The Breakup

This is what happened. My girlfriend broke up with me, so I closed two lanes on the Golden Gate Bridge. We stopped communicating. When she took Muir, our cat, I had four cables removed from the bridge, and then when no one noticed or cared, I ordered the demolition of the Tea House in Golden Gate Park. Each step of this process was definitely part of a study the bridge authority was conducting and not because I am emotional like a little girl, according to my legal team of really old men, paid for with public money.

Anchorbabies

Much like ogres and trolls, anchorbabies might be a problem if they existed. Of course anchorbabies are imaginary (made up by creative racists). If you are an undocumented worker in the United States and you have a baby, you can be deported (the baby can stay). In fact, it happens every day.

Incapacity

About a month ago Susan, my wife of 50 years, tore a calf muscle playing basketball with her granddaughter, followed by a much worse ankle sprain that incapacitated her. She can't drive a car or walk more than a few steps. She's under doctors' orders to remain seated with her leg elevated. I have to ice the leg four times a day, and she's wearing an elaborate boot that I have to strap back on her about six times a day. Susan can't cook--she's living on the TV dinners I thoughtfully provide. She can't even sit up for long without the ankle starting to hurt. She's bored. But for once I am doing things for her, rather than the other way around, and our relationship has improved markedly.

Why Demonstrate?

I'm old now, and I've spent my share of time demonstrating against needless wars and working in a pragmatic way to help elect office holders who support minority voting rights, women's rights, gay rights, etc. I worked on issues because I was hopeful. I understand that our system barely qualifies, in any sense, as a democracy. I know that social scientists have shown that our citizens have lost much of their chance for upward mobility (downward social climbing remains an option). But I have witnessed progress in certain areas, so I continue to do what I can. 

There are people in my peace group who regard the United States as the fount of all evil. I was talking with some of them last night, and this morning I woke up wondering why they take part in demonstrations. They believe that the country is irremediably corrupt from head to foot. Except for the 2% of the voters who agree with them, every political motive is evil and every President is Satanic. If I believed that, I'd spend my days reading philosophy, watching Masterpiece Theater on TV, drinking bourbon and smoking joints, enjoying my family and good friends. I'd let the world pass by. There would be no point in protesting or working for causes. I might take up one of the passive forms of Buddhism. Yes, that's the ticket.

The Man

 Paul de Man was a Belgian anti-Semite who worked for the Nazis in World War Two until they could no longer stand his sociopathic behavior. The Nazis fired him. Stan the Man Musial hit 475 home runs for the St. Louis Cardinals. He had 1815 hits in his home park and 1815 hits on the road. His lifetime batting average was .331. He was never ejected from a game.

Stan missed the 1945 season while serving in the American navy. Around the same time, Paul cheated his childhood nurse out of her life's savings. In 1951 he was convicted in absentia in a Belgian court of forgery, theft, etc., and sentenced to five years in prison. But he had left for New York in 1948, and soon he had forged himself a college degree and had become a very famous Harvard  professor. 

Stan won three MVP awards. Paul became a founding figure in literary theory, deconstruction and postmodernism. Barack Obama presented Stan with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Paul coauthored a collection of word-strings with J. Hillis Miller, Jacques Derrida, Geoffrey Hartman and Harold Bloom. 

Stan spent 22 years in major league baseball. He  played in 24 all-star games. Paul spent ten years married to two women. Stan made it into the hall of fame on his first ballot. He was selected for the all-century team in 1999.  His favorite player was Lefty Grove. Paul most admired Martin Heidegger, a philosopher, also a Nazi.

But was Paul de Man a Nazi?  Fascists have ghastly beliefs. As Louis Menand put it, Paul "believed in nothing."

The American Indians

It's hard for me to keep in mind what might be the two most important facts about the original human settlers in the Americas. (1) By the time Columbus arrived here, the great majority of Indians lived in cities, some larger than any city in Europe. Most Indians were urban. And (2) while the Indians developed many different cultures, most lived in large rigidly structured (Stalinist?) societies ruled by small elites.

I also have trouble remembering that we don't know how the Indians got here. The old land-bridge theory no longer seems convincing to scientists, and no new theory has been substantiated.

Crimea Is Greece

Tom Belton brought to my attention the writings of Dr. Spyros Konidaris, who establishes the fact that Greece has a claim on Crimea that predates Putin's claim by several thousand years. You probably remember that Iphigenia, the daughter of King Agamemnon, was about to be sacrificed when Artemis intervened and saved her life. Artemis transported Iphigenia to Crimea (then known as Tauris). At that point Iphigenia became Crimea's High Priestess. Soon after, her little brother, Orestes, came to Crimea to escape from the Furies, who still resented his murder of his slutty mother, Clytaemnestra. No doubt you remember the account of this royal family as reported by Euripedes. What you might not recall is that, much earlier, Hercules had come to Crimea to teach the natives how to plow their soil with a giant ox (taurus, in Greek). Crimea is Greece; Putin, go home. I say no more.

Penetrating Questions from the Second Grade

She asked me if I had liked her father the first time I met him. "I did like him," I said. "He's a nice guy."

She asked me why one of her grandmothers did not like her mother. "I think it was because she wasn't invited to the wedding," she said. I reminded her that her parents had gone to city hall--there had been no celebration to attend. "Oh yes. Then it's because my grandmother didn't find out about the marriage until after it happened," she said.

I asked her if she knew what I had done for a living. She said no. I told her I had been a college professor. "Is that where my mother got the idea?" she asked.

Republicans Vs. Science

Today The Press Democrat carried a column by Christopher Flavelle in which the author explained why about half of the GOP voters came to reject the reality of climate change. Flavelle points out that in 1992, more than 90% of Republicans believed in climate change. Now it is 22 years later, and the scientific facts are much more evident, but only 47% of Republicans admit to a problem. Why? Flavelle's response is straight-forward. If climate change is a big problem, it can be dealt with only by big government. Republicans oppose big government, so climate change must be a liberal myth. Political faith outranks scientific fact.

Blade Runner

If you follow the sensational news, you've already heard that Oscar Pistorius, known in the sports world as the Blade Runner, is on trial in Pretoria for shooting to death the young woman he was sleeping with. He claims that he woke in the middle of the night and mistook her for an intruder. That might sound far fetched, except for testimony on Monday that Pistorius once attacked his own deluxe washing machine, mistaking it for an intruder. (Warning: this was real testimony.) I hate to say it, but Pistorius must be a bad person. Attacking an innocent machine that washes, rinses and spins your reeking sports clothing is something no gentleman would think of doing. Was Pistorius raised in a barn?

Jim Wood and Deb Fudge

Jim Wood, sometimes mayor of Healdsburg, is a progressive Democrat running for the state assembly. If elected he will be the only scientist in the assembly. I assume that Jim is ahead in the race (based on no information) because he's campaigning hard, likable, trustworthy, etc. Recently he did something that strengthened my support. Despite the fact that he faces a movement from the left to ban fluoridated water, Jim endorsed fluoridation on the grounds that it has been proved to be the most helpful thing we can do for the teeth of children living in poverty. (If you have trouble believing that, check with the World Health Organization.)

Deb Fudge, five times mayor of Windsor, is running for county supervisor. Deb has been endorsed by just about every woman of note in the district (Lynn Woolsey, Noreen Evans, Susan Gorin, Shirlee Zane, Carol Russell and others). She has the backing of the Sonoma County Latino Democrats, the Democratic County Central Committee and the State Democratic Party. Her opponent, a Washington lobbyist, has the backing of some of our local wine barons. They bring a ton of cash.  He's making a good try at buying the election. (The last I heard, he was still considering what his position might be on fluoridation--he's that kind of guy.) 

At stake is whether the Board of Supervisors will have a majority of progressive Democrats or a majority of Democrats who believe that corporations are people, my friend. 

Adam and Steve

Last night my wife, laid up with a sprained ankle, began, for no reason, to argue that God is gay. "When He had a child, He made a male, didn't he? God has no interest in the ladies. He doesn't have daughters. Name one." I pointed out that this could have been chance. God's heir would have to be male or female or something else. Jesus just happened to be male.

"The first human God made was male," my wife said, "and so was the second, unless you count Lilith.  You remember Lilith, Adam's first wife? Genesis 1:27 tells us: 'So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.' God forms Lilith out of the same clay he used to make Adam, so Lilith claims that she and Adam are equal and she refuses to submit to him.  God dumps her immediately and makes Eve out of Adam's male rib. The same DNA as Adam. We're talking about a clone, another male." My wife thought she'd demonstrated that Eve was male, but I don't know. The chain of events strikes me as unprecedented. Who knows what it really means?

Documentaries and Reality

We understand that movies are illusions, edited compositions of flickering light and sound, but some of my brightest friends believe that documentaries portray real life as it really is. They've seen TRIUMPH OF THE WILL by Leni Reifenstahl, yet they don't understand that documentaries are created, designed to express an argument or point of view or an interpretation of an experience.  As far as they are concerned, if they see something in a documentary, it must be true. They seem to know nothing about how artists create their works.

(also on Facebook)

THE TWO LEFTS

I've been thinking about where I fit in the political left. Recently I realized that I exist in that part of the left that respects peer-reviewed science. When I think of science deniers, I think of the Republicans, the climate change deniers, the evolution and DNA rejectionists, and so on. But in the North Bay area,  I find vaccine refuseniks, fluoride deniers and Lefties who fear electric meters etc. 

I'm not saying that the far right fringe and the far left fringe are equals. In much of the country the far right owns the Republican party, a major political power, while the far left is, for the most part, powerless. 

Activists from the left in my town have begun a campaign to end the fluoridation of our local drinking water. Fluoridation is strongly recommended by the U.S. Surgeon General, the World Health Organization,  the National Cancer Institute and the American Dental Association as the single most effective dental health measure to prevent tooth decay in poor children. It's a settled matter in the scientific community, but some voters, who mean well, simply can't differentiate between settled science and junk science. 

DIVORCE--PROTESTANT STYLE

A recent study published in the American Journal of Sociology shows that the divorce rate is especially high in places like Alabama and among religious fundamentalists. High divorce rates were found in couples who believe that the Bible is the literal truth. 


The reasons these marriages fail, apparently, is that fundamentalists tend to marry too young, before they know who they are, and to oppose contraception. They have many small children, tension grows, and the now-adult couple comes to understand that they don't belong together.

(also on Facebook) 

Saving V. Putin

On March 4 the FINANCIAL TIMES ran an article on artificial intelligence that was not about how robots had replaced humans on our assembly lines. That replacement has already finished off a large part of our middle class. The workers were no longer needed and never would be again, but of course they could be retrained as junior financial analysts or whatever. 

It turned out that new jobs were being created but not many new jobs.

The FINANCIAL TIMES article was about a recent development in humanity's economic system. It focused on our college trained financial analysts and young researchers in the banking industry. It seems that we won't be needing them after all. The algorithms of artificial intelligence can do the same jobs better without pensions or health care or company gyms. 

Our system's goal, apparently, is to get each corporation down to one efficient human employee plus artificial intelligence. Now if we could find a way to reduce the world's population to about 100,000 people, one of whom must be Vladimir Putin . . . .  Well, we might have solved that problem already. 

Shame?

My wife saw a scientist on television who claimed that dogs don't feel shame, which struck me as odd. The scientist reminded me of Descartes, a great philosopher, who declared that dogs don't feel pain (but he added that they can fake it). In other words, if you believe dogs feel pain, you are projecting human attributes onto a mere automaton.

What would Wittgenstein, a great philosopher, say?  He didn't write on this topic, as far as I know, but he would probably have said something like this.

First, we need to identify what shame is. That part is easy: shame is a word.  We use the word to name a certain emotional/mental reaction. We learn how to use the word correctly from other people. When we are young, people tell us we should be ashamed or they observe our expressions and say that we look ashamed or whatever. Second, we learn to associate the word with a bad feeling we harbor. We can often tell if other people are ashamed by how they behave. (This behavior can be faked, of course.) 

Many of us look at dog behavior and see that it resembles our own behavior, so we say that the dog is feeling shame. But we can't be sure what bats, ants or dogs feel or don't feel. Or what other people feel, for that matter. We observe and make a guess. My guess is that dogs do feel pain.