaping project a few days later, there were holes dug up randomly all over the dead lawn. Perhaps they were just experiencing an invasion of over-sized gophers. Their psychic should have warned them about that.

Summertime Blues

2011-08-01T16:51:00.000-07:00

Summer is my favorite season – always has been. And for most of my youth, my parents put great effort into trying to ruin my summers.... every year they always sent me to Summer School.

I recall when I was growing up people often telling me I was “smart”. That was nice to hear but I was never sure what they were talking about? School was difficult for me; math in particular was always problematic. English was strange as well; I couldn’t figure out why we needed to spend so much time “diagramming sentences”. Who cares what the difference is between an adjective and an adverb is if you can use them correctly. [Those of you among my followers, who are professional writers, please cut me some slack here.]

In either case, I was a mediocre student during most of my school career, grade school and middle school in particular. As a result of my poor grades, my parents figure the best remedy for my poor grades was that I simply I needed MORE school. So each year I was forced to attend Summer School.

I viewed Summer School as punishment by my parents for not doing well in regular school. Summer School was horrible. For one thing NONE of my friends ever had to go to Summer School. So while they were out having fun, I was stuck in “school”. Summer School only ran half-day, so we were out of there by noon. But by the time I got home my friends were long gone who-knows-where! I spent many of my afternoons alone.

My parents were easily swayed by the propaganda about how much “fun” Summer School was going to be. Pictures on the brochure showed kids at the swimming pool, kids jumping on the trampoline. Bulls#*t -- The trampoline was only brought out ONCE; by the time the my turn in line came around the period was over and it was time to head back to math class. I never did get my 2-minutes of trampoline time. Oh and the pool – it was drained every summer for maintenance.

But finally Summer School term would end and I would luxuriate in the brief period before the regular term started up again. Finally I could ride bikes and hang with my buddies. But soon the “Back to School” ads would air on TV reminding me of the impending return to regular school.

By the time I was in High School my parents had stopped sending me to Summer School – probably because it didn’t exist for high schoolers. Most of my friends by then had summer jobs, I had one as well; picking prunes in Northern California. We worked in the mornings, spent the heat of the day swimming in the Russian River, and then we worked again in the cool of the evening. I loved it.

My grades in high school were all over the chart. I got “A’s in Architecture and Physical Education. My PE grade was an enigma to me as I was always the smallest guy in class and sucked at performing any sport except track. I think they gave me “A's” either for my effort... or more likely everyone got an A. I flunked Algebra three times in a row. But I did great in the sciences, Biology in particular.

It was expected in my family that I would go to college. But my GPA was pretty weak. At that time the Vietnam War was ramping up and lots of young guys my age were going into the military. On my 18th birthday I was obligated to visit the US Post Office to register for the Selective Service. It became very clear that if I didn’t get into college, and pronto, I would likely be invited by Uncle Sam to take an all-expenses-paid visit to exotic Southeast Asia.

College took on a new meaning for me – it served as my primarily deferment from being drafted into the Army. My grades were still mediocre but good enough to keep me in school and out of the Army. During those college summers I worked a clerical job for Greyhound Bus Lines. As I would sit at a desk surrounded by inane clerical people for 8 hours a day, I would reminisce about how much I missed getting out at noon back when I was going to Summer School.

I was never drafted.

The End of a Long Road

2011-07-26T14:18:00.000-07:00

My father-in-law, Melvin, was an accomplished scientist. He remains one of the more highly published researchers at the Oregon State University’s school of Agriculture. He has traveled the globe collecting rare plants and was instrumental in setting up the National Clonal Germplasm Repository network; a virtual Noah’s Arch of plant genetic material. The first was in Corvallis – there are now repositories all over the globe.

But this great mind at age 88 is being ravaged by the early stages of Alzheimer's. Mel can recall the intimate details of how he discovered the treatment for the plant disease “Pear Decline” but he cannot remember what he did yesterday… or even earlier that day.

Mel learned to drive his Dad’s Model-T as a kid. As he tells it, the old rig wouldn’t make it over Utah’s LaSalle mountains in one run. He and his brother would sit in the back of the truck with a big rock between them. As the T chugged up the hill and over-heated, steam boiling from the radiator, the brothers would jump out and put the rock behind the back wheel to keep it from rolling back down the hill. Once it had cooled down, they would grab the rock and chug up the hill as far as they could go, repeating the process chocking the tire of the overheated T with the rock until they reached the summit.

Two weeks ago while on his way back from his monthly Hort department coffee meeting with other retired professors and technicians, Mel was involved in a car accident. Fortunately for all involved, nobody was injured. But Mel’s car was totaled; too old to be repaired, it ended up being scrapped. Mel later received a letter from the Department of Motor Vehicles – he would need to be tested for his continuing ability to drive or lose his license.

Mel recognizes his mental faculties are in decline so after a day of mulling it over, he decided the best thing to do was surrender his driver’s license. This decision was a monumental one for Mel; it marked a milestone in his life… and a blatant reminder that he doesn’t have many more milestones more to go.

In many ways the decision was an easy one for him. Mel's“world” has been rapidly shrinking; he could no longer see to drive at night and he only remembers how to get to a few places like his church or the university campus. He doesn’t remember how to get to our house or even to his wife’s grave site.

Despite the stereotypical metaphor of the DMV as an example of inefficient government bureaucracy, his business with the agency went smoothly and courteously. No long lines or horrendous wait. A few minutes later, when Mel handed the clerk his paperwork with the box checked that he was voluntarily giving up his driving privileges, he told her: “I’ve been driving for seventy-three years and four months.”

He will get his new color picture state ID card in the mail.

History in Photographs

2011-07-21T08:54:00.000-07:00

Ken Burns is recognized as one of the great documentary filmmakers of this century. With works like “Baseball”, “The Civil War” and soon to be released, “Prohibition” his images weave an intricate historical narrative.

An interesting thing about film making, though; it generally involves moving images. Yet Burns’ works contain almost exclusively fixed images; photographs, illustrations and paintings. Most film editing software ( I use Adobe Premiere Pro) allow the editor to animate fixed images, zooming, scaling, shifting axis. This lends a bit more interest to a fixed image and allows the viewer to focus on the scene slightly longer.

An interesting fact is that much of what we know about the Civil War is due to the vast archives of physical images. Many are glass plates, some film on paper. Though celluloid degrades over time, glass plate images are resilient and can last for centuries. With digital technology these can be enhanced through color correction, balance and blemish removal.

Film and film processing is becoming rare, replaced largely by digital camera technology. My wife, who used to develop her own black-and-white film, finally abandoned her 35mm SLR camera and has gone completely the digital route. But the adoption of new technology has now presented us with a new problem – long-term storage and retrieval.

We began collecting digital images with our earliest computers, initially saved to floppy disks, then hard drives. Today in some cases a single photo image file is larger than the entire 20mb hard drive of my first computer! I remember at the time the computer salesman assured me I would “never fill up that hard drive”.

But the insatiable storage demands of data storage, including photographic images, has required me to seek ever larger capacity devices over time. I’ve gone through “Zip” drives, then larger “Jaz” drives. When that became inadequate I began filling up CD’s then larger capacity DVDs; eventually turning to assorted “Tape” drives. As it stands now, much of what I have stored digitally resides on essentially “obsolete” storage devices.

Then there comes that horrible day when the computer fails to fire up. Hard drives have a finite life span, all will eventually fail. My daughter and her husband lost a number of priceless family photos when their notebook PC died. There were no copies, no duplicates.

Of course many today share photographs through uploading them to web archives such as “Shutterfly”, “Flickr” or “Photobucket”. But many online photo hosting services have gone bankrupt and disappeared from the web… along with them your collection of family photos. Will these online resources enjoy the same century long services as have the glass plates and photo paper images from the battle of Gettysburg? Will those photos of your child’s 4 year old birthday party survive somewhere over the next 100 years generations yet unborn to admire?

It’s an interesting question to picture.

Photo above: George Washington Cole, my great great grandfather. Died at the Battle of Champion Hill, Mississippi, 1863

Health Care Regulatory Malpractice

2011-07-16T02:06:00.000-07:00

Back in mid March I went through Aortic Valve replacement surgery. I’m one of the “lucky” ones who have group medical insurance through my former employer. It’s not free though. Here is how the stats for my procedure break down:

Days in the hospital: 23
Doctors and PAs involved in my treatment: 28
Gross charges billed to insurance: $265,136.49
Amount paid by insurance: $246,013.49
Out of cost paid by me: $915.00
Monthly insurance premium: $1,159.52

These are not the final costs; bills continue to “trickle” in. Of the 28 physicians I can recall actually seeing maybe ten.

When President Obama took office, he pushed through an initiative to revamp the medical insurance industry. To my thinking less than half the job has been addressed by this legislation; he focused on the insurance side of the overall health care issue, leaving the medical delivery system relatively untouched. This is like having the fire department trying to save your burning two-story home by trying to put out the fire on the ground level only – the whole upstairs is still a conflagration.

Each of the 28 doctors billed insurance separately, and multiple times for each time they looked at my chart. That means 28 separate financial transactions, not including the labs, hospital, et al. Heck, if a couple of these doctors just wanted to pick up some side revenue, they could have falsely claimed they provided treatment – the insurance company would have no way of knowing. Nor would I.

Pharmaceutical companies charge outrageous prices for their products. True many likely had high product development costs. But they also par with auto companies in the amount of time and money they spend on prime-time television advertising. I have seen as many as three pharmaceutical ads during one spate of commercial breaks. Who pays for that? I can guess.

The two largest medical providers in town share common real estate and parking lots. But they do not share patient medical data between them via their independent computer systems. Yesterday my cardiologist faxed a blood draw request to the lab in the next building. Yes, in the 21st century – FAXED!

I know people love to gripe about government, and Big government at that. But the city doesn’t have two water departments, there is only one DMV in town, people can apply for Food Stamps and Unemployment insurance compensation in one building. More importantly, NONE of these government agencies have CEO’s who draw million dollar annual bonuses.

It all kind-a makes me sick.

The Oregon Country Fair

2011-07-12T02:27:00.000-07:00

Some call it an "counter-culture event", others a throw-back to the Hippy days of the 1970's. Whatever... the Oregon Country Fair has been a local event since 1969. With attendance upwards of 45,000 fair revelers, the fair draws visitors from throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Having been over a decade since Nancy and I last attended the fair, a group of friends invited us to join them this year. Though not a big fan of crowds, we couldn't resist checking out the Country Fair this year with good friends.

Half of the attraction of the fair are the costumes worn by attendees. We saw Can-Can dancers on stilts, bearded ballerinas and fairies of all ages flitting to and fro. Above, a lone wolf stalks fair goers.

There are upwards of 350 food and craft booths, artists, music and lots of activities for kids. Above, kids peer into a huge Human Kaleidoscope.

Outfits range from the elaborate to the skimpy. Women wearing bras were a rare commodity, and in many cases, tops were dismissed of entirely, replaced by elaborate body paint... or nothing.

I found it interesting how closely the fair almost mirrored the creative and artistic virtual online world of Second Life. The virtual SL world of art, architecture, clothing booths and outrageous costumes emulated remarkably the real life experience of the Country Fair.

Some of us aging hippies were forced to take a needed break to soothe aching feet. I wonder if blue blue body paint helps tired dogs hold up any better?

Half a dozen music stages dotted the grounds. One of the most interesting was the Drum Tower where an incessant beat whipped up the tribal portion of the fair goer's amygdala... mine was pounding in short order, but was easily soothed with a cool hand-dipped ice cream.

I was thoroughly impressed by how well this event is organized. From parking to exiting, and everything in between, friendly volunteers kept operations running smoothly. For an event that attracts attendees one might consider "counter culture" the crowd was fun-loving and convivial; there was no rowdiness or any hint of unpleasant incidents. Alcohol is strictly prohibited and bags are searched before admittance; though there were some questionable brownie recipes passed around and the occasional whiff of smoke from the Cannabis species.

Overall it involved a lot of walking but also a whole lot of fun. We plan on attending the Oregon Country Fair in future years... guys, bring the kids, ladies, leave your bra at home.

Google Images of the Oregon Country Fair.

Fruit Off the Family Tree

2011-07-08T04:01:00.000-07:00

My cousin Nancy (not to be confused with my wife, Nancy) in recent years has developed an interest in family genealogy. This is not something I am particularly interested in, however cousin Nancy contacted me one day, very excited for me to see a picture she had located of my great-grandfather, Bion Franklin Cole.

Pictured left is great-grandfather Bion, on the right is MY college yearbook photo from 1972.

I'm hoping that the family resemblance is limited to physical appearance only. The brief footnote regarding great-grandfather Bion reads: "...died in 1924 in a Hospital for the insane in Nebraska".

Cousin Nancy will be heading back to the family homestead in Wyoming to run down a lead that another of my grand-something's was possibly involved in a lynching of an alleged cattle rustler. More on that story soon.

Patriotism 2011

2011-07-04T01:39:00.000-07:00

From the Old Farmer's Almanac:

"Three American presidents have died on the fourth of July. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day, in 1826. They had been rivals in everything, even about who would live longest. Adams’ last words were about his long-time foe: “Thomas Jefferson lives!” In fact, Jefferson had died just five hours earlier, but Adams hadn’t gotten the message. James Monroe is the third president to die on July 4th, but he died in 1831."

So to my fellow countrymen: have a safe happy 4th of July. And to my Brit followers; how would you feel about allowing a few of us back in?

Repo Man - In the Heat of the Night

2011-06-30T16:27:00.000-07:00

Previously in my post titled “Repo man – First Blood” I shared one of my stories as a Repo Man during my first two years out of college working for a major Northwest bank. I had been doing this job for several months and had become fairly confident in role as an Outside Collector. Normally the job required me to make contact with delinquent car loan debtors during the day or early evening hours. The tougher cases, where my goal was to repossess the vehicle without customer contact, usually took place under darkness of night during the late evening to early morning hours.

This night was one such case. The debtor had been contacted previously and had not made good on their promise to bring the account current – upon being located, the collateral would be taken on sight. For most of these vehicles the bank had access to the manufacturer’s “key code”. With the code, it was a simple process to have a locksmith make a duplicate set of keys.

This night appeared like it would be just another routine repossession. I cruised the apartment complex were the delinquent debtor lived and quickly located the vehicle. Parking my bank car on the street, I quietly made my way to the collateral, slipped the key into the door, opened it and got in. Now before I would “steal” a car, I would lie down in the driver’s seat so as to not be observed then take a moment to familiarize myself with the controls so I could quickly get away without fumbling. For example, on stick shift vehicles, Reverse would be in different positions on the pattern depending on whether it was an American, Japanese or German car. Once I was ready, I would fire the ignition, throw it into reverse and back out, exit the scene then turn on the headlights when safely away. This had to be done quickly.

Confident I had familiarized myself with the controls, I started the car, sat up, put it in reverse and…. HOOOONNNKKKKK, the horn blared with an incredible noise! Unfortunately, the vehicle had been parked right outside the debtor’s bedroom window – I saw their bedroom light go on as I backed out of their parking space.

Now throwing the shift into drive I turned the vehicle out toward the street. HONK HONKKKK again the horn blared. As I glanced in the rear view mirror I saw the silhouette of the owner looking out the window witnessing their car disappearing into the night.

In preparation as I did prior to any repossession, I had previously located a pay phone booth at a nearby convenience store. I stopped to phone in the repossession report to the local police – they told me owner had already reported that their car had been “stolen”. As I got back into the collateral and gripped the wheel to deliver it to the storage facility, the horn honked again… and continued to honk randomly and unpredictably all the way to the storage lot.

After securing the car safely in storage I realized what had happened. This particular vehicle had been manufactured with a “Rim Blow” horn feature – rather than honking the horn by pressing the center of the steering column, the horn could be honked simply by tightly gripping the steering wheel rim. The idea of the designers at the time was to not have to require a driver to move their hands from the wheel rim to honk the horn. It was a convenience thing. During the tension of my executing the repossession I had been gripping the steering wheel rim tightly enough, causing the horn to honk.

This feature was later abandoned by car manufacturers after it was discovered that a vehicle parked in the hot sun would cause the vinyl in the steering wheel rim to expand, thus setting off the horn. I could imagine hundreds of unoccupied parked cars in Arizona or Texas, their horns blaring away in the heat of Summer sun.

Fortunately, in spite of the blaring horn, I successfully executed the repossession without incident. However, not all repos I did were without confrontation – that story I will save for another time.

The Usual Suspects

2011-06-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

On a New York street witnesses were being interviewed by the police following a deadly subway shooting. When a woman was asked by the police investigating the scene if she saw who the shooter was, she pointed to the young man who had already been placed in the back of a police car. The young man was later arrested for the crime.

A former employee of an armored card company was arrested and put on trial for a brutal beating and robbery of his formal employer. When police questioned the robbery victims, they were shown a picture of their only suspect, the former employee. Yet even though the perpetrator had worn a mask, the witnesses identified him as the robber.

After looking through books of mug-shots, a rape victim was asked later to try to identify her attacker in a police line-up. She picked out the familiar face in the line-up. The man was later convicted for the rape.

All these are actual cases – in all three, eyewitness testimony resulted in the arrest, and in one case, a conviction. In fact, all three suspects were completely innocent of these crimes.

We tend to believe that eyewitness testimony is the most reliable form of evidence. But in recent years, findings are illustrating how fallible our perception and memories actually are. If you watched the video in my previous post, “Eyes Wide Shut", were you one of the many who completely missed seeing the gorilla stroll through the middle of the frame the FIRST time you watched?

Studies have shown that jurors often do not understand, as a matter of common sense, what makes some eyewitness identifications more or less reliable than others. For example, a witnesses’ assuredness in their confidence is not a good predictor of identification accuracy. Add to this the stress which may have been involved during the incident which can reduce the ability to recall details of the face. ^[1] Witnesses can also be influenced by cross-cultural bias or their memory influenced by information learned following the incident.

In the case of the subway shooting; the witness interviewed by the police did recognize the young man from the subway – but he, like her, had only been another subway passenger. However because the young man had been placed in the back of the patrol car, she made the assumption that the police had arrested the perpetrator. She was only trying to be helpful to the police during the initial investigation.

During the robbery trial of the former armored car employee who was apparently wearing a mask during the crime; his defense attorneys demonstrated that the witnesses were completely unable to recognize identically masked pictures of popular celebrities such as Harrison Ford. The suspect had been suggested to the witnesses by the police; they accepted the suspect’s guilt in spite of having no way to recognize the accused, or anyone, while wearing a mask.

The rape victim had been attacked in a darkened room. Later when presented with the opportunity to identify the suspect in a police line-up, she recognized one of the men she had previously seen in the mug shot book; they were indeed the same person - but he was NOT the person who had actually committed the crime. Interestingly after the man’s conviction was later overturned, he and the victim together went on tour throughout the country giving talks about the dangers and unreliability of eyewitness testimony.

The eyes can be deceived; memory is malleable and subjective. Internal biases and expectations can confirm or erode that which we believe we have witnessed. It is natural for our minds to attempt to make sense of what we perceive and paint a picture of reality. But a number of factors can color that picture with devastating consequences.

References:
1. Schmechel, O’Toole, Easterly & Loftis, 2006, Beyond the Ken, Testing Jurors Understanding of Eyewitness Reliability

Wandering in the Wilderness

2011-06-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

Being one of those people who are annoyed by door-to-door sales people and wandering religious missionaries in particular, I had placed a “No Soliciting” sign right above my door bell some time back. So then what do the unwanted visitors do? They knock on the door! Explaining the sign to sales people is fruitless; they plead ignorance regarding what “soliciting” is. Religious solicitors don’t believe what they are doing is “soliciting” either – after all, they are on a Higher Mission.

Back then I was very abrupt with visiting religious proselytizers; but not so today. While working on my documentary about magician and inventor, Jerry Andrus, I adopted his approach with missionaries. Jerry was a vocal Agnostic but a very sweet and engaging personality. He would invite visiting missionaries into his home and engage them in debate. Jerry had studied the bible thoroughly and often knew more about the book than the iterate evangelists. Neither, I am sure, believed they were going to change any minds, but Jerry at least hoped they would leave with some alternate concept to consider.

Shortly after moving into our new home, a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my door; I welcomed them filled with joyful spirit and rapture.

Had I heard about the testament of Jesus Christ, they inquired? I had indeed, was my enthusiastic response; in fact I had been motivated to make all manner of study of the Christian beliefs to such a thorough extent at which I became convinced that there is no such thing as god(s).

The gentleman’s hand froze as he was about to pull a copy of “The Watchtower” from his valise. But surely, the woman missionary interjected, I believed the bible was the “word of god”? “Which bible”, I asked? There are dozens of versions. Clearly none were penned directly by the “almighty” but were rather inspired in the minds of mortal men. I further explained that the people of Jesus’ time spoke Aramaic but the earliest fragments of bible copies (as we have no original) were written in Greek. Surely she didn’t think that Jesus walked around in his time uttering “thee” and “thou”… that is Olde English.

I explained to the woman that, unlike the Bible, the Book of Mormon is claimed to be a “first-hand” account written by a known author, Joseph Smith. I inquired of them both if they thought the Book of Mormon to be a true testament of god? They strongly declined. I suggested that it certainly is easy to make up wonderful and fanciful stories, offering them as “evidence”. But I also reassured them that I didn’t believe that books written about Robin Hood and King Arthur were evidence that those characters were real as well.

By this time the gentleman had tucked his “Watchtower” pamphlet back into his valise; he clearly was not wanting to waste his booklet on the likes of me. As they attempted to back away I explained why I thought the concept of Heaven to be a silly idea and how boring it must be there for people such as me with such creative consciousness to have to spend eternity praising the glory of the lord. By the time I had launched into the findings in Stephen Hawking's new book explaining about Dark Matter and Dark Energy and pre-universe conditions, I clearly had lost them.

I wished them a hearty “Thank you for stopping by”, and sent them on their way with a smile and a friendly wave.

Now I have an inkling of what it must feel like to be filled with the rapture of the Holy Spirit.

Note: After this and a second encounter with Mormon missionaries, I decided to prepare my own pamphlet to hand out in future encounters. You can download a copy of my non-theist pamphlet from my web site. It is not copyrighted so feel free to adapt it for your own use.

Gideon's Babble

2011-06-19T03:39:00.000-07:00

Well my humble little blog seems to have attracted a troll. But rather than offer up my impression, I'll just let Gideon speak for himself:

(Note: The text in blue were my comments from another blog.)

~~~

"I love the way Condell cuts through the baloney of religious hypocrisy."

Seeing as how you male infidels are pussies, (unlike Lady Atheist, who at least lets my comments appear before she deletes them) I'll carry my answer over to here from that other pussy's blog.

Condell is a punk, pure and simple. A self-seeking, self-important, ignorant, racist little fop. And, much as it goes for the rest of the male anti-theist population, he's got no balls and runs and hides when he's challenged. I used to email the little prick. He answered once, in his condescending, knows-nothing style, then ran off and hid in true infidel fashion, once he understood that I wasn't there to compliment him or suck his cock.

I did a post on the punk, it's the truth, contrary to the way your little under-the-sheets buddy Infidel portrays him.

Enjoy... Pusscake!

In addition to hating Atheists, our little troll also hates Jews, Catholics, etc... and evidently he isn't all that fond of women much either:

You know, Bob, the only ones obsessed with sex, around here, are you infidels. Especially all of the female apes, here. I guess hubbo's not putting out enough for our feminist hellcats, huh?

Maybe I'll have to go visit some of those sex kittens on their blogs... seeing as how my comments aren't published here... don't worry, though, Bob, I'll make sure you get kudos for that move!

;-)
Yep, I visited some of your more 'interesting' friends' blogs, Bob. Gave you a plug, too.
~~~

He offers no argument to debate, no subjective perspective to consider... just pointless and repetitive insults. I'm not sure where else to go with these kinds of diatribes other than to just delete them. - RtS

Dick Does Denver

2011-06-15T01:59:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking even my Christian friends might raise an eyebrow or two after listening to this ~~nut~~ guy. There isn't much more I can add here; the video speaks for itself... although I've always been curious why the uber-evangelicals seem to be so preoccupied with sex?

Runtime 3:50

TV Journalism as Entertainment

2011-06-11T01:34:00.000-07:00

As much as I disdain the nightly network news, I still find myself watching it by default while my wife and I have our evening cocktail and dinner. I don't know why I continue to subject myself to this media abuse, it's lack of substance aggravates no end. Often not for what they report but for what they neglect.

For example, several important still-ongoing stories have dropped out of the media consciousness. They had us trembling in fear over that radiation from the damaged Japanese nuclear plant was wafting over the continental US. As far as I know, the the problem persists. We also know nothing of what is going on in Iraq, and meager discussion of Afghanistan only resurfaced due to the killing of bin Laden. And in spite of record tornadoes, record heat, warming of the gulf, Global Climate Change is apparently a dead issue to the media, as are jobs, or the lack thereof.

On the other hand we are continually treated to the blather of Sarah Palin. She holds no political office... remember she QUIT her position as governor. Yet the media seems to be stumbling over each other thinking she has something significant to contribute to public discourse. The news described how the press was "chasing to keep up" with her latest bus tour - why? I would love to see the press ignore her, but then it's kind of like when there is a car wreck on the freeway... you simply can't NOT slow down and look.

I have always believed that the continual coverage of the Tea Party "movement" gave legitimacy to what would in the past (and higher journalistic standards) have been disregarded as the lunatic fringe and largely ignored. In Portland, "Hands Across Hawthorne" drew HUNDREDS of people to protest the attack of two homosexual men on the Hawthorne bridge; elsewhere in town, TEN people showed up for a Tea Party rally. Guess which stories received news coverage and which one ignored! I am not sure precisely when being stupid became in vogue.

Continual news coverage may even be harmful to one's health. One of my good friends was advised by his physician to limit his viewing of cable network news where every story is presented in "immediate crises" mode 24/7. He was having trouble sleeping at night.

I used to watch the CBS program "60 Minutes" regularly but I am seriously thinking of tuning in "America's Funniest Videos" during that time slot. Hmmm, I'm under enough stress already.

~~~
The following likely would never be produced in the US as it doesn't involve someone getting hit in the groin - leave it to the Brits to come up with a scathing critique of todays television journalism. Enjoy.

Shrimp on a Treadmill - Bad Science?

2011-06-07T04:52:00.000-07:00

Recently Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) went on record as critical of the National Science Foundation (NSF) for wasting taxpayer funds to conduct questionable research, such as: determining if spending too much time playing FarmVille had an impact on Facebook user’s relationships – and – designing a robot to fold laundry – and – running shrimp on a treadmill.

Senator Coburn appears to be stepping into the shoes of the late Senator Edward Proxmire who famously issued his “Golden Fleece Award”: “to focus media attention on projects he felt were self-serving and wasted taxpayer dollars.” ^[1] On one occasion Senator Proxmire became incensed that taxpayer money was being spent for the apparently ridiculous purpose of studying the sex life of a fruit fly.

However as it turned out, understanding the sex life of a fruit fly had serious economic implications for fruit growers in Florida whose crops, and livelihoods, were being decimated by the pests. The study of their chemical sex attractants (pheromones) proved the be the most effective way of trapping and destroying the pest fly population. The senator was said to have earned a reputation for unfairly obstructing scientific research for political gain.

But a robot that folds towels? Really?
Robots are extremely adept at handling rigid objects in precise, repetitive applications, they are used extensively in industry for this reason. However robots are not well suited in handling “deformable” objects; non-rigid things in unstructured environments. Folding laundry is an excellent application to develop robots that can manipulate pliable three-dimensional objects then assess and formulate non-structured actions in order to complete the task. ^[2]

Ok, but shrimp walking on a treadmill? C-mon!

The shrimp treadmill, invented and built by [David] Scholnick [Pacific University], allows researchers to measure the activity of an exercising shrimp for a set period of time at known speed and oxygen levels. "These studies will give us a better idea of how marine animals can perform in their native habitat when faced with increasing pathogens and immunological challenges." ^[3]

I don’t know about you, but I am not enthused about eating sick shrimp – wood fired or deep fried!

However, in my opinion, Senator Coburn is certainly no Senator Proxmier. As he told the Wall Street Journal:

“As a practicing physician and a two-time cancer survivor, I understand the benefits of scientific research,” the senator said. “There is no question NSF serves an important – and legitimate – purpose in our society and has contributed to scientific discovery… Unfortunately, in some ways NSF has undermined its core mission through mismanagement and misplaced priorities.” ^[4]

Senator Coburn's intent seems to be emphasizing that, during times of economic deficit and budget constraints, he would like to see social sciences NOT be the primary focal point of the nations premiere science research agency. He believes that the NSF should take it’s funding more seriously by focusing on research that provides the highest benefit to the largest demographic.

Senator Coburn's point about the NSA needing to make judicious choices about how their resource dollars are allocated is both valid and reasonable criticism.

~~~

References.
1. Wikipedia, Senator Edward Proxmire.
2. Towel folding Robot (Video and article), Wired.com, April 5, 2010,
3. Scientists put shrimp on a treadmill, MSNBC.com, Oct. 18, 2006
4. Sen. Coburn Targets Shrimp on Treadmill, Other NSF Spending, Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2011

Towel folding robot video

Eyes Wide Shut

2011-06-03T02:50:00.000-07:00

During my analysis of my personal horoscope (see my previous blog entry) the person who prepared my horoscope and I exchanged discussions about the nature of science. My friend was somewhat skeptical of science itself, stating that all scientists are biased; therefore science really cannot be fully trusted.

My friend was correct – scientists ARE biased! Scientists are human; they have their pre-conceived ideas and perhaps even driven by conscious or unconscious motives. But the assertion that, therefore, science has little in the way of our seeking of truth is a greatly erroneous conclusion.

Let's take for example my analysis of my personal astrological horoscope. I admit that I am biased; I have investigated astrology sufficiently to conclude that it is bunk. However I had never had the opportunity before to have my own personal horoscope done. This presented me with a rare opportunity to conduct a first-hand analysis. Of course, recognizing my own preconceived bias, I had my wife also complete an analysis independently (though she is not a believer in astrology either). However, I am like most scientists, open to changing my view in the presence of new and convincing evidence. [Skeptics like to say we maintain an open mind... but not so open that our brains fall out.]

Unfortunately the horoscope failed to present findings different than what I already knew about these types of pseudo-sciences. In fact, the results of my personal horoscope fully confirmed that horoscopes simply engaging purely psychological ploys. But more to the point, my bias had no effect on the outcome of the data or the only obvious conclusion drawn from it.

There can be bad science, junk science, sloppy science, voodoo science and occasionally out and out fraud. BUT all this science has one shared fate: it is subject to scrutiny, parallel experimentation, duplication of results, in short – Peer Review. For every scientist hoping to promote a cherished theory, there are dozens others waiting in the wings to challenge their conclusions. If others conduct the same experiments under similar conditions and arrive at different outcomes, the theory can be called into question.

Recently news media has been in a frenzy about the declaration by the World Health Organization that cell phones can increase the possibility of a certain brain cancer. This issue had been brought up years previously; we probably had thought this issue had been laid to rest. These types of reoccurring controversies: caffeine is good for you, caffeine is bad for you; red wine is good, red wine is bad – these sorts of dichotomies can drive the non-scientific public nuts. What can you believe?

Of course the answer resides in the consensus of corroborating scientific evidence. Still, even though an overwhelming number of scientists conclude that Anthropogenic (human-caused) Climate Change or Biological Evolution are well established facts, the public is often presented with a contradictory impression (primarily by the media) that there are two opposing positions of equal footing.

Political as well as economic forces often (intentionally) skew our perceptions of what that scientific consensus is. Our own personal biases can color our acceptance or rejection of science's conclusions.

As I have explained in previous posts, our perceptions are often deeply flawed. Our eyes are not video cameras; our ears are not tape recorders. Everything we conclude from our perception is first interpreted by our brain… filtered along with its biases, expectations, motivations, fears and anticipations swirling unconsciously in the background. But science done often and done well can help us sort through what we wish to believe and lead us more closely to conclude what is likely true.

Perception experiment: Take a few moments to watch the following video. Be sure to comment on what you saw - but leave your comment before reading the comments of others. Enjoy!

The Skeptic's Horoscope

2011-05-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

Previously in this blog I have dismissed Astrology as bunk – Astrology remains one of the most thoroughly discredited of the pseudo-sciences. However, I was recently presented with a rare opportunity to have my own personal horoscope crafted for me. I needed only provide my precise date and time of birth and the specific location (latitude and longitude). It was an offer I couldn’t refuse!

The person who graciously agreed to run my horoscope is a follower of Astrology and suggests it reveals unique personal characteristics based on the positions of the stars, planets and other celestial bodies at the time and place of birth. The reading was created using a computer program commonly used by Astrology practitioners. The individual doing this horoscope asked that I not reveal their identity or source of the information.

Upon supplying my true specific time and location of birth, I received in the mail a ten-page report categorizing aspects of my personality by my “outlook”, “emotions”, “intellect”, “romance” and several other headings. Each section included a set of statements describing various aspects of my personality and behavior.

Upon my initial read of my horoscope I found myself nodding in agreement that, overall, it appeared to be a fairly familiar assessment about me. Yet this was no surprise as I happen to be party as to how the illusion is accomplished.

ANALYZING THE HOROSCOPE – METHODOLOGY:
After scanning the document using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) I edited out all text that did not directly describe specific characteristics regarding my personality. For example, removing supposedly explanatory statements such as; “Your Moon is Trine to Jupiter with an Orb of 4 degrees”. What remained were the specific sentences describing my personality.

The remaining personality-descriptive sentences were then copied to an Excel spreadsheet, one sentence per line. Each sentence was then evaluated for whether it was “true”, “false”, “ambiguous”, “mutually-exclusive” or “universal” meaning applicable to a broad range of other personality types. Examples of universal statements would be: “This generation faces the stresses of changing social and moral standards”, or “Experiences in your life help you to grow.” With rare exception, who among us would not regard these statements to be true?

To minimize the likelihood of my own confirmation bias influencing the results, I also asked my wife to complete a duplicate analysis spreadsheet as well. She was not permitted to read the original horoscope prior to her analysis of the descriptive sentences.

TABULATION OF RESULTS:
The tabulations completed separately by my wife and I each judged 37% and 33% of the statements to be true, 29% and 26% to be false. We also determined 22% and 24% to be universal statements which most anyone might regard as true about themselves. 7% and 6% were ambiguous and 5% and 2% mutually-exclusive or contradictory, meaning neither true nor false.

FINDINGS OF ANALYSIS:
The statements produced for this horoscope used familiar techniques well known to science and psychology, primarily “Cold Reading” whereby many of statements are tossed into the mix - statistically several may be true and others equally false. The reaction of someone untrained in this subject, their psychological propensity toward “Conformation Bias” and “Subjective Valuation” subtly causes them to weight highly statements which confirm their self assessment and to disproportionally under-weigh those statements which do not. The inclusion of additional broad general statements which may apply widely to many different people unconsciously adds into the mix of “hits”. This suggests to the recipient that an accurate portrayal of their personality has been divined from the creation of their horoscope.

SUMMARY:
Astrology has been around for over 4,000 years. Yet in all that time no hypothesis has ever been suggested regarding its mechanism – how it works. Adherents have only the claim that the results alone provide validity of its accuracy. However the results can actually be shown to be nothing more than a set of generic statements which horoscope recipients subjectively unwittingly accept. This acceptance is termed “Fallacy of Composition”, whereby a conclusion is drawn though there are insufficient reliable facts to justify the inference. The methodology used to create horoscopes parallels closely with similar techniques of psychics, palm or Tarot card readers or any practice which routinely employ this stratagem.

All of which begs the question: of what use is Astrology? Science in recent years has been far more successful in explaining how physical, bio-chemical and genetic factors influence our behavior and personality. In addition, one needs to consider an individual’s development, societal and cultural environment as well. These factors are far more tangible influences in shaping our behavior and personality than through unexplained inferences from objects far out in space.

Astrology, like performance magic, appears to be something it is not. But unless one has made the effort to understand how the trick is structured and performed, the uninformed will remain gullible into believing that unseen "powers" are divining their lives from the stars.

You are invited to view my actual personal horoscope, analysis spreadsheets and final report to the astrologer, along with two scientific studies of Astrology, on my web site at: http://www.skepticalmedia.com/astrology/

Paradise Found: The Big Island

2011-05-26T08:37:00.000-07:00

I seriously got the impression that, if I walked around the streets of Honolulu at certain times, I could likely end up getting clubbed in the head. What the island of Oahu isn’t, the Big Island is – beautiful, natural, spacious and unequivocally Hawaii. Even the Kona airport is cool; no huge terminal or metal concourse. One steps off the plane directly into the warm tropical sun.

The Big Island is fascinating. Standing in one spot your eyes travel from the rocky coast all the way up to the summit of 13,700 summit of Mauna Kea. The west side is warm dry desert, the east is lush tropical forest – and the south coast is an active volcano. We always encourage first time visitors to make the trip to the southeastern coast to visit the lava flows of the petulantly active Kilauea volcano. During this trip the lava had stopped flowing; but this is usually a temporary situation. On previous visits we have seen the bright red ooze to the surface and walked on recently hardened, but still hot, flows.

This was our fifth visit to the Big Island, we come to escape the wet Oregon winters and to snorkel at one of the most remarkable places on the island, Kahalu'u Beach Park. Our daughter and her husband and kids joined us on this leg of the trip. My primary mission was to teach my 8 year-old granddaughter to snorkel. Kahalu’u is a fairly shallow bay and protected from the surf by a partial breakwater, making it ideal for amateur snorkel enthusiasts. The warm shallow water is home to a large variety of colorful fish and the likely experience of finding yourself within a few feet of a giant sea turtle. Second only to the reefs we have snorkeled in Belize, Kahalu’u bay is practically like swimming in the tank of a tropical fish store. Granddaughter took to the water immediately and soon it was all I could do to keep up with her. If you don’t own your own snorkel gear, equipment can be purchased or rented nearby. Seriously, if you visit the Big Island and don’t snorkel, you will miss half the wildlife adventure of the island.

I find the history of the Hawaiian culture fascinating. Native Hawaiians hold tightly to their cultural history and remnants of their presence everywhere. The early inhabitants built trails, left petroglyphs and rock structures throughout the island. I find it strange, though, that in such a lovely part of the earth, the ancient Hawaiians were quite a brutal lot. King Kamehameha, for example, decided to unite the assorted islands under single rule. So he invited another island king (his brother) to a sumptuous luau – after which he clubbed him to death, then set out to conquer the remaining islands.

The first westerner, Captain Cook visited the Big Island in 1779 and was hailed as a king by the inhabitants. Unfortunately, Cook soon returned wherein he and a few of his crew, after a brief skirmish, were clubbed to death. Today a monument maintained by the British government stands on the shore of Kealakekua Bay (another fantastic snorkeling location as well).

As brutal as the ancient Hawaiians were, they entertained some strange contradictory customs. One interesting spot is the Place of Refuge, now maintained by the National Park Service. The ancient Hawaiians lived under a feudal system of bizarre laws and taboos. For example, it was an offense punishable by death (yep, by clubbing) to step on the shadow of the king. Expect to be clubbed for eating fish during spawning time or for women to commit the offense of eating bananas as well. However, if the perpetrator of said taboo was able to make a successful run, arriving at the Place of Refuge, after a few days, all transgression would be forgiven and the offender could return home unscathed. Even warriors on the losing side of a battle, were they able to reach the Place of Refuge (before being clubbed to death), they were wholly reprieved.

There is far more to say about the Big Island; although several 5-star resorts have popped up in several areas, this island retains much of it’s rural and rustic charm. Some of the best beaches remain isolated, accessible only via rough trails hewn through the lava; marked only by a small grouping of parked cars along the highway.

If you haven’t yet visited our 50th state, I recommend you skip Maui and Honolulu and instead opt for the Big Island. It is the closest, in my opinion, to the truly Hawaiian experience.

They Paved Paradise (& Put Up A Parking Lot)

2011-05-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

Ten days in Hawaii – Two months ago I wasn’t sure I would live long enough to leave the hospital any way other than feet-first. Following my successful heart surgery, I had still pretty much written-off the Hawaiian vacation we had planned months before. But a whole lot of medical professionals pulled some strings (not to mention some wires and tubes) to see to it that I could keep that date with “Paradise on Earth”.

When I had originally planned this trip I had one goal in mind; to teach my granddaughter to snorkel. We booked our timeshare months before, Nancy and I planning to spend three nights in Oahu then meet up with our daughter, her husband and the grand kids for a week on the Big Island. I found Honolulu to be like any major American city: busy and expensive. Though oddly, we found the beach at Waikiki was practically deserted.

The highlight of Oahu was our visit to Pearl Harbor; the Arizona Memorial in particular. We were warned that the tour was popular and to arrive early to avoid long lines. But taking the 7:00 AM shuttle from the hotel to the memorial we strolled in with no waiting. The National Park Service efficiently controls access to the Arizona memorial. Well organized they issue a fixed number of tickets to park visitors, who after seeing a tastefully done film about how we were drawn into war with Japan, ferry us by launch out to the memorial.

Constructed straddling the hull of the Arizona where she had sunk entombing over 400 sailors, the simple yet reverent memorial structure stirred very deep emotions. The rusting hulk appeared almost ethereal lying just under the surface of the bay, disappearing into the darkness of deeper water. A thin sheen of oil seeping from the rusting hull made rainbow patters around the leis people had tossed into the water. Most were silent or spoke in hushed voices out of almost reverence - feelings clearly shared by "believer" and "non-believer" alike. As I gazed into the rusting hull of the Arizona, I must confess I felt an upwelling of pride that Seal Team 6 had recently put a bullet in the brain of that SOB behind our country's most recent sneak attack on September 11th.

The film we had watched back at the dock before boarding the launch taking us across the bay to the Arizona described how war disrupts the lives of those most often least able to avoid it. That the decisions of a powerful few can affect the lives of millions of people who hope for nothing more than to live lives quietly and comfortably surrounded by those by whom they are loved. It serves to remind us that so much of what happens to us is beyond our control yet can have the most devastating of consequences.

But soon the launch just as abruptly returned us back into modern 2011 Honolulu… where parking costs $24 a day, where all the stores blast air conditioning full bore out wide-open doors into the humid Hawaiian weather and where cars crawl slowly bumper-to-bumper in four lanes of freeway traffic burning up gasoline at $4.45 per gallon.

Next: Paradise Found: The Big Island.

Nancy explores the WWII submarine Bowfin.

The Logical Facts of Emotion

2011-05-08T02:29:00.000-07:00

I recall a story airing on Public Radio about a man who had suffered a serious brain injury. The individual made what appeared to be a full recovery – but with one lingering bit of permanent brain damage; he had lost the ability to apply emotional qualities to certain aspects of his personality.

His disability manifested in a very peculiar way; though his analytical functioning remained intact, he was severely inhibited in his ability to make decisions requiring choices from more than one set of options. For example, when shopping for groceries, he was incapable of determining whether he should buy “Catsup” or “Ketchup”. Though he was able to continue his employment, other problems arose during the course of his work. Upon finalizing a lengthy and complex contract he had written, he could not decide if he should sign the contract using a pen with blue ink versus black ink. Both options had perceived merits, yet he was unable to determine which color in pen to use.

Most of us believe that we are capable of making objective decisions based on fact and reason. But being purely logical is problematic. I was always intrigued by the highly logical character of Spock on the Star Trek sci-fi series. Ingeniously, Gene Roddenberry created Spock to be the progeny of an abjectly logical Vulcan father and an emotional human mother. Roddenberry knew that a purely logical character would be both predictable and uninteresting. But by imbuing the character with an inherently illogical “human” element, he created a built-in dramatic conflict between Spock’s logical leanings and often contradictory emotional responses - quite ingenious drama.

We are often unaware that we are making decisions; we actually make hundreds of decisions every day, a majority of them unconsciously. The choice of clothing, the route we drive to work, our lunch choices – they are all a combination of rational and emotional evaluations.

We believe we are capable, rational and perhaps analytical in our decision making when important choices, such as purchase of a car, for example. But we do not make decisions in a vacuum. Consciously or not, we place value judgments against our thought processes. We weight the projected consequences of our decisions, which we may accept or find we need to rationalize in our minds in order to feel good about the choice. Heck, this is why cars come in colors like Candy Apple Red, have sport wheels or a kick-ass leather interior.

Advertising is cleverly designed to tap into the emotional aspects of our decision process and it is extremely effective. Appealing images and convincing statements skew our analytical processes. This is why that even though brand name Tylenol and generic acetaminophen are exactly the same products, consumers consistently purchase the higher priced brand name over the generic.

Research has even shown that that employers often come to decisions about who they wish to hire within mere seconds of initially meeting the applicant. The results of these tests have shown the surprisingly high incidence that the applicants who an interviewer immediately likes, overwhelmingly results in that person being offered the job. The qualifications, skills and experience of the application become secondary concerns, justifications may be created in an attempt to rationalize a wholly emotionally made decision.

However, there are pitfalls to rendering a decision based largely on emotions. The notable French scientist Louis Pasteur became concerned as scientific methodology surged in 19th century Europe. He saw many scientists engaging in experimentation who he felt were fixated on using the tools of science to confirm their already held hypothesis and thereby throwing out data which contradicted their expectations. He warned that discarding data could result in lost discoveries and incorrect conclusions: “Did you ever observe to whom the accidents happen? Chance favors only the prepared mind,” he cautioned.

~~~

Leaders in the so-called "birther" movement argued their case over President Barack Obama's U.S. citizenship before a federal appeals court Monday in Southern California, claiming the full birth certificate he released last week had been doctored. [Full story here]

The Magic Feather

2011-05-04T01:42:00.000-07:00

"... People gravitate toward information that confirms what they believe, and they select sources that deliver it." - Charles Taber

In my previous blog post I revealed a brief history of my personal journey from being a Believer to becoming a Skeptic. It was a long and sometimes difficult process; but I can never go back. I often think of the scene toward the end of “The Wizard of Oz” where Dorothy and company are terrified of the specter of the great and all-powerful OZ – until little Toto pulls back the curtain, revealing the hoax. We Skeptics are Toto.

Recently the curtain was pulled back on the widely-held belief that President Obama is not a legally born US Citizen. Up to this point, facts had not dissuaded the “Birthers” strongly held beliefs. So will the stark confrontation from presenting Obama’s actual birth certificate settle the issue once and for all? Not likely – people tend to hold strongly to their beliefs, and even more surprisingly, tend to grip them even tighter in the face of contradictory facts. What’s going on here?

As I pointed out previously, belief is the “default option”. Evolution has favored the tendency for humans to generally believe what we presented. Belief can, and often does, exist outside of the truth of that belief.

From the Encyclopedia Britannica:
“[Belief is] a mental attitude of acceptance or assent toward a proposition without the full intellectual knowledge required to guarantee its truth. Believing is either an intellectual judgment or, as the 18th-century Scottish Skeptic David Hume maintained, a special sort of feeling with overtones that differ from those of disbelief. … Belief in someone or something is basically different from belief that a proposition is true.”

“Seeing is believing” is a common idiom, though the belief may be incorrect. In the case of performance magic, magicians deliberately make use of this causality to our delight by making us think that the laws of physics can be suspended. The same impressions can also be employed by people, such as convicted swindler Bernard Maydoff, to cause us to part with our money to disastrous result.

Our eyes and brain, fortunately, are not movie cameras which objectively record and retain every image. I say “fortunately” because, without our outward awareness our brains sort, prioritize, evaluate and weigh for significance, all of millions of bits of input we experience every day. Most of this information is discarded; your brain has forgotten the number of traffic lights you went through on your way to the mall, the faces of the people in the store, and the Musak tunes played as you shopped. What we do remember are those things that have significance and value to us – and for this we require an emotional component.

Emotions, how we “feel” about what we experience, are a strong influence on the conclusions we derive from our perceptions. We weight these experiences against our values and decide if they are worthy of acceptance, of belief.

Internal conflict arises within us when we are confronted with information contrary to our beliefs. This can create discomfort and stress and can even feel threatening when one’s values are at stake. There are few alternatives available to us; acceptance of the belief, rationalize it, or outright dismissal. The surprising research is that, when confronted with opposing input, we often reinforce the original belief.

"[People] retrieve thoughts that are consistent with their previous beliefs... and that will lead them to build an argument and challenge what they're hearing." In other words, when we think we're reasoning, we may instead be rationalizing.
... People rejected the validity of a scientific source because its conclusion contradicted their deeply held views... And that undercuts the standard notion that the way to persuade people is via evidence and argument. In fact, head-on attempts to persuade can sometimes trigger a backfire effect, where people not only fail to change their minds when confronted with the facts—they may hold their wrong views more tenaciously than ever.” [1]
- Charles Taber, Stonybrook University

Skepticism is a process which requires effort if we are to ensure we are correct in our assumptions, something few people do. Without exercising that extra effort, we can continue to expect that half of the conservatives in this country will believe our President is a Muslim and a significant number, even in the face of outstanding proof, will continue to believe that he was not born a US Citizen.

Many hold certain beliefs, primarily religious beliefs, because they find comfort within them. But is the comfort and confidence in these beliefs not unlike that of Dumbo, holding onto our “magic feather” falsely convinced that it is the reason we can fly? But I think there is something of greater value to be gained by venturing outside one's comfort zone, in questioning one's beliefs. For me it is never enough to just believe; I have to "know". The Truth - I can deal with the truth.

Next: Can we separate emotions from our decisions and beliefs?

~~~

1. The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science, Mother Jones, April 18, 2011

~~~

Finally for a bit of fun: Can you trust what you're seeing to be true?
Watch this Japanese magician pull a salt shaker through a solid glass table top:

Fox News: President Obama is Dead! Oops

2011-05-02T08:58:00.000-07:00

The airwaves and bloggosphere will be replete with the story of Bin Laden's welcome demise. There is little I can add to the discourse... so I won't - with the exception of this:

Perhaps it was a Freudian-slip or maybe wishful thinking on the part of the Fox News staff; in either way the conservative propaganda network has once again risen to it's usual mediocre journalistic standards. Watch and enjoy:

The Default Option

2011-04-29T02:46:00.000-07:00

"Belief is the natural state of things, it's the default option." - Michael Shermer, publisher, Skeptic Magazine

I grew up believing a lot of things – that my parents loved me; that Catholicism was mandatory and there was an all-powerful and loving “Super-Daddy” somewhere out in space that would protect me. But as I began more to observe the natural world, I encountered things I couldn’t explain. I believed in ghosts, telekinesis, UFOs and my mother’s reliance on Astrology. I believed that certain special people had unique and unexplained powers.

Aside from my parent's love, I don’t believe any of those other things today. But those changes didn’t happen overnight, it required decades of effort and study; work which I continue to do. It was only recently that I fully accepted my status as an Atheist, advancing from Agnostic. What I have discovered is that it is simple to believe; but Knowing requires effort.

As a child I was fascinated by Science. The country was all about advancing in science and technology; in school I learned about the natural world. Things began to make sense; it could be quantified and measured and therefore explained. We had entered the “Space Race”; new discoveries were advancing the body of science on an almost daily basis. And some of what I discovered was sometimes uncomfortably contrary to some of my previously held beliefs.

As a young man following college I began to wonder about consciousness on the fringes of science. I recall subscribing to a magazine called “The New Age Journal”; a periodical for spiritual seekers, I guess one could say. Although it contained some thoughtful articles regarding developing habits to deal with life stresses (such as meditation), it also offered horoscopes and suggested that crystals (pretty rocks) had remarkable healing properties. But by this point in my maturity I had also developed a latent personality trait – Doubt.

The “New Age Journal” subscription expired, replaced now with “Skeptical Inquirer” magazine published by the Center for Inquiry (formerly Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal). Each month there were articles about lake monsters, UFOs, ghosts and myriads of other paranormal phenomena. The underlying premise of the organization was to ask (and often answer) the question: is there another alternative, and most importantly, “rational” explanation?

SI led to other books which reinforced my trust (not faith) in science and allowed me to hold my own beliefs up to the light. Then in 1980 I watched Carl Sagan’s 13 episode series, “Cosmos” on public television. I was riveted. I was then working in the business world, but to indulge my yearning for science, I volunteered as an “Explainer” at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI). I felt like a kid in a candy store.

Eventually, I became weary of the repetitive analysis of lake monsters and alien abductions. By now, I felt they all had been thoroughly discredited – my interest turned instead to trying to comprehend why so many WANTED to believe in these things. I discovered “Skeptic” magazine published by Michael Shermer of “The Skeptics Society”. Shermer had written books such as “Why People Believe Weird Things” and “How We Believe” and other titles on scientific skepticism. I needed to understand the thinking processes and influences going on within the human mind which caused people to justify holding onto strongly-held beliefs, even in the face of diametrically opposing factual information.

As luck would have it, I was fortunate to become friends with skeptic, inventor, poet and magician, Jerry Andrus. Jerry was the creator of some truly remarkable optical illusions. He was also well known among the world of professional magicians for his unique sleight of hand and magic. Though most magicians learn their trade from other magicians, Jerry did not want to be influenced by others; all of his illusions are ones he developed on his own. Jerry was one of the few men who could actually fool other magicians!

But Jerry had a purpose in his magic; he dedicated his life to teaching people that the conclusions we conclude from the patterns we arrange in our minds, even if they are WRONG, is a completely normal, natural and remarkable result from the evolution of our magnificent brains. Jerry recognized that for humans, “belief is the default option” – but or brains also have the capacity to question our perceptions in order to fully appreciate the wonders of this universe in we live.

Next: Why do we hold on to certain beliefs and why don’t we believe science?

Trailer from my documentary, “Andrus; the Man, the Mind & the Magic.”

It's All Over, Folks

2011-04-25T01:42:00.000-07:00

Damn, just when I was starting to feel pretty confident about my future after my heart surgery... This billboard just popped up in town:

The Apocalypse is near - Repent before it is too late! Seriously, we really mean it THIS time. "The Bible Guarantees It", according to the billboard. This ain't no heathen Aztec calender.

Meet Robo Trader

2011-04-21T00:24:00.000-07:00

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." ~ HAL9000

My wife and I often listen to National Public Radio news as we sip our morning coffee in bed (one of the more lovely benefits of retirement). Often during the broadcast, punctuated in between the news stories, the reporters usually toss out a brief update about how the Stock Market is doing. The Dow is up x points, or the NASDAQ down by y. I often wonder, what is the point of telling me this information? In a matter of minutes those markets can completely reverse.

Worse yet is when the news then attempts to explain WHY the Stock Market took a particular rise or fall. Recently the market apparently fell on worries about the nuclear plant disaster in Japan. Oh really - how do they KNOW that was the cause? A few years back I heard a reporter attribute the market closing lower because President George Bush was having his colonoscopy. What the... ?!

The truth is that I don’t think anyone has the remotest clue why the Stock Market trends as it does. The media obviously pulls some current story out of the blue and attempts to attribute cause-and-effect to these fluctuations where there is none. Humans naturally expect reasons for why things happen, therefor, a causal effect is simply manufactured that has absolutely nothing to do with reality.

I became even more dubious about Stock Market trends after discovering that a huge majority of the trades executed daily are no longer done by human traders but by computers. The number of human traders on the floor of the stock exchanges has actually dropped by a large percentage.

As it turns out, a significant number of the buy/sell trade decisions are not being made by human traders - To a significant degree computers have taken over the buying and selling of stocks. I recently watched this story on the TV news show, “60-Minutes”. Companies have now invested millions in computer hardware and algorithms which can spot and act on trends within microseconds. Traders on the floor of the Stock Exchange is now old school.

Excerpt: It may surprise you to learn that most of the stock trades in the U.S. are no longer being made by human beings, but by robot computers capable of buying and selling thousands of different securities in the time it takes you to blink an eye.

Today [the floor of the New York Stock Exchange] is still the public façade of Wall Street, and a television backdrop for reporters relaying financial news. But less than 30 percent of the trading is conducted there now, and the specialists and the noise of the floor are being replaced by the speed and quiet efficiency of computers and the action has moved elsewhere. ^1.

For me this has significant bearing on the entire purpose of the Stock Market. Companies used to offer investment in the form of stocks to raise capital in order to expand, grow and become profitable; thereby sharing the benefit through dividends to their investors. However in recent years I have been puzzled why it seemed the stock in one company would fall even when they reported profitable years; equally puzzling were the rises in stock prices of companies obviously languishing.

Now I understand why – the decisions regarding the sale and purchase of a company’s stock have no bearing whatsoever on the viability, market potential or management of that company. Those buy/sell decisions are made within fractions of a second by automated traders who may likely hold a company stock it just purchased for only three minutes before it sells it.

The people behind this trend say this should have no negative effect on the small investors who like to play the stock market using their best analytical considerations about the viability of the companies they choose invest in. But if the prices are actually driven by the mindless millisecond musings of a super computer, how can you be sure the small investor is safe?

This one thing I do know, as NPR tells me the Stock Market is up or down so many points, by the time I finish my morning coffee, that information is old news.

~~~

1. How Speed Traders Are Changing Wall Street, “60-Minutes”, October 10, 2010

Let Them Eat Cake

2011-04-17T04:21:00.000-07:00

In a recent post I explained how I came to understand, through the clarity of a remarkable comedian, how our supposedly democratic republic has been taken over by a small, but very powerful, group of “individuals” (an identity which, according to the Supreme Court, also includes huge corporations).

This disturbing fact has not gone unnoticed by a significant segment of politicians, economists and intellectuals. Many understand how we got here – now the question is, can we as (human) individuals regain control over our country and how?

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity –
In 1700’s France during the reign of King Louis XVI the country, due to financial mismanagement and feudal oppression, was in a serious downward spiral. Faced with a dwindling treasury, King Louis engaged his top financial advisers who ultimately suggested that the wealthy nobility, currently exempt from taxation, be taxed. The wealthy refused. With both the nobility and equally wealthy clergy exempt from taxation, the burden then fell onto the general French public. ¹

But French commoners were not faring all that well and attempts to squeeze more tariffs from the growing peasant class resulted in social upheaval; the brunt of which was borne by the aristocracy and nobility who found themselves losing their heads, literally. After years of furtive attempts to design a new constitution and government, France eventually ended up being ruled by an emperor (Napoleon). ²

Could this happen in this country? We currently have corporate executives realizing previously unheard of amounts of executive compensation while the effective earning power (wages) of the middle class has declined. We are facing a widening disparity, in both and assets, between the middle and wealthy class. And like the reign of Louis XVI, the wealthiest 2% of our nation, and the clergy, retain their exemption (thanks to BOTH political parties) from bearing a reasonable share of the tax burden.

So will Americans be storming the Bastille any time soon? I genuinely doubt it. Unlike the draconian conditions which precipitated revolution in Egypt and elsewhere in the middle east...
1) American public awareness is broadly blind, or cannot otherwise fathom, degree in disparity between them and the wealthy elite: “…income inequality as an issue doesn’t win elections because Americans don’t begrudge the rich so much as they dream they may join them.”³

2) The staggering availability of cheap food, cheap technology and almost unlimited distractions in the form of entertainment and media propaganda, provide a welcome anesthetic to dealing with the dwindling opportunities for a better life for the middle class. It was the media that promoted the Tea Party from a fringe group to a position of legitimacy through constant media attention. Ask yourself why, for example, Sarah Palin continues to enjoy more media exposure than John McCain? The media chooses, orchestrates and controls the message.

3) Americans don’t think in terms of community or the well being of society as a whole, that would be too "European". Americans think of themselves in terms of the individual; beyond exercising their vote, most Americans feel they have little power. If you noticed the union demonstrations in Wisconsin the crowd was mainly comprised of older workers. Young workers see little relevance in union membership.

As long as the ultra wealthy and the corporations control access to Congress, define the media agenda and continue to placate us with consumer distractions, the American public will remain like the frog in the cooking pot, oblivious to the ever-slowly-increasing heat until they are cooked to death.

~~~

1. "The French Revolution (1789–1799)", sparknotes.com

2. "France History - Causes of the French Revolution", Bonjourfrance.com

3. "Rising Wealth Inequality: Should We Care? - Why do Americans seem unperturbed about the growing gap between the rich and the poor?" NY Times - March 23, 2011

Frog cartoon courtesy of Graviton Creations

Pondering People and Pigs

2011-04-13T03:24:00.000-07:00

It has been four weeks since my aortic valve replacement surgery; three weeks of being out of 23 days in the hospital. My life is currently weeks of multiple medical appointments and visits to the Infusion Clinic where my IV antibiotic pump connected to me 24/7 is serviced and my Coumadin levels checked and adjusted. I have good days and times when I feel extremely vulnerable; still I am lucky to be alive.

Constantly wearing this IV pump is a hassle; it is heavy and wearing it on a strap over my shoulder makes my already aching and healing chest ache even more. Yet this experience has also given me an appreciation of what others with more serious health issues must go through. I drop into the Infusion Clinic where my IV pump is quickly serviced and dressings changed. Most of the other patients there are required to hang out, enduring hours of infusion therapy, primarily for chemotherapy treatment. Again, I feel extremely lucky.

In the years prior to my mother-in-law’s, Wanda, death, her life completely revolved around hospitals and clinics. I now have some appreciation as to how difficult a time she was having. She suffered a cardiac amyloid condition; a condition similar to Alzheimers however affecting her heart rather than the brain. Her prognosis was that she would eventually decline, slipping into congestive heart failure. She was never going to get better, only worse. It was not unusual for her to have two or three doctor’s appointments every week, made even more difficult as she was by then wheelchair bound.

When Wanda was told that her condition had deteriorated to the point where she would require kidney dialysis, she decided that she had had enough dealing with needles, procedures and medications. Knowing that without dialysis she would die, she accepted that as the most humane way she could go. She died at home of kidney failure surrounded by her family.

My Coumadin treatments will eventually end in a month or two; likewise I should be free of my IV pump in a few weeks. I am in otherwise good physical condition and expected to make a full recovery. Eventually I will be able to do the things I enjoy; building and remodeling, yard work, riding my bike. I’m told I can expect to feel better than I before getting my new “pig” valve.

But my situation has reminded me of the countless others whose lives currently revolve around simply staying alive, who live within the restricted world of hospitals, clinics, therapies and procedures; many often painful or causing great sickness. My thoughts, at this moment, are for their difficult fight for life.

Did I mention how really lucky I am feeling right now?

The Myth of True Democracy

2011-04-08T07:30:00.000-07:00

A few years back I was having an interesting discussion with a professor who taught Political Science at the local university. Somewhere in our conversation the topic of voting came up; he confessed to me a rather jaw-dropping admission – he personally doesn’t vote. Flabbergasted I was really curious why he, of all people, would chose not to exercise his right to vote.

Here is what he explained to me: our government policies are driven by, and for, special moneyed interest through lobbyists; in fact much of the legislation is written outside of Congress by the very same special interests the proposed laws are designed to regulate. Elections, he went on to explain, is just “theater” to give people the illusion of representation in governance. Voting trends are completely manipulated by very complex, expensive and professionally managed campaign marketing machines.

The professor has since moved to a university president position; I’ve lost touch with him over the years. Still, at that time I found it very difficult to accept what he told me. Somehow, I still held onto the belief that the democratic process was working the way it was supposed to. But events over recent years have caused me to no longer believe we live in a democratically run country.

Some of you may already be familiar with this monologue by the late George Carlin. If you’ve already seen it, watch it again. Carlin is not joking, he is deadly serious – and I fear is he is also right.

Carlin has been accused of being a “conspiracy theorist”; but as he pointed out during an appearance on the Bill Maher show, the ultra wealthy do not need to meet in secret chambers, they need no secret plan or to plot devious strategies -- the wealthy and powerful already know what is in their best interest and their enormous resources are employed to further those interests.

Even newly elected governor Jerry Brown in a recent interview, "We the People? Jerry Brown on Money, Politics,and Who Really Runs America" even concedes the democratic process is skewed to the advantage of wealthy special interests. Exerpt: "The fact of the matter is that if... you take special interest money, you do what they want. Now on any given bill, if there’s heat, if there’s public scrutiny, you’re not going to be obvious about having been bought off. You have to keep that covered. But in fact you are bought off. The entire system is bought off by the institutional bias created by special interest campaign spending."

I understand that some people want to hold onto hope. The Obama campaign was selling hope by the bushel basket; and I bought into it as well. But one needs to ask themselves; why is it we are debating cutting benefits for the most needy in our society while the wealthiest 2% sacrafice nothing? Why have the two longest wars in our history been waged without a tax increase as ALL our other wars have?

Even our "free press", is sustained by huge private media corporations. Fox news is, at least, blatant about their conservative bias. The stories which air are intentionally crafted to manipulate the public; be it “gay marriage”, abortion, immigration, the growing deficit. These hot-button issues are intentionally thrust into the public consciousness to divert our attention from the corruption of our democratic process. In a country where a vast majority base their decisions regarding candidates and issues primarily based on 30-second TV advertisement, this is where the propaganda turns directly into votes.

I do not discount that there are men and woman of principles and conscience within our government. For example, Vermont's Bernie Sanders or our own Peter DeFazio here in Oregon. But they still are limited by the rules and the harsh realities of government strongly influenced by unseen moneyed and special interests.

As sad as I am to accept what Carlin is saying, I find substantiation of his views on an almost daily basis. We are dancing to the tune being played by the wealthiest 2% who own 24% (and growing) of the nation's wealth. The system is working for them quite well.

Below are just a few bits of evidence supporting Carlin's view; you can likely find many more on your own.

~ Court rulings ~

January 2010 - The US Supreme Court has struck down a major portion of a 2002 campaign-finance reform law, saying it violates the free-speech right of corporations to engage in public debate of political issues. The result is that all campaign finance laws are thrown out opening the door for any anonymous moneyed interests to support candidates or causes.

~ Documentaries ~

Frontline: The Warning (2009)
A detailed look at the roots of America's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, this "Frontline" documentary exposes why government officials refused to regulate emerging derivatives markets that later ruined global financial systems.

Frontline: Breaking the Bank (2009)
With an eye on the financial crisis that sent Wall Street reeling in the midst of the 2008 presidential election, this penetrating edition of "Frontline" investigates what went wrong, who's to blame and how long it will take to repair the damage. Specifically, the program looks at the role of so-called "superbanks" and other players in the housing market's soaring fortunes -- and its ultimately devastating decline.

Frontline: Obama's Deal (2010)
Witness how American politics operates in the Obama era with this revealing documentary, which grants viewers incredible access to private meetings from the White House to Capitol Hill throughout the lengthy and arduous health care reform debate. Through interviews with key officials, senators and lobbyists, this program exposes how quiet negotiations and special interest groups drastically reshaped the landmark health care legislation.

~ Journalists ~

Robert Reich:
Big American companies are sitting on almost $2 trillion of cash because there aren't enough customers to buy additional goods and services. The only people with money are the richest 10 percent whose stock portfolios have been roaring back to life, but their spending isn't enough to spur much additional hiring.

Republicans, for their part, worry that if they tell it like it is Americans will want government to do more rather than less. They'd rather not talk about jobs and wages, and put the focus instead on deficit reduction (or spread the lie that by reducing the deficit we'll get more jobs and higher wages).

To the extent non-financial companies are doing well, they're making most of their money abroad. Since 1992, for example, G.E.'s offshore profits have risen $92 billion, from $15 billion (which is one reason it pays no U.S. taxes). In fact, the only group that's optimistic about the future are CEOs of big American companies.
[FYI: GE paid NO corporate income taxes last year.]

George Lakoff
Conservatives believe in individual responsibility alone, not social responsibility. They don't think government should help its citizens. That is, they don't think citizens should help each other. The part of government they want to cut is not the military (we have 174 bases around the world), not government subsidies to corporations, not the aspect of government that fits their worldview. They want to cut the part that helps people.

~ News ~

Regarding President Obama's chairman of his "Jobs council", GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt - former senator Russ Feingold says: "How can someone like Immelt be given the responsibility of heading a jobs creation task force when his company has been creating more jobs overseas while reducing its American workforce? And under Immelt's direction, GE spends hundreds of millions of dollars hiring lawyers and lobbyists to evade taxes." Read the full article here.

Update: There apparently is some misinformation regarding GE and it's tax liability. For a more detailed explanation, check out this article: Setting The Record Straight on GE’s Taxes, by Allan Sloan, Fortune, and Jeff Gerth, Pro-Publica.

Misconstruing the American Dream

2011-04-04T02:45:00.000-07:00

My jaw dropped; I couldn't believe the words I was hearing – Pop culture and self-proclaimed financial guru, Suze Orman, advising people that it no longer makes good financial sense to own your own home! It's Okay to be a renter for the rest of your life, she now says.

Now to be blunt, I’ve never put any stock into Suze Orman or any of the pop media “financial advisers” blather. Others often tout the importance of having savings, even when holding high credit card or other debt. You do the math: which has the highest financial return, aggressively paying down outstanding credit balances on your 14% interest credit card, for example, or putting that cash into savings account which only may be earning a measly percent or two?

Orman did admit that her opinion of home ownership has taken a 180 degree reversal. But this idea that our home as an "investment" in the traditional sense of the term, is only a fairly recent phenomenon. I recall the “American Dream” being instead the comfort and security that comes from home ownership in your retirement years – not viewing your residence as a big ATM machine. I would love to ask Orman just how much more retirement income should you plan to earn to pay for ever-increasing rent?

The reason most people (including me) chose to purchase our homes was, at some point in our lives, hopefully about the time one expects to retire, the mortgage is paid off and your remaining cost of housing drops down to a more affordable property tax and insurance. In our case, we were only able to retire because we no longer have housing costs (mortgage). There is no way we could afford to retire if we had to pay rent to some landlord. Did Orman forget that housing costs are the most significant portion of one's living expenses?

I’ve been listening to these so called media financial adviser shows for decades. Interestingly, in all that time, I have NEVER heard any of these advisors recommend for people to invest in real estate. Though its taken us decades, my wife and I did just that; pulled some equity from our home to invest in rental properties. Over time we were eventually able to shift our home mortgage over to the rentals which meant that our renters essentially purchased our properties and paid our mortgage for us. You will never hear such advice from financial "gurus" like Orman.

There is another advantage to owning your own home, particularly as one enters retirement age. Some of our friends have actually turned their homes into monthly income by taking out “reverse mortgages” on their paid off homes. In a reverse mortgage, one actually sells the equity in their home to a financial institution and so receive a monthly income. The owner is allowed to live in the house indefinitely. You can't do that if you rent all your life.

The prospect of being a permanent renter may have some short term benefits for a few. But I still see home ownership as an American Dream to the extent that, once owned outright, one can retire comfortably on a reduced income. The prospect of paying ever-increasing rent as a retiree appears downright frightening.

Because I'm a Skeptic I take the advice of “experts” with a generous dose of doubt. I like to ask the question, “who stands to benefit”? In most cases that turns out to be the person giving the advice. Besides, whether renter or owner, you still have to live somewhere.

Dreams of Brazil

2011-03-31T03:34:00.000-07:00

It was one of the few times I was actually asleep in the hospital, pain-killer induced to be sure. I awoke to the dancing of a flashlight beam bouncing randomly around the walls of the room; it was around 4:00 AM. Suddenly a hooded head peered from behind one of the divider curtains, a pair of thick glasses with little lights mounted on either sided.

“Are you Robert” the voice asked. Upon affirmation, the black jump suited character flung back the curtain and stepped close to me. The pain meds occasionally had me on the verge of hallucinating; what immediately came to mind was that I was being visited by Harry Tuttle, rogue heating engineer, a character from the Terry Gilliam movie, Brazil.

In actuality he was the nighttime lab tech who had come to collect some blood samples from me. Yet for a few minutes there I felt like I was living out an odd parallel with the scene in the film.

The following day, while doing my mandatory exercise walk in the hallway, dragging my IV stanchion along with me, I happened to notice the list of departments and their corresponding floors listed on the plaque next to the elevators. Sure enough, there it was: “Central Services”.

Here's the actual scene:

Hospitals are Not Recommended for Sick People

2011-03-27T03:04:00.000-07:00

I had originally intended to share some of the (relatively few) humorous anecdotes that occurred during my 23 days of hospitalization. However now that I am home, I am finding that recalling details of my recent ordeal have been actually causing me a fair amount of anxiety.

Though we offhandedly think of the hospital as a place for cure and healing, the required practices one encounters there seem to contradict that very goal. Though I was fortunate to be attended by lot of very caring and professional staff, at other times I was forced to challenge people who appeared to be conducting procedures by rote and, seemingly, without any thought as to what they were doing. Take for example the nursing aid that, at 4:00 AM, I fortunately stopped from wrapping a blood pressure cuff around the arm in which my IV infusion was flowing.

There also appeared to be some undercurrent of professional controversy between a few of the many physicians on my case as to what treatments I should receive. One day I found myself being wheeled back into ICU to have my heart “restarted” when a different cardiologist intervened, suggesting the procedure was unnecessary. At another point I had been convinced by one cardiologist that I needed a pacemaker. Hell, if getting a pacemaker would get me home safe-and-sound, I was all for it. But that decision was overturned by a second cardiologist. Though I had little influence on the outcomes, I’m happy to say I did not come home with a pacemaker planted in my chest.

I was trying my best to remain informed and involved in my treatment. But I am not a doctor, I depend on getting the (consistently) best advice I possibly can. When the professional advice was contradictory, it caused me a lot of emotional stress. I wondered that if one were a cardiologist who specializes in pacemakers, wouldn’t you naturally be a biased advocate for their use? Like the saying goes – When you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Any form of sleep is nearly impossible in a hospital, particularly if one does not have a private room. My nights were continually interrupted. There seemed no end of tasks, no reason too trivial, to motivate the staff to enter the room and disturb the patient. One night the door opened, the lights came on; an aid simply taped a piece of paper to the wall across from my bed. I often couldn’t see any purpose for the interruptions.

A number of different (noisy) roommates cycled through sharing my room; at least four of them had the television blaring Fox News 24/7. Often they slept through the din of noise pollution. One day I hadn’t noticed until Nancy came to visit that my roommate had long since been wheeled out of the room for some procedure – the TV blaring Fox with no one there to watch. I spent most nights wearing earplugs and a face mask to shade my eyes.

Naturally I did everything within my means to demonstrate to the physicians and staff that I could be released at the earliest; I walked, I assiduously performed my breathing exercises. It paid off – on the evening of March 20th, a Sunday, the wires and tubes were disconnected from my body and I was packed off for home. I was in pain, but I must confess… to sleep in my own bed next to my living wife was as close heaven as anything I can imagine.

The Temptation of the Skeptic

2011-03-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

“…the devil took Him to a very high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory. And he said to Him, "All these things will I give you if you fall down and worship me." - Matthew 4:8-9

Unlike as was my case, most other folks awaiting heart valve replacement surgery have gotten off pretty easy. Barbara Walters and Robin Williams, for example: a noticeable shortness of breath or perhaps or a bit of dizziness or fatigue. In otherwise good health, these people had the luxury of popping in and having their surgery and were out of the hospital in less than a week.

I had to do it the hard way. Unlike their experience, the conditions leading up to the emergency replacement of my heart valve were dire indeed. I had a massive infection, the full extent of which I didn’t fully appreciate until after the operation was over. At the time, I only knew I was in the hospital feeling like death warmed-over. Quite frankly, I was more than prepared to accept the “ultimate relief” that such an outcome might have brought..

While hospitalized, I had precious few visitors; mostly family and a few very close friends. One visitor was a woman who believed in “other unseen forces”. She chatted with me briefly before explaining about an amulet she was wearing – a Hebrew “Chai” symbol which she believed had helped six other of her friends, and herself, survive life-threatening situations. Though she was fully aware of my lack of belief in things paranormal, she hesitantly offered to have me wear the “magic amulet” prior to my going into surgery.

If one thinks about it, likely many of the personal convictions and values we may hold are, in reality, merely “academic”, particularly when viewed within the context of our normal, healthy, everyday existence. I chuckle when I recall back as a teenager in high school I felt strongly that our country should be fighting in Vietnam, keeping the Communist menace at bay. Not surprisingly I held those strong convictions until, whereupon my 18th birthday, I was required to register for the Selective Service (Draft). Harsh reality can sometimes force us to reexamine our beliefs.

So now my visitor had placed before me a dilemma, a challenge to one of my deepest of convictions – what should I do? I could just say “what the hell” and accept the “magic amulet”. I could easily rationalize my choice by simply claiming that it certainly couldn’t do any harm.

I thanked her but politely declined the offer reaffirming both to her, and to myself, that I would not accept, not even under life-threatening conditions, that there are supernatural powers which hold dominion over our lives. She left taking the amulet with her.

I accept that I survived because I just happen to be fortunate to live in a time and place where open-heart surgery is now a routine occurrence, when new technologies and pharmaceuticals are continually evolving, and because I tried to maintain my physical fitness in preparedness knowing I would need this surgery some day. Rather than rely on faith of magic, I placed my TRUST in the people who deal with these issues every day. It was, and is, the right choice for me.

~~~

I am only recently able to spend a bit more time in front of the computer. I've missed visiting my followers and leaving comments. I anticipate that will change in the near future. Thanks to all of you for your supportive comments. ~ RTS

Home!

2011-03-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

After 23 days I was released to come home from the hospital late last night. When I was a little boy my mother would read to me while I was sick in bed. This particular poem was my favorite.

Expect a bit more from me in a couple of days after I reacquaint myself with my home and my ravaged body. - RTS

The Land of Counterpane
by Robert Louis Stevenson

When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay,
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.

The Post Wherein One Finds our Protagonist Mildly Scathed and in Recovery

2011-03-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

And so I'm back. Dad had his surgery yesterday. All day. I tell you, if I didn't have such a high-stress busy job, I'd have been sitting on the couch throwing darts at a blank wall. I'm not gonna lie, it didn't go super smoothly - however he is out and in the ICU and they're removing a few more tubes from him every day. Well, it's only been one day, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that more will be removed tomorrow. A full recovery is expected. Which is exactly what I expected. So, I'm glad that worked out. Expectation alignment.

Hopefully he'll feel like blogging again soon. I can't believe he squeezed one more in before the operation! That's dedication! I don't have that kind dedication to anything. Not to my house plants. Or my cat. Maybe some of my shoes. The red Jeffery Campbell pumps. Priorities.

Anyway - back to Dad. As a retired public employee, I'm sure he'll have some thoughts on the recent TOTALLY HANDLEBAR MUSTACHE-ESQUELY SINISTER UNDERHANDEDLY SNEAKY passage of the bill in the Wisconsin senate to take away collective bargaining. And other stuff. So look forward to that.

In these days following the human and natural tragedy that is the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/nuclear explosion trifecta, I'm just so damn thankful to still have my dad. And to live somewhere where the waves didn't surpass the 3ft mark. Though there are totally sharks here.

~Kara

The Skeptic's Leap of Faith

2011-03-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

I’ve been reading your kind comments from the imposed seclusion my hospital bed using Nancy’s laptop computer. I first want to acknowledge how deeply moved I am at the heartfelt wishes you have so generously expressed to me; a mere fellow blogger whose face you have never seen nor voice have ever heard. I am consumed by your expressions of love and caring. For those of you who have offered me your prayers, though you know I am a non-believer; I most graciously accept your prayers as the expressions of love and compassion which I accept are offered in the spirit most meaningful to you. I thank you.

IF all goes to plan, tomorrow I will enter surgery whereby a severely damaged aortic valve will be replaced. The defective valve actually functioned longer than had been anticipated, which actually resulted in it causing more damage. Think of a bad part in your car that is still working but causing other damage as it bangs away. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, but…

After tomorrow, providing I survive, I will be in intensive care for some time. I’ll ask Kara to report my post-operative condition, or whatever outcome.

I’ve accumulated a bunch of funny “hospital stories” at this point so it would be a shame were my consciousness not to hold on long enough for me to share them in future blogs here.

Tomorrow I switch one ordeal for another, the probabilities are more in my favor than not.

Thanks to all of you who have remained in contact and shared your compassion,
~ Robert The Skeptic

I will be unable to respond to your comments for a while.

If by "Guest" you mean "Password Hustler"...then yes

2011-03-08T21:55:00.000-08:00

Since my father has selfishly decided to stay ill and is currently awaiting surgery of the heart valve replacement variety in the hospital - a place of inexplicable and odd smells - I've been left to pick up his blogging slack. So I think it a fitting homage to his Thought Sanctuary(TM) to write about myself.

Anyway, that's what he gets for giving me his password.

My dad and I live about two hours apart. My parents have been divorced since I was a toddler and the Mickey Mouse pancake weekends were all I knew of him for years. Then, as we (my sister and I) got older, the weekends began to fill themselves less with animal-shaped breakfasts foods and more magic tricks, LEGO Alpine Swiss villages, UFO launches, historically inaccurate bedtime stories, lava tubing, inappropriate-for-my-age films, banjo sing-alongs, shot/handgun marksmanship lessons, underage bartending, folk music concerts, power tools and the occasional peace march.

With the exception of the last item, it's been pretty damn awesome to have him be a part of my life for the last 31 (ugh) years. Like...milk-out-of-your-nose-from-laughing awesome. To the point where Nancy had to make a rule that he can't talk if someone's drinking. Because it hurts. There are some canals where milk does not belong.

The point is, I absolutely refuse to even acknowledge the idea that this surgery will be anything but a wild success and neither should you. The first 31 years were grand, but sometime in the next 31 - I'm hoping to get his teriyaki burger recipe.

So raise a glass, when you next imbibe, and wish Dad the best luck science can determine the outcome of. Especially since he's not getting another cosmo for at least two months.

~Kara

Where's Robert the Skeptic?

2011-03-01T10:48:00.000-08:00

Robert's previous blog posted at a pre-set time on Friday night. At that actual time he had taken suddenly ill, so has been unable to immediately respond to any of the comments, as is his usual modus operandi. He is currently receiving expert medical care at our nearby hospital and hopes to return home and to his keyboard within the next couple of days or so. His two out-of-town daughters and their families visited us yesterday, which cheered him immensely. So stay tuned...Robert the Skeptic is anxious to get connected again and read your blogs and your replies to his blog. This post is respectively submitted by Robert's spousal unit, Nancy, who is not a blogger (however I do read some of your blogs from time to time).

Shut It Down

2011-02-25T01:47:00.000-08:00

My wife absolutely hates this joke, but I'm going to tell it anyway:

A guy is trying unsuccessfully to get a stubborn mule to move. He tries coaxing it with a carrot, he tries kicking it, he even lights a fire under it, but the stubborn mule doesn’t budge.

However the man’s friend comes by convincing the mule her can get the mule to move. “Okay, go head and try” the mule owner says. The friend picks up a 2 x 4 and smacks the mule in the head right between the eyes, stunning the mule.

“You didn’t get him to move", the mule owner decries. But his friend says, “Maybe not... but I got his attention.”

House speaker John Boehner often touts what he believes is the will of “The American People”. In Conservative minds this translates into the ideology of less government, specifically less government spending. So after the tax status for the richest 2% of the wealthiest Americans was secured, we set about the business of cutting back on those expensive “entitlement” programs… you know, the ones that represent about 14% of our national budget. (The hugely expensive wars in the Middle-east oddly appear nowhere in the equatinon.)

Now many of us laughed at the dolt in the town hall meeting back during the 2008 campaign who yelled he wanted the Government to keep your Government hands off his Medicare. Most just thought he was just an eccentric nut - but it turns out that there are huge percentages of Americans who have NO CLUE that they benefit DIRECTLY from their government!

Recently discovered: 44% of Social Security recipients don't think they are receiving any "Government" help. Likewise, 39% of Medicare recipients, 43% of Unemployment benefit recipients, 42% of Veterans… the list goes on.¹

There is an old Chinese curse that goes something like “I hope you get what you wish for”. So I am personally rooting for Congress to pull off the government shut down! I want millions of Tea Baggers and less-government morons to NOT get their Social Security checks, disability payments, VA benefits...²

Maybe... just MAYBE, it will get their attention.

~~~

1. “Keep Your Government Hands Off My Government Programs!” - NY Times, Febuary 11, 2011

2. Sadly, in actuality, the government we love-to-hate will nevertheless refrain from smacking our most intellectually limited citizens in the face with a 2 x 4 and send out SS and other benefit checks anyway, thereby further cementing their mental disconnect. See, ya just can't depend on that gol-dang gov-n-ment to do anything right.

Going Postal

2011-02-21T14:08:00.000-08:00

We were discussing movies with a friend of ours when she mentioned off-hand that odd thing recently happened regarding her Netflix DVD rental account. She watches a lot of movies so lots of DVD’s flow regularly through her mailbox.

She noted, when reviewing her online queue status, that when Netflix sent a DVD to her from their distribution center, it usually arrived in a day. However, oddly, when she return-mailed the DVD back to Netflix, it often took a week or so to arrive.

This went on for some time until one day she happened to meet her postal carrier on the front porch as he was delivering her mail. Being the inquisitive person that she is, she asked the carrier what, in his opinion, might cause this odd delivery discrepancy: one day to receive a DVD but often a week for it to transit the return mail?

“Oh, it shouldn’t take that long.” he explained. “They are very distinctive red envelopes; they get sorted immediately and go into a big bin that is delivered directly to Netflix.” She and the carrier briefly exchanged a few pleasantries then he continued on his route.

However, following that conversation, when she checked her Netflix queue online, ALL her return DVDs now began arriving back at the Netflix distribution in one day!

Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone?

2011-02-17T10:33:00.000-08:00

So the stock market is booming, corporate profits are zooming but jobs are still looming and the outlook for the middle class is glooming. The reasons behind the stagnant unemployment outlook has not gone without thorough analysis by we bloggers who, for some reason, seem to have a lot of free time on our hands:

Don’t bother us, we’re busy...

The current theory is that the rich people should not be inconvenienced by the demands of comity because they're the ones who are providing jobs for the rest of us. Those jobs should be kicking in any time now, because we lowered the taxes on the rich people several years ago. There should be so many jobs by now that they're just loitering in gangs, making nuisances of them selves.

Murr Brewster - Murrconomics

... hedging our bets ...

Where are the jobs? Honestly, boards and business owners are holding back because they feel that the current administration chooses winners and losers in the marketplace. Without fully understanding their future costs, or if they will draw the ire of Obama, they find it safer to sit on their cash.

Comments from the Heathen Republican who provided the link: Why Business Isn't Getting In the Game.

... and besides, there's no jobs because there's no customers...

Big American companies are sitting on almost $2 trillion of cash because there aren't enough customers to buy additional goods and services. The only people with money are the richest 10 percent whose stock portfolios have been roaring back to life, but their spending isn't enough to spur much additional hiring.

Robert Reich: The Obama Budget: And Why the Coming Debate Over Spending Cuts Has Nothing to Do With Reviving the Economy

…and, come to think of it, we don’t need any workers anymore either.

…our most admired corporations -- GE, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Intel -- are creating ever more jobs overseas and relatively fewer at home. This has the double benefit of taking advantage of cheap labor abroad and disciplining workers to accept low wages at home. Along with the high unemployment rates have come declining earnings… In 2001, 32 percent of the income of the firms on Standard & Poor's index of the 500 largest publicly traded U.S. companies came from abroad. By 2008, that figure had grown to 48 percent.

Robert Kuttner - Business Doesn't Need American Workers

So even though corporate profits are soaring, that does not translate into jobs for Americans because corporations don’t need Americans any more to either buy their products or even make them any longer and anyway middle and lower class Americans are really nothing more than poker chips for the wealthy to play with.

My own diverging theory is that the Republicans will do anything to prevent the jobs numbers from going up anytime during the Obama administration least he end up getting credit in the public eye for improving the economy prior to the 2012 elections.

Ok, so sometimes I am a cynic when I should be a skeptic. I’m calling your bluff.

~~~

I highly recommend following these blogs:

Murmers – a very well-written humorous blog with topics ranging from the latest poop on the economy to the latest poop on, well, poop.

The Heathen Republican – in a more serious vein; a thoughtful, rational and well-documented perspective of the Republican policy stance.

Robert Reich's Blog - A totally brilliant man, Berkeley professor and Clinton's former Secretary of Labor.

Or if you still perfer the low-brow approach, you certainly can continue to read this blog.

Medical Insurance Legislation - A Job-Killer?

2011-02-13T10:13:00.001-08:00

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney spoke to his (anything but) like-minded Republican stalwarts and assorted Tea Party rabble at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting in Washington this week. The consistent theme appeared to be get rid of President Obama who, as Romney claimed “… wants to look toward Europe” for solutions to the country’s ills – primarily medical insurance reform. [Room fills with laughter].

I’m thinking, Yeah – A European plan sounds OK to me! Let’s look at some simple statistics (Conservatives prefer things “simple”): The number of Europeans who suffer from lack of access to affordable medical care – Europe: 0, USA: 57,000,000. The number of Europeans forced to declare bankruptcy due to excessive medical bills – Europe: 0, USA, well medical bills are the second leading cause of bankruptcy in the country.

Fortunately the numbers of bankruptcies are down though, but not for reasons you might think. Yielding to lobbying efforts of the credit card industry, the Bush Administration and Republican congress changed the laws making it much more difficult for individuals (not companies, of course) to declare bankruptcy.

Recently House Speaker, John Boehner, rallied his minions to attempt to repeal the “Job Killing” medical reforms passed last year under the disgusting term, Obamacare. I am puzzled about what exactly in this bill, which expands medical access to millions of Americans, makes it a “job killer”? I can cite personal examples were I find instead, the LACK of affordable medical coverage is the real Job Killer.

Take, for example, my very bright son-in-law; an electrical engineer with several invention patents to his name, was mulling the possibly jumping from his current employer (in perpetual downsizing mode for most of the last decade), to a new technology start-up. This small tech start-up company is an example of one of these breed of “American Innovators” that this nation so prides itself on. In a country were we have been hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs, the bright hope for our future has always been our near mythical reputation as the innovator of the Next Big Thing. So here is a young bright mind poised to step in and be part of America’s big innovator comeback dream.

Well, no. You see this jewel of American daring-do apparently does not offer any employee medical benefits – none, zero, zilch! This bright young engineer is also smart enough to know not to risk the his health and that of his his wife and children by abandoning an employer who currently offers medical benefits.

Now let this point sink in – the LACK of available health care was the Job Killer here, and I can assume, in countless other cases. Innovation is stifled by the inability of this country to provide support for American innovation because we value the profit motive of for-profit medical insurance companies instead – our “innovative spirit” is stuck in the muck of the status-quo.

But the “job killing” examples from our lack of available medical insurance doesn’t stop there. In a country where highly qualified and motivated citizens are clamoring for work; millions of others who would like to retire, instead continue to work, thereby locking up those jobs which could be taken by younger and unemployed workers. These older workers hold onto their jobs because they would lose their paid or subsidized employee medical care if they retired. I can name several personal friends who are holding onto their jobs in State service because they cannot afford to pick up the $1,200 cost of their medical premium on a reduced pension income.

The “job killing” effects from the lack of a national health care system don’t even end there. Conservatives are always touting how Small Business is the backbone of the American economy. My daughter runs a small retail and internet business. But she cannot afford to provide medical insurance to her three employees; one of whom just quit to take a job that does offer employee medical her family needs.

The economic downturn has driven a lot of small businesses out of existence. Here in my own town, each month I see yet another empty building where a business has closed. Restaurants and stores that have been in this town for decades are now gone.

My wife and I no longer go out to dinner or shop to the extent we used to – we can no longer afford it. With paying a medical insurance premium of $1,200 a month, $14,400 a year, most of my disposable income is paid to an out-of-town medical insurance company. Multiply that figure by the thousands of other people in town in my situation and you can imagine the amount of lost consumer dollars that could instead support the local economy.

True, European style medical systems are not free, and their citizens are taxed to pay for these and other benefits. But I have a very strong suspicion that Europeans don’t pay $1,200 a month in taxes for their state medical care alone.

Our lack of a coherent, universal and cost-effective public medical system is what is stifling or innovative spirit and economic revival - THIS is the true Job Killer. Not Obamacare.

~~~

My personal retiree factoid:
Just to give an example of how medical premium increases have outstripped income, in 2006 our group medical plan premium was $894 – in six years it has risen just under 30% to where now in 2011 our premium is $1,160. In that same time our retirement income has increased only 6.6%. The growth in cost of our insurance has outstripped our income by 4.5 times. After deducting the insurance premium, my wife's remaining net retirement check is less than $600.

Actually our premium this year would have been $100 higher had we not opted for the lower cost plan version. Unfortunately under the new plan, we have to change doctors; the physicians we’ve used for those past decades are not on this plan. ~~Government~~ private insurance company bureaucrats have now come between us and our physicians.

In six years of group insurance coverage we have been forced to accept four different medical insurance carriers. We had no practical choice in selecting other insurance plans.

Our medical insurance premium is now higher than was the mortgage payment on our house.

~~~

Further Reading: Experts doubt claims that health care law is a 'job killer', Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 13, 2011.

I'm Washing My Hands of Technology

2011-02-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

We went out to dinner with our friends Kate and Will a while back as we often do. Having finished our meal at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Will and I went to the men’s room to wash up. After using the lav, Will was waving his hands back and forth in front of the paper towel dispenser; “I can’t get this thing to work”, he exclaimed in frustration! Finding humor in his dilemma, I reached in front of him and pushed the lever a couple of times, ejecting a couple of sheets of paper towel.

I must confess, though, I have had my own frustrating bouts with bathroom technology. One time having deplaned from a long flight, I needed to use the airport restroom badly. Upon completing my needed relief, I thrust my hands under the motion-detector faucet and… nothing, no water. However, the instant I removed my hands, the water flowed freely. So I quickly again tried plunging my hands under the stream of water to wash, only to have the flow immediately stop. Again I thrust my dry hands under the faucet waving back and forth to activate the flow – again, nothing, no water… until I again took my hands away wherein the water flowed tauntingly.

After several ties with the same result (the definition of insanity, by the way), I sidestepped to the next lav figuring the first one was defective. Nope, same thing; each time I put my hands under the faucet, nothing came out… each time I withdrew them the water freely flowed.

So now I am suspecting that I am the brunt of some elaborate practical joke. There must be a hidden camera somewhere in the bathroom – that mirror, it looks suspiciously like one-way glass? I press my face to the mirror and squint. Deciding to improvise, I exited, rinsing my hands in the drinking fountain outside the restroom in the airport concourse.

I guess the strategic idea behind motion-activated plumbing fixtures is that they aid sanitation in that one does not need to touch anything to activate them, thereby not passing on harmful pathogens. But it seems to me that the more technology involved in a system, the more likely it is to break down. I’ve had no problem all these years retrieving a paper towel by pushing the lever with my elbow – then turning off the lav faucet, paper towel in hand.

As far as motion-detector flush toilets; I won’t even get started on that issue.

Thank God for Luck

2011-02-05T01:55:00.000-08:00

I have been reading Stephen Hawkings latest book. “The Grand Design”. The take-away theme from the book: the latest understandings science has accumulated in the recent decade point strongly to the case that god is not necessary to have created the universe.

Last year I had attended a debate between theologian Dr. William Lane Craig (philosopher) and Dr. Victor Stenger (physicist) where the existence of God was debated. One of several “proofs” Craig offered for the existence of a god (from a philosophical standpoint) was the argument that even within the overwhelming life-hostile conditions, our universe is so “finely tuned” that it could not possibly be due to “luck” that we exist. Therefore our existence in this universe is thus proof of a creator god.

This position, that the vast number of variables of constants, physical properties and conditions are so statistically overwhelming against the existence of life in our universe, is called the Anthropic Principle. The recent physics should indeed bear this out – as Hawkings and others have suggested – if the number of dimensions in our universe varied only slightly, as they likely do in other universes [Multiverses ¹], atoms could not combine to form molecules, stars could not form, matter would not coalesce into planets and life could not evolve. How is it we ended up so incredibly lucky?

I got to thinking about this recently one evening as I tried to sleep. I suffer from horrible insomnia and pondering the origins of the universe or mentally balancing my checkbook do not serve me well in my pursuit of sleep. Nevertheless I got to thinking about a post I had written last month about the odds of winning the lottery.

The odds of holding the winning lottery ticket are 1 in 5,000,000,000. Actually those odds are substantially better than the postulated number of Multiverses which is calculated to be 10⁵⁰⁰. (I don’t have enough space here to post all the required “zeros”). But, the fact remains that occasionally people DO actually win the lottery and become multi-millionaires.

Now if you happen to be one of those lucky lottery millionaire winners, you have two distinct options from which to conclude regarding your goof fortune: you were either simply the recipient of luck or god smiled down upon you and intentionally chose to make you a millionaire. It’s one or the other; it can’t be both.

Then in this larger sense, all of us are “cosmic millionaires” – we can either conclude that we are the lucky recipient holders of the winning Universe Lottery Ticket, -OR- that we were intentionally placed here by a benevolent god.

I have seen interviews of lottery winners who seem more than eager to profess their fortune to a benevolent deity. But is there another explanation; does one need a god to win the lottery, or does one simply need to happen to be holding the winning ticket?

~~~

1. The concept of multiverses -- an ensemble of universes -- the outcome of the originating process that generated our own universe, and as an explanation for why our universe appears to be fine-tuned for life and consciousness.

The Power of the Testimonial

2011-02-01T00:51:00.000-08:00

A while back a story was related to me about a someone a friend of ours knew who was in the market for a new car. It seems her old Ford van had been giving her nothing but trouble; always in the shop for expensive repairs. This woman perused Consumer Reports discovering that the Toyota van received high ratings for safety, fuel economy and dependability. But before making her decision, she asked a friend who, unexpectedly, strongly discouraged her, saying: “Oh my, I’ve heard the Toyota’s are nothing but trouble; I know someone who owns one and they hate it”.

So, even after all the trouble she had experienced with her Ford, purchased another Ford van instead of the Toyota.

This is the power of the testimonial and it influences our decision making both above and below the conscious level. We see it in every aspect of our lives, from deciding whether to purchase a lottery ticket to selecting a life partner. Though often mountains of objective data may be available to us, we quite often come to our decisions by emotional reasons – and often, based heavily on the power of testimonials.

We like to think of ourselves as informed, astute consumers; that our choices are rational and well thought out. But even after balancing pros and cons, the fact remains that we generally adhere closely to products or concepts that are familiar to us. For example, marketing research substantiates that customers overwhelmingly prefer Tylenol brand pain reliever over its exact chemical equivalent, generic Acetaminophen. Even in accepting the fact that the generic costs significantly less, the Tylenol brand is more often perceived as “better”.

As I pointed out in my review of Barry Schwartz's book, “The Paradox of Choice”, decision making can create stress for us. We struggle on various levels with the possibility of making an incorrect decision. Psychologists even have a term for how we deal with the conflicts of decision making: Cognitive Dissonance. Even after we have decided, a whole set of psychological processes come into play which we use to justify in our minds that the decision we have come to was the right one. Our motivation to quell the dissonance wherever possible can be very strong.

Because testimonials are so powerful in our decision making process, we frequently seek out the opinions of people we like and trust. An entire industry, advertising and sales, has been developed to prod our decision making and making us feel good about parting with our hard earned money. More often than not, emotions, not rationality, are what carry the decision.

The power of testimonials often comes to the forefront during our elections process. We tend to associate with people who act and think similarly to us. In recalling the most recent elections, how little political advertising contained any comparative statistics to support the assertions of one view over another. Where scant statistical comparisons provided, did we discount the “facts” from the candidate or position we opposed yet accept them from the candidate we already supported? It is more likely the case that political advertising serves to support the decision we had already made than change our view dramatically.

I recently attended another debate between a theologian and an Atheist; the topic of question; whether or not there exist life after death. From the theologian’s standpoint, the accounts of people who have experienced visions and feelings from Near Death Experiences (NDE) formed the basis of his position that there must be life after death. Many of these testimonials are quite compelling when viewed individually. But they remain personal anecdotes, experiences beyond our own and which likely have other origins that can be explained through medical and scientific causes. In decisions such as these, often the only basis on which we are able to decided relies entirely on faith alone.

The fact remains that our brains often are not very adept at separating objective analytical data from our perceptions, our expectations from the broader ramifications we hope will come from those decisions – specifically, how we will “feel” about the choices we make. Whether we notice or not, we rely on testimonials which are abundantly available to us.

After all, can 20,697 physicians be wrong?

No Man is an Island - Except at Starbucks

2011-01-28T00:17:00.000-08:00

Nancy and I are board members for a couple of home owners associations (HOA) for properties we own in town. Recently we have found it convenient to have our board meetings at the local Starbucks coffee shops. I don’t drink “gourmet” coffee, finding my morning cup of generic ole Yuban more than sufficient to get me on my way. So other than our periodic HOA meetings, I never visit Starbucks.

So maybe I am alien to this coffeehouse culture, but don’t people frequent coffee shops to socialize? I can’t tell you how many Rick Steves travel adventure shows I’ve watched on public television, but it seems he is always promoting planting your tourist ass in a coffee shop to people watch and meet the locals.

So why is it that each time I have visited Starbucks, everyone there is sitting alone at a table for four with their face buried in a notebook computer or i-phone? There’s no socializing, no conversations to eavesdrop on, only the incessant tapping of keyboards or thumbs dancing on a miniscule screen.

Why are these people there in Starbucks, NOT interacting with anyone present? I find it difficult to believe that none of these people have internet connections at home and have schlepped down to the coffee house merely for the free Wi-Fi. Do they somehow feel the need for the proximity other human presence but suffer from Terminal Geekiness which renders them too introverted to speak directly to another human face?

Seriously, the ONLY time I have witnessed more that one person sitting at a table in Starbucks has been us during our HOA meetings.

In researching this article I ran across Field guide to Wifi users at Starbucks. I swear that, in my few brief visits, I have seen at least half of these characters represented in the article. I think the next time I go to Starbucks, I may order an Italian soda with cream and sit down opposite one of these lonely folks and stare at them over their screen to see how long it takes for them to notice, or god forbid, say something.
[slurp]

The Vanishing Hope of Jobs

2011-01-24T10:18:00.000-08:00

I had lunch with a new acquaintance made recently through the blogging spheres. Like a few of my other friends, he is a former employee of Hewlett Packard in our city. At one time HP employed close to 10,000 people on it’s industrial campus in town; today there are roughly less than 2,000 people remaining.

The photo above is the empty Nypro manufacturing facility, a company that provided services to HP. Nypro shifted the remainder of it’s manufacturing overseas laying off all it’s workers and closed the plant. The empty Nypro building is located along an increasingly desolate row of empty buildings on “Technology Loop” not far from my home where I ride my bike.

The HP campus on the other side of the city is turning into a ghost town as well; many of the buildings are empty and shuttered, a few are leased by other companies as warehouse space.

I heard on the news recently that even companies considered particularly American, such as Cisco, IBM and Sun essentially have little to no domestic manufacturing facilities. Though the “design” may be done here, the manufacture of the actual products is contracted out to companies outside our borders.

Leo Hindery, a former CEO who heads the US Economy/Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation, is one of the foremost advocates of a U.S. industrial policy.

"I think you have to start with the premise that a country as big as ours -- the largest of the developed economies -- can't survive with less than 8 percent of its men and women making something,"

According to the latest figures, about 7.6 percent of the workforce is currently engaged in manufacturing.

"It needs to be 20 to 25 percent," Hindery said, "and it needs to be 20 to 25 percent of GDP, otherwise the gap that you have to fill is achieved only through consumer credit." ¹

The country is scratching its collective head puzzling over our “jobless economy”. We have an expectation that things will turn around and be the way they once were; that unemployment will somehow return to 1980’s level. And we demand quick fixes - the Republican machine rode a populist wave into the House of Representatives on the implied promise that Jobs would mystically arise from thin air merely by putting the Conservatives back into power.

But I don’t think the Republicans give a damn whether or now the Great Unwashed have jobs. They care only to be in control of the factors which will direct corporate profits; and profits are no longer dependent on the domestic market any more, their sights are overseas. Indeed, the top few percent whose wealth is based on equities have seen unprecedented growth recently. But where are the jobs for the middle class? The answer is that the wealthy no longer need us as either employees or consumers.

I believe we are waiting for a recovery that is never going to come. Some of the vacant buildings on Technology Loop have now been rented by local governments needing office space. But now Americans graduating from university have almost a better chance of finding jobs outside the country than here at home. “Shanghai and Beijing are becoming new lands of opportunity for recent American college graduates who face unemployment nearing double digits at home.” ²

I have been accused of being depressed about the future of our country; that I lack the optimism that many others do. But optimism must to be based on something more tangible than faith and hope; and in romantic notions that our past reputation as a world leader in innovation will carry us into the future. That was then, this is Now.

Suggested further reading:
"The Real Economic Lesson China Could Teach Us", Robert Reich, January 19, 2011.

References:
1. “Hu's Visit Is Reminder Of One Way China Leaves The U.S. In The Dust”, Dan Froomkin, Huffington Post, January 20, 2011
2. "American Graduates Finding Jobs in China", NY Times, August 10, 2009

The Writer's Workshop

2011-01-19T23:06:00.000-08:00

I've been enjoying a bit of departure from my usual blogging experience. For those of you who have left comments on my previous entry, "It was a Dark and Stormy Night", I have eschewed my usual brief retorts to your comments, composing little vignettes from my imagination in the spirit of Bulwer-Lytton, in response instead.

So if you haven't already done so, I invite you to revisit the comment section and check out my replies to yours, and other's, comments. I've had great fun trying to come up with a little story line unique for each of you.

Alas, unfortunately I fear my creative juices are quickly being squeezed to a pulp and shall soon wither and run dry. Faithful reader, KleinstMotte, seems to be pressing me to turn this into a collaborative novel. I fear she will get the best of me in the end.

In a day or two I move on to greener blogging pastures. Besides, I've gotten behind in keeping up with all your blogs and need to catch up as well.

It Was A Dark and Stomy Night...

2011-01-15T00:34:00.000-08:00

I have a blog but I certainly don’t consider myself a “writer” in any remotely classical or professional sense. Many of the people who read my blog and comment are very good writers, in my opinion – some of them professional, many accomplished or aspiring. I’m flattered that some of these folks deem my blog worthy of reading.

As I say, a majority of those blogs I do follow I consider to be very well written; though clearly I am no expert on the craft of writing. As with art, all I know is what I like.

Some might argue that Charles Dickens remains to this day, one of the best writers of all time. Those same people might also argue that Edward Bulwer-Lytton is an example of one of the worst writers ever. To the extent that Bulwer-Lytton has been established as the standard of a poorly skilled writer, a reputation promoted in the past comic strip character, Snoopy, an actual contest has been set up in his name where people compete to submit examples of intentionally poor writing.

Recently the publishers of Skeptic Magazine were approached about publishing a scientific paper; A Scientific Evaluation of Charles Dickens. The underlying hypothesis being: is it possible for people to tell the difference between a good writer and a bad writer by reading excerpts of their work?

Mikhail Simkin, Ph.D. in physics devised a test whereby he invited people to read passages from the writings of Dickens and Bulwer-Lytton then select which selections they thought could correctly be attributed to either author. In other words, could people discern good writing from bad merely by reading excerpts of an authors writing.

I won’t keep you in suspense; the answer tabulated to be a resounding NO – roughly 50% were able to correctly attribute the writing samples to their correct author. That is: the ability to determine good writing from bad was no greater than random chance.

The overriding controversy from this experiment actually turned out not to be about determining good writing, but about the limits of what science can objectively study. How can subjective determinations about what is good versus bad art, music and literature be delineated scientifically? Still to this day, there are those who hesitate to consider Psychology and Sociology as true sciences. Yet these two academic pursuits frequently employ data gathering and statistical analysis in constructing theories. Still many see a fine distinction between art and science; areas where they intersect and overlap.

Writing skill may be indeed quite subjective; or more to the point, like in the words of a federal judge who was asked to define what he considered pornography, he said: “I know it when I see it”.

You can take the actual Scientific Evaluation of Charles Dickens test yourself here.

I am enjoying indulging a whim and responding to your comments as would the esteemed Edward Bullwer-Lytton. Enjoy.

Loving to Hate

2011-01-11T00:47:00.000-08:00

The airwaves and bloggosphere are seething with the reverberations from attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords which killed six people and wounded fourteen others this weekend in Arizona. There is precious little I could possibly say in this forum which hasn’t already been said far more eloquently by a number of others.

The Conservatives are quick to turn this issue around onto the backs of those who have, for some time, been decrying the appalling decline in the stateliness that our political discourse has sunken to. Yes, it is quite likely that the perpetrator of this violence was acting from within a deranged mental state. Yet it is equally true that the litany of furious attacks from this individual’s sick mind also closely mirrors the incendiary bile spewed from the lips of Republican Party’s supporters.

I am having difficulty identifying just when it was that our country began finding it acceptable to embrace our lowest common denominator. A broad range of us seem disturbingly to be attracted to television programming where people objectify and abuse others. Whether it’s savoring the moment some ego-centric chef yells, humiliates and berates an lower employee on some reality program or Donald Trump leveling his finger at some celebrity apprentice, uttering the words, “You’re Fired!,” we seem as a people to have fallen into the abyss as did the ancient Romans; finding vicarious enjoyment in the pain of others. It seems a sickness from which this country has little interest of recovering.

My parents were loyal Republicans. When I came of voting age I became a registered Republican as well. In my younger years working as a young banking executive I voted for Ronald Reagan for president. Then something changed, in both me and the Republican Party. As some have said, they did not leave the Republican Party; the party left them.

I admired statesmen like Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield; an ethical and moderate conservative who opposed the Vietnam War. But today there would be no place for a statesman like Senator Hatfield in today’s Republican establishment. His moderate stance would likely find him labeled a “socialist”, a “communist” or even a “traitor” or “terrorist” some.

I think of the legacy my parents taught me; holding dignity, respect and integrity in high value. I cannot imagine that my mother and father, were they still alive today, would not be completely ashamed to be members of the Republican Party.

Perhaps that is what has been lost – a sense of shame; that hate is not a value on which any decent society can continue to exist. When did we lose our way?

What are the Odds?

2011-01-07T00:47:00.000-08:00

As is often the case, the news media fills their slow news days with the ever popular coverage of people lined up to purchase lottery tickets. Apparently the Republican “takeover” of the House is now old news and eyes are glazing over regarding the pending repeal of ObamaCare.

Oddly, when a lottery like the Mega-Millions has accumulated a huge jackpot, people mistakenly begin to believe that the odds are tipping in their favor… somewhat like the belief that a slot machine that hasn’t paid out is a while is just straining to burst from pent up... odds, I guess?

As a result, thinking their dream of untold riches is close at hand, they line up to purchase lottery tickets… or as I like to term it; to pay their “Stupidity Tax”. Sadly, the demographics reveal that those in society who have the least amount of disposable income tend to purchase lottery tickets. The subtle disclosure on the Oregon Lottery ads even states: “For entertainment only, not for investment purposes”.

The truth is that most people have no sense of actually how astronomical their chances of winning the mega-jackpot are. A brief comparative look at the odds of various potential events is in order:

Being killed in a car crash: .......... 1 in 5,000
Being killed by poisoning: ............ 1 in 86,000
Being killed by a dog: ................ 1 in 700,000
Dying while in the bath tub: .......... 1 in 1,000,000
Being killed by freezing: ............. 1 in 3,000,000
Being killed by lightening: ........... 1 in 2,000,000
Being killed in a tornado: ............ 1 in 2,000,000
Being killed by falling out of bed: ... 1 in 2,000,000
Being killed in a plane crash: ........ 1 in 25,000,000
Winning the Mega-Millions Lottery: .... 1 in 176,000,000
Being killed by space debris: ......... 1 in 5,000,000,000

Some would argue that the odds are zero if you don’t buy a lottery ticket at all. And they would be correct. But once you decide to part with that cash; really, how strong is your potential return on that “investment”?

Some critics of government lotteries state that it exploits those who can least afford it. Yet the Stupidity Tax is also a voluntary one. I personally am not a strong anti-tax adversary, but I do freely exercise my choice to not pay this particular tax.

Still occasionally there are winners. Two ticket purchasers recently won $380 million. Hopefully the winners won’t be killed in a car crash on their way to the bank. Frankly, the odds aren't very good.