In Praise of the English Language

Having studied many languages, I find that English is the most up-to-date of the bunch and has eliminated many of the shortcomings with which other languages still struggle.

English evolved from its Germanic roots when the Normans invaded and conquered England in 1066. The Normans brought the French that was then in use to the British Isle. (The Normans, though from France, were originally from Norway, hence the name.)

English adopted many of the words that have since changed in French. Many modern French words that begin with an “é” and are followed by a consonant used to be different and more like our English. I don’t think even the French realize this. Here are some examples. Substitute the beginning “é” with an “s” and see what happens: étage, étranger, étudie, école, écailler, écarlate. échalote, écope, épouse, équerre, état, étole, étrangler and étuve. They become stage, stranger, studie (study), scole (school), scaler, scarlet, schalote (shallot), scope (scoop), spouse, squerre (square), stai (stay), state, stole, strangle and stuve (stove) - Voila, English!

The French also did the same to its letter “s” in the middle of words if the “s” is followed by a consonant. They replaced the “s” with an upside “v” over the preceding letter. So the Latin fenestra become fenêtre, bastard became bâtard, nostre became nôtre, etc. But unlike English, French never got rid of the ancient practice of giving genders to objects and then to their modifiers. So French and the other Romance languages require the user to know which inanimate object has which gender. Is a table feminine because a chair which is masculine slides in between its legs? An object with two different names to describe it can have one that is masculine and one that is feminine. Different Romance languages may assign a different gender to the same object. A car can be feminine in one and masculine in the other. 

I have tried to trace the origin of this strange practice and believe I have found it. It is the same source as the alphabet. Did you say Greek? Yes, Greek had genders for objects and had an Alpha Beta, but that’s not it. And since it predated Latin, it is not Latin which caught the habit from Greek. It was Hebrew. And Hebrew had the first Alef Beit, which became the Greek Alpa Beta. 

English has all the verb tenses that Latin has like present, past, pluperfect, future, conditional subjunctive, and imperative, but it does not require us to conjugate each verb depending upon whether it is in the first, second or third person singular or plural. We also do not use two different “you”s depending on with whom we’re speaking. Some Asian languages cannot differentiate between the present, past and future using their verbs. So one would have to say “I go to work, yesterday” or “I go to work tomorrow” instead of “I went” and “I will go.” And they didn’t have alphabets meaning that each word has a symbol that must be memorized. Can you imagine a Chinese keyboard for typing?

And since English is a Germanic language mixed with a Romance or Latin based language, we have two words for the same thing. Examples are donate (L) and give (G); labor (L) and work (G); and demonstrate (L) and show (G). 

I believe that this is why English, but not French or Chinese, is and will be the international language. French used to be known as the international language but has lost out, I believe, because of its insistence on giving each noun and its adjectival modifier a gender, which unlike Italian or Spanish, is not discernible by hearing it. At least the Italians and the Spanish ended each masculine noun with an “o” and each feminine noun with an “a” to let speakers know which arbitrary gender the word is supposed to be.

So aren’t you happy that you know English? Don’t you wish everyone did?

December 2008

Just Between You and Me

I am not an English professor or a famous grammarian, but I was an excellent student of sixth grade English which included diagramming sentences. I learned about prepositions, nouns, adjectives and adverbs as well as subjects, objects and appropriate verb forms. I also studied Latin grammar in high school giving me a greater appreciation of the grammatical elements of our own language.

And while I know how busy we all are and that sometimes we lack the time to think about our use of English grammar, I cannot overlook some of the grossest forms of language abuse without writing something.

The most common error and one some think shows erudition, but doesn’t, is the phrase “just between you and I.” It is supposed to be “between you and me,” because the word “me” is the object of the preposition. The word “I” is used only as a subject of a sentence or as a predicate pronoun as in “It is I.”

Many people say “if I was you” or “I wish I was you.” Since both phrases are conditional, they must be phrased in the conditional subjunctive “if I were you” or “I wish I were you.”

Since the verb must agree with the subject, it is important to know which words are singular and which are plural. The word “criteria” is plural and so takes a plural verb like “are” or “were.” The singular version is “criterion.” (The same is true about the word “phenomenon.”) The word “alumni” is masculine plural. The singular is “alumnus.” The feminine versions are “alumna,” singular and “alumnae,” plural.

I also learned in the sixth grade that adjectives define or describe nouns. The words “male” and “female” are adjectives that describe nouns as in “a male suspect” or “a female impersonator.” Police officers are male or female as are models or firefighters. Therefore it is incorrect to say “man police officer” or “man executive.” It is also incorrect to say “woman firefighter” or “woman senator.” Saying that he is a “man doctor” would mean that the doctor specializes in treating men and could actually be a woman.

This confusion began years ago because some group decided that “female” was too male oriented. But actually, the word comes from the Latin femella, the diminutive form of femina, meaning woman, while “woman” has a male reference in it. The word “male” comes from old French male and masle and the Latin masculus.

Then there is the little-known rule that even journalists get wrong. The words “who” or “which” always relate to the noun that directly precedes them (even if the noun is in a prepositional phrase). A great New York Times journalist just wrote a column about a woman who took a lover. But she wrote “The woman married to the Duke who was seeing a commoner” meaning that the Duke was seeing the commoner.

I apologize for bringing all these common errors to your attention, but do so only to end the repetition of these abuses of our language. I never claimed to be an expert on the use of commas, they were covered in 7th grade English, so see if you can find some errors in this column. It would serve me right, wouldn’t it?


June 2008

When is More of a Good Thing Not Better?

I admit that I am not a great believer in the predictive ability of economics, but I do appreciate some of its descriptive concepts and models. My favorite three are externalities, indifference curves and the law of diminishing marginal returns.

Externalities are the hidden costs and benefits of activities. For example, pesticides kill harmful insects and protect the crops but also pollute the earth, air and water in the process. There is a cost for this activity that is not paid by the user or the producer. Public education, if it is good, has positive externalities like making the population more skilled and productive and less likely to commit crime. The role of good government is to factor in the externalities of each activity and ensure that costs are paid by the responsible parties and benefits are acknowledged when allocating more resources.

Indifference curves are often tied to pricing or cost. If a seller increases the price of a product, the immediate result will be higher profit per item and therefore more money. But as the price increases, there comes a point when fewer items are sold for the higher price and so while the profit per item increases, the volume decreases until no one wants one at a very high price, so they are indifferent as to whether they have it or not.

Finally, I like the law of diminishing marginal returns which is designed to predict or at least describe the point at which something precious loses its luster because too much is available. I tested this theory with filet mignon. Surely, there can never be too much filet mignon. But after my eighth meal of it in a three-week period, I could no longer bear the thought of it. We now see this happening with gasoline usage. When the price gets to a certain point, say $4.50 a gallon, people will seek alternatives such as public transportation or carpooling or getting rid of the pickup or SUV.

I think all this can be applied to the notion that more is better, the more the merrier. Like the idea that you can never be too thin or too rich or never have enough friends or should never turn off your cell phone.

When you see even a few anorexic models and actresses, it is hard to come away thinking one can never be too thin. When you read about the excesses of athletes, actors, and businessmen, it makes you wonder if this wealth could not be put to better uses like reducing poverty, improving education or cleaning our environment and whether the excessively rich are really better for the experience. When you talk to a friend who must squeeze you in between two other friends who are also vying for attention, you realize with so many friends there is never enough time for any of them.

And when I see people constantly on their cell phones literally hooked the way smokers used to be, I wonder if there is not something like too much cell phoning. Do people really have to talk on their cells while driving their cars, eating their lunches at a restaurant, purchasing something at a store, walking across a busy intersection or nursing their baby? Have cell phones become our new Sirens drawing us in against our free will? Or are they like communications from the Almighty that should never be ignored?

It seems like the answer our former president gave for his many infidelities in the White House - “Because I could” - could apply to our many daily excesses. We do them because we can afford to. But I wonder when do we realize that enough is enough and that more than that is not necessarily better but could be worse?

When do we recognize the externalities in our excessive behavior and develop an indifference to these gluttonous activities be they eating or drinking too much, to listening to talk radio too much, to buying too much, owning too much, controlling too much and therefore worrying too much?

How long will it take us to see the diminishing marginal returns of increased activities?
When do we say “enough really is enough?”
July-August 2008

Can a Victim Be Responsible?

A woman lets her two-year-old go off in a water park with the child’s four-year-old sibling to watch him. The two year old child drowns. The water park is sued because this mother has lost her child on their grounds. What’s a mother to do when a park lets two year-olds die?
A large energy company is cheating the residents of the nation’s most populous state. The employees and stockholders know what the company is up to but stay on to reap the financial rewards. When the dishonesty of the company becomes overwhelmingly obvious, the company goes bust. The employees lose their jobs, pension benefits and 401 Ks. The stockholders lose all their stock’s value. What are employees and stockholders to do when their company is caught cheating? Why must they suffer the consequences?

People sign up for mortgages they know they cannot afford. Lenders give loans to people they know do not qualify for them. They all think that they will somehow get away with it if the market can rapidly increase toward infinity. The bubble bursts. The borrowers cannot pay and cannot sell their property to pay off their debt. The lenders see their loans go unpaid and the collaterals’ value shrink by the day. And then the market collapses. The new homeowners lose their property and are thrown out into the streets forced to return to wherever they had recently moved up from. The lenders see their jobs and companies threatened. Why must they suffer just because their plan failed?

Two states want to buck their party’s schedule for primaries so that theirs will be first or at least sooner and more influential. The states’ representatives are told that if they hold their primaries early, the votes won’t count. All the candidates agreed not to campaign in those states. In one state, all but one of the candidates took their names off the ballot. The people in the two states knowing the promise that their votes won’t count and knowing that they would be meaningless anyway because no one campaigned in their states, voted anyway.

They were then reminded that their votes would not be counted. They were angry. Why won’t their votes count? It wasn’t their fault their states broke the rules, they didn’t break them. The only candidate who profited from this improper vote had agreed that their vote should not count until the results were in and they were so good. Why shouldn’t this candidate count the votes even though they were improper?

Many of us bought large pickup trucks and SUVs. Some of us did so to keep our family safe in case of a collision not so concerned about the safety of those outside our vehicles. Some of us bought them because we liked having extra space inside not thinking that there will be that much less space outside. Some of us bought them to sit high while driving so we could see over the other cars not realizing that we might be blocking the view of others. We knew that our trucks were gas guzzlers but figured that we could always afford it. We knew that small car owners looked at us with derision but we just figured that they were jealous. Now our trucks are unaffordable to run and are almost impossible to sell. We are now stuck with our gluttonous behemoths. Why must we suffer just because we like things big and now gas prices are too high?
We didn’t set the price OPEC charges for oil.

When do knowing victims of improper actions realize that they themselves may have been the villains in their own tragedy? When do those who at first benefited from the violations of moral conduct accept responsibility for the eventual outcome?

When do we learn the meaning of cause and effect, action and responsibility otherwise known as karma?

Sept. 2008

Is San Francisco an American City?

Recently, we had a house guest from the South. He was a young college graduate who had attended on a full academic scholarship. He was a nice kid.

As the first few days of his eight-week visit unfolded, I realized that there were many things that we do here that people where he’s from don’t. The number and variety of these differences grew as the days progressed. Here is a sample of our differences.

I knew that he came from a state with an abundance of water and very low utility rates. I told him that in San Francisco water and resultant sewage costs are very high and that we try not to waste water. The same is true about gas and electric charges. We also showed him how we always use our own bags when grocery shopping to save on paper and plastic bag creation.
He said he understood.

In response, he limited his time away from his running kitchen faucet (while he went into another room) to under two minutes, kept his showers to only 25 minutes, and tried to keep the refrigerator door open for less than 10 minutes at a time.

I told him about recycling our glass, paper, aluminum and plastic. He told me that they have it in his town but it costs extra so most people don’t bother. He didn’t either. We noticed that he even threw his paper grocery bags away in the garbage.

It was then that I began to wonder if it was them or us who were different.

San Francisco was the first American city to ban smoking in restaurants, then bars, then parks. San Francisco was the first to create domestic partnerships for unmarried couples leading finally to gay marriages, which were just recently upheld by the state supreme court.

San Francisco was also at the forefront of the decriminalization of marijuana movement, first with medical marijuana, then with allowing dozens of retail outlets to sell it, then with making it official policy to not arrest for possession of the weed, and soon will be the first to celebrate its inevitable legalization.

Jesse Jackson not only carried South Carolina, when he ran for the Democratic nomination for President, he also carried San Francisco which has only a 5% African American population. And when Bush-Cheney made clear their intentions to invade Iraq, San Francisco was first to turn out en masse to object to an attack which would go on to cost a hundred thousand lives (including the Iraqi dead) and trillions of dollars (including the future disability costs for wounded soldiers and the predictable aid to millions of Iraqi refugees who will move to America when we withdraw our troops).

Now, San Francisco is offering medical coverage to all of its residents, paid sick leave for all those who work in the city, and a living wage that is 50% higher than America’s minimum wage.
The City even had planned to issue resident i.d. cards to undocumented (read ‘imported, paperless’) residents. In San Francisco, members of the police and sheriff’s department do not cooperate with federal agents (as in American government) in their efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants (read ‘paperless imports’) who commit crimes in the City.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has repeatedly let the United States Navy know that its ships were not welcome near our shores because of its policy toward gay members and because of its intrinsically belligerent nature. And the San Francisco school board is trying to eliminate ROTC from its campuses for the same reasons.

So what do you think? Is San Francisco an American city or will America someday become a San Francisco country?

October 2008

Are You Busy? Do You Have a Moment to Read This?

I cannot help but notice that most people I see going about their business and pleasure in the city seem very busy. Even though we are all aware of the dangers of multitasking, we are apparently just too busy to avoid it. As I go around the city I watch mothers strolling their babies through the park while walking their dog, talking on a cell phone and drinking the seemingly ubiquitous and obligatory cup of coffee, usually the expensive kind. Who is getting the busy mother’s attention? Is it divided by the five activities she is doing simultaneously?

I watch someone holding up traffic while trying to park his oversized SUV.  While backing up carefully so that he can fit the space that was created before SUVs were invented, he is on his cell phone, stirring his latte, and replacing the CD. The best part is that all this activity makes it easy for him to disregard the frustration on all the drivers forced to wait for him to finish his driving maneuver.  He has practically transcended the here and now that surrounds him.

I know a single, retired woman with so many friends that she has no time to read their e-mails. She deletes all of them every day. I know a doctor who is so popular that one must apply to his personal e-mail address for permission to communicate with him.  One person who uses that selection system said that her own daughter was denied access - access to send an e-mail to her own mother.

I know people who must travel whenever they are not busy to recuperate from all the work.  They do all the work and are always busy so that they can afford the many vacations they need to take to recover. The dog is chasing his tail but doesn’t know it.

Literary agents are so busy that they cannot take the time to respond to your proposal and required first three chapters, but surely have time to read all the material.  They have an hour, but not two minutes.

People have little time to write letters or even e-mails, so they correspond with friends and family by forwarding e-mails they got from others who had no time to write but were thinking of them. Or they call them on their cell phone and leave a message. This message will later be returned with another message. How did everyone get along before cell phones?  Better?

I do not have a cell phone. I love the idea, but I don’t feel a need to get hooked into a two-year contract paying $50 or more a month for something I can easily live without. I am not an important person to whom people flock for help or advice. I don’t run my own business and am not on call at any local hospital. I do not believe there to be a great likelihood that the next call I miss will make the difference between life and death, wealth or poverty, fame or loneliness.

But what about everyone else?  How did they get to be so busy and so obsessed with being available to all possible callers no matter who or when or where? Whether in a public bathroom or while ordering dinner at a fine restaurant, whether alone or with an intimate group or a large crowd,  the ring of a cell phone is just too irresistible.  Turn it off, and miss calls, are you crazy, why have a cell phone if you don’t use it?

With all this busyness, when is there time to think?  When do we have a chance to evaluate our lives and the direction they are going? Can we read an article and sit and think about what it meant? Can we really take the time to share our children’s thoughts and feelings? Do we have the time to be truly intimate with another living being, including ourselves? Can we see and smell the roses as we speed past them talking on our cell phones?

Are we too busy to realize that our obsession with more and better symbolized and aggravated by our cell phones is destroying whatever intrinsic pleasure there is in life making everything we do simply a means to a future end, one that will never be good enough and for which we will have no time to enjoy?

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Is that your phone ringing? Or is it mine?

What Jobs Can Americans Possibly Do?

  

Our legislators in Washington have told us that the country needs tens of millions of foreign workers to do the jobs Americans won’t or can’t do. To this end, they have crafted legislation to bring in more workers on either a temporary or permanent basis and to give subsidies to American companies that out source their production to foreign soil.

Our representatives have assured their constituents that none of us wants the low-end jobs like farming, meat packing, construction, hotel and restaurant work, gardening, housekeeping, pet or child care. We have also been advised that we are too unproductive to do customer service work.  If an American customer has problems with airline reservations, medical bills, or the Internet, we are better served by people in Manilla and Bombay who have a nicer way with people and problems since their cultures are so unlike ours.

We have also been told that we are not bright enough or well educated enough to do high-tech jobs.  Engineers must be brought in from such technically and educationally advanced countries as India and China. Their technical schools are so good, that their students come to American colleges to help shore up our needy schools of higher learning. We’re glad to have them because they also provide us with greater diversity, something of which we can never have enough.  Since these foreign students are better than ours, they are also better equipped to teach our students even if they cannot be understood because of their language differences.  If these American students would just take the time to learn enough foreign languages, they would be more likely to understand these different tongues in class.

Even our T.V. hosts and reporters are now better because they are from abroad, usually England.  Look at Simon Cowell and Laura Logan, not to mention Liam, Nigel, Cat, Pier, Sharon, et al.

The only jobs that Americans seem to do better than our foreign friends is politics. Or maybe not. Perhaps even our representatives should be from other countries, to get a real global perspective.

Why Do Highly Paid People Need Incentives?

The media reported that the CEO of Yahoo, a company that has been doing badly in recent years, got $71 million last year for his failed efforts. The amount was only part salary. The majority of the compensation was in stock options and bonuses. Why does a person whose salary is in the seven figures need additional incentives to perform at his maximum?

This idea of incentives for CEOs, athletes, and movie stars who get a generous salary for the work they do and then extra to make them do a little more is fairly recent. It surely began as an idea at one of our country’s prestigious business schools. The theory is probably that by giving the principal a major stake in the successful outcome of the enterprise, s/he is more motivated because s/he can easily see how success will provide them additional rewards.
I can just imagine a professor at Harvard Business School teaching the students how to maximize productivity a la Ayn Rand.

My question is why do these well-paid individuals need more motivation than the people actually doing the day-to-day work that reaps the profits?  Why isn’t it enough motivation to have this important position, be it CEO, COO, CAO, center fielder, movie star, and be dedicated to doing the best job possible?

I object to this practice incremental incentives on several levels. I believe this practice overemphasizes the extrinsic rewards of work over its intrinsic ones. I also think that it encourages greed and all the problems associated with it. It drives some to lie and cheat as we saw so many indicted executives do in the past few years. Usually the goal of the deception was to increase stock prices until the company leaders had a chance to sell their shares at the highest price. It leads others to lay off workers, cut benefits, and cut corners.

I think that it also causes a greater separation between the haves and have nots.  While, in the past,  the top salary could have  been five or ten times higher than the lowest at a company, today it can be 1000 times.

Imagine a worker making $20,000 a year ($10 per hour) and the CEO getting $20 million.  Is the CEO really worth one thousand times as much as the lowliest worker? Should his yearly income be 100,000% of his lowest earner?

The irony is that most of the jobs that award bonuses and other incentives are the ones people aspire to for the pleasure of the position.

What high school baseball star doesn’t dream of making the majors? To be able to play with the greats in front of millions of fans who cheer when his name is announced, would be paradise for them. But when they make it, they also need a signing bonus and performance incentives, or else, no deal.

A struggling actor dreams of someday being a star. Fans will want her autograph, handsome men will love her, she will get to play roles that may someday become classics and may lift people’s spirits, even change their lives.  What a thrill it would be! But the contract should include a percentage of the box office profits and a generous royalty package for her to even consider the role!?

This is not to say that people doing what they enjoy should not be paid for their services. But there is a point when  the focus becomes more on getting paid than on one’s service. I think it makes everything a little less satisfying for everyone connected with this extra-incentive system.

The CEO at Yahoo who got the $71 million paycheck for the year, has been fired. Hopefully, that paycheck will also suffice as his golden parachute. Many of the other overcompensated chief executives have had to return the money or pay it to lawyers helping them try to keep it.

If stockholders and consumers cannot stop this insidious practice then, perhaps, the government should.  It could tax income above a certain level, at an extremely high marginal tax rate. The excess tax money received could be redirected to those who really need it for better education, health care, housing and nutritional services.

When Does a Person Become an Adult?

When I grew up in New York in the 40s and 50s, there were many different definitions of the age and nature of adulthood. We were adult enough to drive at 16, to drink at 18, to join the Army without our parents’ consent at 17, and to marry in the South at 14.  If we were Jewish, we were considered adult at 13.  But no matter what our affiliation, most things required the age of 21 for adult responsibilities. We had to be 21 to vote, buy cigarettes, sign a contract,  or do a real estate transaction.

Today, many people consider anyone over 17 years of age to be adult, with all the rights and responsibilities that entails.  Except, in order to buy and use alcohol, buy a lottery ticket, or sign a real estate contract, you have to be over 21.

The problem is that now anything these teenage “adults” do or decide is between them and the organization or person involved.  For anyone else, the information, be it medical, academic, or financial, is confidential.  Isn’t this good?  Aren’t we all scared to death that someone will get some vital information about us against our will?

What if your 19 year-old daughter is away at school and is hospitalized?  You are her parents, love her, and pay all her bills. But you have no right to know what happened to her.  Maybe she has a learning challenge, is shy, or naïve. It doesn’t matter,  she’s an adult.

Your son is a freshman at college.  He is doing badly in school and is having serious adjustment problems in the dorm where his assigned roommate has a major psychological condition such as obsessive compulsive disorder. You call the school to plead for intervention. The response is that your son is an adult and should be able to deal with it.

You find out the day before that your 20 year-old daughter has contracted for an elective and seemingly unnecessary surgery. She signed papers promising to pay an exorbitant amount with no option for a refundable cancellation. The daughter acted on a whim and is now caught on the hook.  The doctor did not counsel the patient or contact the parents. The 20 year-old is an adult and therefore can make her own decisions about her own body.

While, nowadays 16 year-olds can still get a driver’s license,  the age at which they are considered adult enough to drive at night and other passengers keeps getting increased because there are so many auto accidents among this “young” adult group.

At the same time, medical science believes that for most people, the frontal lobe of the brain, which controls adult thinking, like strategic planning, prioritizing, seeing short and long-term effects of possible actions and decision making, is not fully developed until the age 25.  The physiological adulthood starts at 25.

I suggest we make 25 years and older the age of legal adulthood.  That would mean that in order to drink alcohol, place a bet, cast a vote, sign a real estate contract, buy a gun, or have personal medical or academic information kept confidential from the family, a person must be at least 25.

I think that this idea not only makes biological sense, but makes social and economic sense, too. Under this new system, high schools and colleges could no longer hide their accountability behind the backs of adults too young to know better.  Doctors and hospitals would be accountable to the authorized adult who is already responsible for paying the bill. And think of all the alcohol-related deaths caused by premature and immature intoxication, that could be avoided by extending the minimum age by four years.  Maybe some of these young people will never even start drinking.  Imagine that, sober adults!

With the voting age reduced to 18, the number of young people voting, has not significantly increased. Most ballots are too complicated and the issues too deep for most 18 year-olds, or even 21 year-olds, to consider. At 25, people seem to understand and relate to these complexities more easily.

If heaven can wait, why can’t adulthood wait a little longer?

Capital Crimes Going Unenforced in San Francisco

All right, perhaps calling them capital offenses may be overstating the violations.  Admittedly, there are much more serious crimes that occur much less frequently.  Crimes like murder, rape, kidnapping, aggravated assault and armed robbery are worse. So is the dealing of dangerous drugs like crack cocaine and heroin.  These most serious crimes physically injure innocent human beings and make daily life a little less pleasurable.

But what of a crime committed daily by hundreds of otherwise nice, law-abiding citizens. Many, especially in the Bay Area have taken all the right positions on the difficult issues of the day: war, immigration, poverty, taxes and education. They understand that we live in a world village and that all of our actions affect others. And yet they repeatedly violate the law, inconveniencing a lot of innocent people. Why do they do it?

The crime they commit reflects almost every bad human characteristic: selfishness, inconsideration, laziness, lack of creativity. impatience and arrogance. It represents an absolute flouting of the law and is committed in plain sight, underlining its impunity.

The crime is rarely enforced in San Francisco.  SFPD officers will actually drive around the crime scene going into the opposing lane of traffic to get away from it. Controllers charged with the primary enforcement responsibility, are reluctant to engage the offenders.

The crime is double parking. Nice people do it for a few minutes while they do their errands. There is the ATM, the cleaners, the bakery, the little one’s nursery school, that overpriced cup of coffee, we just can’t live without. Some of us feel that we are too busy or important to take the time to find parking. We know that there is a greater chance of getting a ticket for an expired meter, than for double parking, so we double park.

When the function of parking control was taken away from the SFPD and given to a separate department, police lost interest in it. Since there are no perks and no promotional possibilities for police, many tend to ignore parking problems like double parking. Parking controllers, who are not armed, feel intimidated to enforce these violations without police backup. 

The controllers fear that some of these double parkers are not the nice people we think them to be but rather may be sociopaths who don’t give a damn about parking regulations and are willing to physically demonstrate their displeasure.  

In the meantime, the City’s streets are getting congested with obstacle courses of double parked cars on both sides of the street. Our byways will soon resemble the arteries of a person with advanced heart disease whose veins are filled with plaque.

Some of the best examples of outright and constant double parking can be found on Union Street, on 9th Avenue between Lincoln and Irving, on Irving between 9th and 7th, on Clement Street and on Chestnut in the Marina. On any given moment of any given day before the stores close, there will be at least one double-parked car in each of these busy locations. If you go to Sacramento Street near Laurel Village, you may get to see cars double parked in both directions to allow its inhabitants to chat.

Of course, it should be noted, that we are all so busy nowadays that parking just becomes too time consuming.  We have our endless cell phone calls, our unquestionable need for coffee, our many business transactions aimed at making the most for doing the least. We have our jobs and careers to which we are so dedicated for our daily bread, which we must share selflessly with whatever family we’ve been able to amass.  We have our routines and we are always behind schedule.

And then when we want to do the right thing and wait for a parking space about to be vacated, we sit idling while the person in the parked car enjoys the enviable position for as long as humanly possible. While we wait patiently and proudly, we watch the parked drivers check their appearance, apply needed enhancements, check their voicemail, return phone calls to people desperately awaiting their reply, while our engine is running and the people behind us are getting impatient.

So what are we to do?

Maybe, we could eliminate some of the many things we feel we absolutely have to do.  Maybe we could leave early so that we are not rushed when looking for a space. We could try to remind ourselves that there are actually other people out there. We are not alone. We should consider their needs as well as our own, even though ours are so much more interesting.

The mayor and the well-reimbursed directors of the city’s parking  enforcement agency could decide that they are going to crack down on this socially unacceptable behavior. The mayor could have the SFPD motorcycle officers provide backup for Parking Controllers in the congested areas.

The city would gain needed revenue that could be used to pay for more Parking Controllers, the city streets would be less congested and driving time and fuel use would decrease. And all of us would find ourselves more motivated to behave like the caring, enlightened people we know we really are.

Can Globalization Go Too Far?

It’s a small world, isn’t it? We are sometimes reminded how our lives are filled with products that are created in several different parts of the world.  A car may have parts from Japan, Germany, America, Korea and Mexico in it.  A restaurant court at a shopping center may have foods from many different countries and cultures. We know that variety is the spice of life and that many countries are especially good at producing certain items.  We have coffee from Latin America, tea from England, spaghetti from Italy, wine from France, and luxury cars from Germany. No problem.

But now there is a new slant on globalization. American companies and public agencies are now using lower-paid workers in India and the Philippines to do their everyday work for Americans. When you call AOL or United Airlines, or sometimes even your hospital’s accounting office, you are talking to someone in India or the Philippines more likely than from an American town.

The reason is obviously financial. The companies feel that if they cannot get customers to communicate solely with computers, which have no unions or mandatory lunch breaks,  the next best thing would be to use less expensive workers.  But are they really less expensive?

It is true that a person in Bombay would be thrilled to receive a fraction of what his American counterpart requires to do the same job. Surely, these foreign workers don’t belong to labor unions and probably would not dream of asking for free health insurance and a generous pension when their work is no longer needed. So what is wrong with it?  Isn’t that the key to capitalism - being competitive by always looking at the bottom line and trying to increase profits and decrease costs?  What’s wrong with saving money?

History reminds us that you pay the price sooner or later. The same is true now of current savings from the work of illegal immigrants and third-world workers for American companies.

What are the costs? Perhaps the most obvious and least mentioned cost is economic.  When U.S. dollars go to American workers, part of their earnings pay taxes and social security contributions.  The rest is spent in America or put into savings.  In both cases the money is used again and again. This is not true of foreign workers if  they are spending their earnings in their native land.  Illegal immigrants from Mexico allegedly send home almost $30 billion a year. That is money that is no longer circulating in America and has now become part of our country’s foreign debt.

But that is only one part of the cost of foreign labor. Different countries have different cultures, different values, beliefs, experiences,  and world views.

This cultural divide struck me recently when I tried in vain to redeem my airline miles. The company has been portrayed in Capital One commercials for its policy of “always say no,” when customers attempt to redeem their miles for travel. I was on the line for one and a half hours with what sounded to be a very old lady in Bombay.  As I lamented my concern about getting my daughter home to San Francisco from Paris in August, I had a realization.

This woman lives in Bombay.  Every day she goes to work she sees so much greater suffering than I could possibly experience about my daughter’s return trip.  When I got no satisfaction from this  “just say no” reservation redemption adviser after 90 minutes, I asked to speak with her boss. Her boss exhibited no sympathy or compassion for my daughter’s situation nor my wasted time spent with her subordinate.

Then I realized again, what is waiting 90 minutes on the phone while in a comfortable home in San Francisco to a person who sees beggars, some blind, some disfigured; poor children scrambling for bread crumbs; and traffic delays caused by sacred cows blocking the road in the middle of an unbearably hot day?

I believe it is time for our government to legislate costs for companies hiring foreign labor. The costs in the form of taxes, penalties or fees would make using American workers seem like the much better idea that it really is.

This Is Confidential - Don't Tell Anyone.

Have you noticed how secret squirrel everything has become? Or is that too confidential to tell you? Your doctor cannot leave a message on your phone because someone else may hear it and it could result in a loss of privacy and a whopping lawsuit. The medical center I go to for medical tests and advice will not release my own test results taken from my own body for my own sake to me personally or in the mail until and unless I sign a consent form allowing them to reveal confidential information about myself to myself.

If your 19 year-old daughter is hospitalized as mine was in her first year of college in the emergency room, the hospital cannot tell you and if you ask, they will not discuss her condition in that it may violate her privacy.  They will send you the bill and ask for a fortune without telling you what it was for.

If you want to contact your Internet provider to take advantage of a rate reduction with no downside, you must provide mountains of proof that it is indeed you who is asking to save money.

If you want to deposit money into your own checking account, be it cash or check, you could be asked for photo i.d. to prove that you are really the account holder putting money into your own account rather than someone else’s.  Apparently, this is a widespread problem - unknown people putting huge amounts of money into other people’s bank accounts for no apparent reason. Right!

And good luck if you are trying to find out whether your bank is planning to pay minimum or full amounts on automatic payments, sometimes crucial information. It is so confidential that they themselves cannot find out much less tell you even though it is all done for your sake.

If you want to inform your cell phone service that you want to let your service expire at the end of the two-year contract period, you will have to go through hoops to prove that it is really you making the request.  As though strangers may know about your contract and its expiration date and have decided that you should stop without telling you. Even if you authorize another person to do everything on your behalf, the cell phone company requires that you are the one person in the world who can make the request even if you are in a coma or dead.

And when you finally convince the cell phone company or the health insurance company or the bank that you are the one and only, they say they will honor your request, but will never send acknowledgment. In order to verify that you succeeded in ending or changing what you wanted, you have to go through that whole process again.

Trying asking your 18 year-old’s school how your child is doing, the reply will always be - s/he is 18 or older and therefore an adult.  All information concerning the student is confidential, even if the student is headed for ruin. But the school embraces this 13-year policy of considering 18 year-olds adults. They don’t have to deal with parents who are paying a fortune for the child’s education, and can be left to deal with a young, inexperienced, 18 year-old rather than a 40 year-old Ph.D. or high-powered lawyer.

How do we deal with this? First I think there should be egregious penalties for willfully exploiting any of our main communication and information systems. Second there should be reasonable safeguards as well as easy ways for authorized people to exercise their will and to then quickly  receive written acknowledgment of any and all significant changes to their account.

I’d ask you to share this column with friends and relatives, but I am afraid this column is confidential, you probably should not have read it in the first place.

The Impatient Patient

We Americans are constantly reminded how lucky we are. We are not only the richest country in the world, we are also the freest, most enlightened and we have the best possible medical care. People come from all over the world for American medical assistance. We are told that as many as 50 million of us have inadequate coverage, but that the other 250 million of us have the best medical system available at our service.

Living in San Francisco, all this is even more true. We have some of the best medical facilities and doctors in the world.  We should kiss the ground beneath our feet to be so fortunate to have this great care.  So why is this patient impatient?

I have lived with several life threatening diseases for at least 25 years.  I have had five heart attacks, as many surgical procedures including two open-heart surgeries.  I also have diabetes and perhaps resultant kidney failure. The three different diseases are highly interactive.

It is incumbent on such a patient to monitor several functions every so often. For kidney and diabetes progress, one must look at blood test results.  For kidney function one needs to know the BUN level, the creatinine clearance, the potassium level (which is also very important for heart patients to know) and finally the red blood cell count since that is controlled by enzymes produced in the kidneys. For diabetes one should check the A1C levels every three months to ensure that the long-term blood sugar level is acceptable. For the heart there are tests for cholesterol levels and there are echo exams to be done on a yearly basis to see if the heart tissue is losing its ability to pump blood through the body.

A patient should take these tests when needed but more importantly, the patient must get the results of the tests. Just as schools give students tests not only to determine whether they are learning the material and to decide whether they should continue to the next grade, but also to give feedback to the students so that students can make adjustments in study habits or test-taking strategies.  It is a necessary part of the learning process.

Modern medicine has not yet learned this lesson and neither have most patients.  The medical establishment unlike that of education, acts as though their practice is strictly top down. The doctor who has studied calculus, physics and chemistry in addition to biology must decide what tests to give and then must review them to advise the patient what to do next.  The patient is better off just doing what s/he is told by this master of science.

Besides the obvious problem of taking the main character out of the play by restricting the patient’s knowledge of his own condition and progress to generalities like “a little above normal” or “within the range” or “nothing to be too worried about, yet,” instead of getting the actual data like blood test reports, Echo exams, stress tests, etc., there is a more basic one. Nowadays, your doctor is seeing one patient every 15 minutes.  If s/he is a specialist who usually sees each patient twice a year, that doctor has more than 1,000 patients.  If you are a patient, you have only one patient to worry about - yourself. Doctors, because of their overload of cases, can easily miss reviewing a test result or miss important parts of the report.

Also, with specialization being what it is, a patient may have to see several different doctors.  They may need to see the information presented in a blood test given by another doctor.  It would help if the patient had a copy of the test to show the other doctor.

Also with the burnout rate in the medical field, it is very likely that soon you will have a different doctor.  The new doctor may not have a copy of tests given by a predecessor in another practice.  A patient who keeps copies of all medical test results would have this data available to share with the new physician.

We shouldn’t have to wait patiently for our tests results any longer. These tests are given to us, for us, from us and are paid for by us.  We have every reason and right to expect to receive them when they are available for our information and future reference.

We are patients, but please do not try our patience.

Affirmative Action for the Rich

There has been much debate about the fairness and effectiveness of giving favorable treatment to people who have suffered from past discrimination.  Some believe that giving disadvantaged people extra credit in school, employment and promotional considerations is the least we can do to “level the playing field.” Some believe that it weakens the disadvantaged group by making it easier for its members and not forcing them to give more than 100 percent.

In California, as in other states, the use of affirmative action criteria or preference in education and employment decisions is illegal.  But there is still affirmative action. It is not for the poor underprivileged. It is not for those who are the first in their families to go to college. The affirmative action prevalent in the nation’s best private colleges and universities affects as many as half of the schools’ enrollment.

The Ivy League schools like Yale and Harvard are famous for admitting the children of rich or famous people and of alumni who have made generous donations to the school. Stanford, the school that was started in order to provide Californians with an excellent affordable education, accepts out of state and, even, international children of famous and prominent people, while California students with perfect grades and test scores are turned away because they have no connections.    

The average grade point average of elite, private college graduates is an amazing 3.5, meaning the average student in these prestigious schools, gets only an equal number of ‘A’s’ and ‘B’s.’ This is not the case at the nations top public universities. So not only do the privileged get into the best schools, they get great grades to boot.

Our two most recent presidential races show how serious this problem has been.  George Bush,  Joe Lieberman, Howard Dean, and John Kerry all went to Yale as did Presidents George H. Bush and Bill Clinton before them. One can only wonder how some of them would have gotten in back then had it not been for their parents. (I believe that Clinton got into Yale law school on his own merit.)

When you listen to our most recent Yalie president who also went to one of the best prep schools in the country and got an MBA at Harvard, you wonder what happened. How could that much education be lost on a single person? He, like his father, seems to have no concept of grammar or diction.  But even beyond the severe verbal limitations, our president seems to also never to have learned logic, critical thinking or ethics.

With the most glaring example of the perils of this good old boy system of higher education sitting in the Oval Office, even these prestigious schools themselves should take stock and realize enough is enough.  No more affirmative action for the rich children of important parents.

If this society wants to build an aristocracy that is truly well educated and wise,  our institutions of higher learning should accept students based on their own accomplishments not those of their ancestors. That way people of all kinds know that they must do their very best to succeed and, that if they do, they will be judged and rewarded accordingly.

Isn’t that what a democracy is all about: equal opportunity to excel?

A Simple Metaphysics

The Seven Laws of Nature

1.    As above, so below

2.    Every outside has an inside

3.    The infinite is finite and the finite, infinite

4.    Everything is and is not a paradox

5.    Love = Light = beauty = truth = oneness = perfection = God

6.    Every thing/being is/has consciousness, which
    precedes existence

7.    Energy cannot be lost, but it is disorganized in  order to change by the force called entropy

The Laws of Nature Explained

1. As above so below. The microcosm is like the macrocosm; on earth as it is in heaven; we are created in His image. It means that there is a parallelism involved in the basic structure of reality.  To take it to another level, if there is an individual mind, there is a universal one; if there is an individual idea, there is a universal one; as with consciousness, love, forgiveness, etc. And on another level - the sky is individual (as in the Tucson sky which is different from the San Francisco sky), even though it is all one sky which is not above the earth but actually surrounds it.

Another significance is that there is a consistency, a uniformity to reality. It makes everything we see both tangible and real as well as symbolic and figurative.

2.  Every outside has an inside.  Is another way of saying the first principle. It means that everything - be it animal, vegetable, or mineral, has an inside - a soul. This inside or soul possesses a consciousness which produces and is produced by the outside. Or, the form has an idea inside it, or the form is the expression of the void.

3.  The infinite is in finite and the finite is infinite. This is yet another way of saying the same thing. The infinite would not be infinite if it included everything except the finite. The finite is in finite. A human life is finite, only a limited number of years, but is it? The San Francisco sky is finite, or is it? The mind is the product of the body, or is it?  Or is the body the product of the mind? A body has definite dimensions and must be finite but it contains the mind, which is infinite. And, yet, the mind is part of the infinite mind, even though each is infinite. And is the body finite? How many cells does it have and how many sub atomic cells per cell and so on ad infinitum?

There are many examples of the infinite/finite paradox. Jesus was one.  He was a man, finite, and he was God, infinite. There’s nothing more finite than numbers and yet they are infinite. Time is finite while it is eternal. The body appears to be finite, but the mind is infinite. The earth appears to be finite but the sky is infinite. Imagine a wall in the universe where it ends. There is none.

The infinite is consciousness motivated by love - the source of intrinsic motivation - doing out of love of doing it. The finite is centered in the ego and is motivated by fear caused by a sense of separation and limitation, leading to extrinsic motivation - doing for fear of not doing or doing as a means to an end.

This sets the stage for constant paradox.

4.  Everything is and isn’t a paradox. Everything is what it appears to be and it isn’t and it is both even though it can’t be.

There is an old Mullah Nasrudin tale about a court proceeding. This story is also in Yiddish lore. The prosecution presents their case in opening argument. It is brilliant and very convincing. The judge is so moved that he declares the prosecution has proved its case and is right. The defendant was guilty.

The defense objects saying that they must have a chance to present their side. They go on to make an equally stunning argument. At its end, the judge was so moved that he declared that the defense was right.

The court bailiff told the judge that it made no sense that they can’t both be right. The judge agreed.  

In the same way, everything is and isn’t. The mountains are mountains, they also are not, and though they can’t be both, they are. Everything is what it is and it is also a symbol of something, and while mutually exclusive, everything is both. It is all G-d and yet we exist and are each unique. There is and isn’t free will. It is all mind and yet the physical world is real. Everything is perfect just the way it is, and everything must be improved. 

5.  Love = light= infinite =eternal= beauty = truth = oneness =consciousness=perfection=buddha nature = G-d. Again everything is and isn’t. These are all very separate things and yet, they are all the same. Another way to think of it is the same thing in different forms. Consciousness feels like love, is light, dispelling darkness, has no size or quantity and is therefore infinite, it has no time and therefore it is eternal. It is also naturally perfect. It is the Buddha nature that is in all things and comes in different shapes and sizes

6.    Every thing/being is/has consciousness, which precedes existence. Everything - animal, vegetable or mineral, has consciousness as does every cell and subatomic cell within every cell, and even macrocosmic entities have a kind of consciousness.

This state of being is different for every kind of entity.  A human’s consciousness seems very different from a seed’s or a mountain’s. But each has a kind of awareness that is both individual and universal.  It is entirely possible that each entity, no matter how big or small, has a sense of individually doing something. It could very well be that each and every white corpuscle that is discharged to fight an intruder to the body feels that he or she is going to fight the good fight against evil.

We know from experiments at Hawthorne, that there is a definite observation effect. That means that by observing human or even cell behavior, we are actually affecting it. So the activity we see in cells as well as test animals, is not natural, but rather an adaptation. Just as humans adapt when observed because they are conscious of being watched and in a sense cared for, by the observers, so too with cells, plants and animals and even cities and countries. Remember, as above, so below;  the macrocosm is reflected in the microcosm; on earth as it is in heaven.

7.    Energy cannot be lost but it is disorganized in order to change by the force called entropy. Because life is and isn’t dualistic, everything has its opposite.  At least in appearance. Perhaps the first dualism after the infinite and finite, is subject and object, light and darkness or life and death (beginning and ending). So if someone or something is begun or born then it will end or die. In the process the matter or energy is changed but not lost.

Just as the world’s top priorities are preservation and perpetuation, it must also eliminate and destroy. We must eat and drink for nourishment, but we must discharge the resultant waste products, and use the rest of the food to distribute needed materials to the various cells of the body.  The material we eat and drink is torn apart and destroyed as it is changed into these other materials.

Everything is subject to entropy, which comes in many forms. A room is subject to entropy if not maintained. The bed becomes a mess, the drawers are helter skelter, the floor is littered with discarded clothing items that were not consciously placed in their appropriate locations. The room is changing.

A body is subject to entropy as well. The body ages, cells die, new ones are born. Disease takes root in a part of the body and wants to grow at the expense of the donor body. The body dispatches its best trained troops to fight off the invasion. Many die valiantly trying to protect their host. The dead cells are in turn used for something in the body.

A community has entropy: crime, poverty, injustice, and corruption are all forms of entropy.  They tear at the social fiber promoting change. In a community, it may be elections to get better leaders or new laws to control certain kinds of destructive behavior, or a new attitude by the people or war or revolution. What we call evil is a form of social entropy.

But in this world of opposites, we have neg-entropy to counter entropy. In a room it is called daily maintenance, making one’s bed and putting clothes where they belong.  In a body there is medicine, that can be both neg-entropic and entropic, there is surgery, diet, exercise, relaxation exercises, education, lifestyle changes (like stop drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, getting stressed out) and psychotherapy available to counter the effects of entropy. In a community there is a political system that responds to the people, there are just laws and fair enforcement and prosecution of violations.

On the personal we see entropy as evil. The murderer is an agent of entropy, as are all criminals. All human vices are entropic: killing, lying, stealing, rape, gluttony, greed etc. Virtues are the antidotes.

ENTROPY                                    REMEDY

Disorganized Energy                Organized Energy

dust collecting in a room            housecleaning
loss of muscle tone                     exercise
mental disorder                           psychotherapy
physical disorder                        medicine, diet, surgery
loss of concentration                  meditation
loss of faith                                prayer
poor performance                      practice
building decay                           building contractor work

The Seven Laws of Man

1.    Do not have any gods before the One.

2.    Do not bear false witness

3.    Treat each person and act as an end in itself as well as a means to an end.

4.    Do not steal

5.    Do not kill

6.    Do not waste

7.    Always remember



1.    Do not have any other gods. This means not only false idols or believing in many gods, but also any other primary concerns be they business, family, or otherwise self-gratifying and illusory. It means we do not consider money or friendship or self-image ahead of the One. It also means subordinating the animal soul or the jiva atman (individual soul) or the ego to the creator and his force and grace or your higher self. If everything you do is by his grace, then you should have no pride in yourself from your many achievements, but rather gratitude to G-d for providing all the ingredients. It also means that this also would apply to others. They, too, have been given a role to play and their own special set of talents, experiences, qualities, and behavior. They are not to blame, but are worthy of our compassion as we are from ourselves and others.

2.    Do not bear false witness.  This means that we are not to say something that is not true as a witness either to an external or internal experience. Since G-d’s nature is truth, any statement that does not  reflect truth is also a violation of the first commitment: not telling the truth is denying G-d. It includes even the most mundane lies such as false compliments. If the motive is to make the other person feel better, we can find a way to say it or do it in an honest way. It may take a little more effort.

3.    Treat each person and act as an end in itself. While everyone we know and everything we do can be seen as a means to an end, they are also ends in themselves and should be treated accordingly. This may have been what Jesus meant when he said “love each person as yourself.” We cannot make ourselves love everyone, but we can act as though we do by treating them as the infinite beings and image of G-d that they are. With our tasks, if they must be done, then they can be done carefully, attentively, lovingly with appreciation for their special qualities. If we are mowing the yard, washing the floor, painting the living room, picking up broken glass, eating a sandwich, we can enjoy each moment of our activity realizing not only the apparent good we are doing, but also seeing the act in its neg-entropic context. Most of our beneficial activities are efforts to stop or reverse life’s entropic nature. We pull weeds to save the grass, and we see in the act a way of keeping the good and eliminating that which interferes with it. Even in the elimination of the weeds in life, they too must be revered and used to do good as in a kind of mulch.

Following this practice also allows us to be in the here and now, which is actually where everything takes place. By treating everyone and thing also as an end in itself, we are in the here and now.

4.    Do not steal. In a way this goes without saying because of the first three commitments. Stealing does not only refer to taking property that belongs to others.  It also refers to stealing one’s good name as occurs in cases of slander, liable, backbiting and rumor-mongering. Stealing also reflects a kind of jealousy, covetousness and ingratitude that separates us from each other and an appreciation of all that has been provided us. Stealing stems from fear, while all these recommended acts are motivated by and exist to promote love.

5. Do not kill. Not only does this mean prematurely ending someone’s life, but it also extends to destroying anything that is good and helpful. While with all commitments, there are situations which are exceptional. Killing in self-defense is an exception here, however it should be noted that no matter what the situation, killing will be done with severe consequence to both the victim and the survivor. Killing violates all the previous commitments to the ultimate degree.

6.    Do not waste. This ties in the previous four. Letting water run, or squandering energy, taking more food than you need, and throwing away what is left over, are examples of it. But also not using your education or talent or situation to make things better, discounting the kindness and advice of well-meaning others are examples of waste. All acts of gluttony and greed can be categorized as waste.

7.    Remember. In a “perfect” world, we would all know and follow the first six commitments. And if we did not all know them instinctively with them hard-wired into our system, at least you would think we would once we realized it. Apparently it doesn’t work that way. We have to understand these vows and must remember to keep them. Remembering includes remembering that while we are trying our very best, we are realizing that it is through the grace of the One that we are even alive. That we did not create our own minds, pick our own parents and genes, we did not choose where we were born or whether our parents were poor or where we went to school, who our teachers were, and many times, what our experiences would be.  And yet all of these things shape the way we are, do, feel and appear.

So remembering also includes the other vows.  We want to remember to treat every person and task also as an end in themselves and therefore behave accordingly. This means not rushing to finish something, but taking the time needed to enjoy it and do it to the best of our ability as is appropriate in that specific situation. We also must remind ourselves to reflect reality as faithfully, while compassionately, as we can. But before we remember not to misrepresent, we must remember not to fall for all the traps that precede that point. So even before remembering not to lie about what you did last night, last night you should have remembered not to do that about which you are now tempted to bear false witness. And so on.

We must be ever vigilant, paying close attention to what is being presented to us at each moment. And we must remember to remember also as an end in itself.

On Treats and Bonuses

Every day I take my dog to one of the nicest dog parks in the city.  The people with dogs are for the most part interesting, intelligent people who love their dogs and treat them well.  Whether their dogs are young or old, on lease or off, these kind companions always have a treat ready for them.  If the dog comes to his loving companion, that calls for a treat.  If he retrieves a ball, as may be his nature, he gets a treat.  If the dog lets someone pet him, he gets one.  If the dog enjoys being petted, he gets one. If he finally stops barking at another dog or a person, he gets one. If the dog leaves the park, that means one more treat.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a dog get a treat for taking a treat.

Anyone watching the constant flow of special rewards would have to think well of both the dogs and their generous caretakers.  Almost any dog trainer will tell you that there is no better way to train or condition one’s dog to do what his benefactor wants than by giving him treats to motivate him.

Large organizations like professional sports teams and highly competitive corporations give bonuses to their employees to reward them for doing their very best at work.  Young professional athletes are oftimes given bonuses just for signing a contract to join the club at a very high salary.  Stock brokers can get bonuses larger than their salaries for being even more successful than anticipated.  These bonuses are awarded to recognize successful efforts and to keep the best and brightest loyal to the organization.  Absent these bonuses, the organizations could lose these super achievers to the competition since it is only normal for people to want to get the very most for their excellent efforts.  And isn’t this what free enterprise capitalism is all about - producing excellence by finding and rewarding the best in the field?

Who could object to treats for obedient dogs and bonuses for high performing professionals?

Me.

I love my dog.  I feed him, groom him, pick up after him and walk him every day.  I take him to his favorite park where he can meet and greet his favorite canine companions.  He gets love, food, exercise and a wonderful environment in which to live.  Those are his treats.  He does what I want him to because he cares for me and trusts me, not because he is conditioned to expect to get a good-tasting treat .  He knows that what I do is best for him and he wants to reciprocate. I don’t need to give him treats to win his love, respect or obedience.

While this may seem like a radical idea, think about human relationships. Do we carry treats around to give our friends and relatives as rewards for being with us or for doing as we would like?  Do we give our children some money or food every time they do their homework, go to school or take a bath?  Do husbands give their wives a special present if they are especially good in bed one night or permit them to have sex at all? ( OK, that might be a bad example.)

And while many economists will tell you that in order to compete in a business environment you must offer rewards to encourage senior members to do their utmost to succeed for themselves and their organization, I strongly disagree.  They will tell you that while they pay their top people very well to do their very best, it is essential to pay them extra if they do even better than their very best. Again, I beg to differ.

How does one do more than his very best?

Would Barry Bonds have been less interested in winning the home run crown if he had not been promised $18 million a year to do it?  Would Michael Jordan have played better if he had been offered bonuses to supplement his high salary?  Will our stockbroker try harder to pick the best stocks for us if he knows that he will get a bonus? And why would we suppose that the benefits such as pride in one’s work, wanting to help others or being loyal to an organization and its members are not reason enough for a person to do his/her very best?  Why do we actually insult them by saying that we know that they can do better than they are normally willing to do but for the prospect of even greater reward? That greed is the greatest motivator.

Recent studies have found that offering bonuses to people doing creative work, did not increase their productivity or creativity.

But even if people do not perform better when offered an extra reward, what’s wrong with giving people more?  What’s wrong with giving dogs treats even if they are unnecessary? Isn’t it nice to be generous and even nicer to be the beneficiary of generosity?  Isn’t this extra reward system at the root of capitalism, free enterprise and the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest which leads to a better strain of the breed?  Why else should people and dogs perform better?

My answer to all these questions is that the more we emphasize extrinsic motivation, the more we de-emphasize and dwarf intrinsic motivation.  The more we bribe our dogs and employees, the less they are likely to function out of love, respect, compassion, loyalty, identification or even the joy of accomplishment or pride in one’s own efforts - life’s natural, organic, motivators.

When my dog was young, he ignored treats.  When offered them he would spit them out.  He had learned somehow to associate getting a treat with then having to do something that he did not enjoy, like being put in a cage at the groomer’s where he had to  wait for hours to be released only to be attacked with scissors and nail clippers and then soaked in soapy water.   I think that he figured if he declined the bribe, he would also avoid the payment for it.

Now that he is an older dog in his golden years (he actually is golden), he wants treats and they are everywhere.  Every day some very nice human dog companion offers him a treat.  Sometimes he sees it or smells it and begs the person holding the goodies to spare him one.  If he got one, he would want a second and a third, while even having only one treat could very easily upset his delicate digestive system causing him to lose control of his most toxic material. The result could be an accident in the living room made worse by not seeing it before stepping into it.  Worse yet to not notice until you have carried it throughout the residence leaving parts of it embedded in every carpet.

Much the same has been happening to people who are eligible for bonuses in their chosen field.  I see CEOs, stockbrokers, athletes and entertainers (not that athletes aren’t entertaining) changing their behavior because of these large carrots in front of their faces.  They start out in their careers because that is where their talents and interests are.  An athlete usually begins his or her quest at an early age with the dream of becoming really good at the sport and someday doing it professionally.  When the select few make it to the big time, the pros, they want to be the best that they can be.  They want to keep their position on team and help their friends and teammates succeed as a group.

When large bonuses seduce the athlete into changing his hopes and dreams, the behavior can change dramatically.  Look at all the athletes who have been caught cheating in order to improve their already great performance and talent.  We see it in baseball, football and know that it is probably rampant in basketball too.  The bonus-hungry players are the ones who violate the rules and also disengage themselves from their team and teammates.  They are not playing for the team or for the joy of the sport -intrinsic motivators.  They are playing for more money and fame - extrinsic ones.

We have seen the effect of bonuses on stockbrokers.  We forget that many started out loving what they did and wanting to do their very best to help their clients and their brokerage house.  We have seen CEOs betray their employees, customers and stockholders in order to garner greater extrinsic rewards.  We have even seen it with entertainers who lose sight of the reason they chose to perform replacing it with dreams of bigger paydays which would lead to more and bigger homes, and more stuff to put in and around them.

In short giving extra treats to motivate behavior is neither effective nor beneficial to any of the involved parties.

So I say let us end the practice of giving treats and bonuses in order to get our dogs and highly paid people to perform better.  Let us build our society around a culture filled with intrinsic motivation like love, compassion, loyalty, integrity, responsibility, accomplishment and lots of kisses (at least for the dogs and the hard working spouses).  Let joie de vivre and savoir faire joins forces to create a dolce vita for our dogs and people.

A Lot Less Temptation

The Buddha said that life was suffering caused by desire which arose from conditioning.  The Lord’s Prayer asks the Our Father to “lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.” I am beginning to think that our prayers have been answered and our suffering should soon diminish.  Have you gone shopping lately?

I remember when I was young or at least, younger, there were so many wonderful things to buy.  If I went by a jewelry store, I would see beautiful watches on display.  There were the thin elegant watches by Omega, Patek Phillipe, and International Shaffhausen (IWC). The faces were fine and clean and the bracelets were works of art, sometimes made of pure gold. I saw several that I would have loved to have owned.  We also had Longines, Bulova, and Hamilton watches to admire and possibly own.

I remember looking forward to autumn to see the new American cars come out.  Each year they were different and better than the previous ones.  I always preferred the cars made by General Motors: the friendly Chevy, the sporty Pontiac, the comfortable Olds, the handsome and distinguished Buick and the king of all cars, the Cadillac. 

When I went to a department store like Macy’s, Saks, Brooks Brothers or even as recently as Nordstrom, I would see so many clothes that I would love to wear.  I found myself restraining myself from buying things I didn’t really need just because they were wonderful.  But I still desired them.

Food was also a great temptation.  Living here in San Francisco, I found so many different kinds of great food to savor.  While always limiting the variety of foods that I ate (I don’t eat nuts, beans, fish or pork and don’t drink alcohol), I always found many items that I longed for even when I wasn’t particularly hungry.

I have seen all this change over the past 20 years or so.

Rolex started selling big fat watches for use deep under water and people who never even swam started buying them. Suddenly every other watch was big and fat rather than thin and elegant.  Then the Swiss watch was replaced by the ones made in Japan. Now I cannot find a single watch that I would be remotely tempted to give even a second look.

American passenger cars have also lost their appeal to me.  What ever happened to bodies by Fisher? Where are the adorable Chevys like the ’56, perhaps the best ever?  The sporty Pontiacs are long gone, way before the line was put to rest.  What happened to the great ’64 Grand Prix or GTO or Bonneville that every young person dreamt about?  No more classy Oldsmobiles like the 1960 model or the Toronado or the 98 or the hot 442.  The Buick has maintained its place of subdued excellence, but where is the great Riviera that started in the ‘60s?  And where is the Cadillac that we knew, loved and looked forward to having when we were older and more established.  Remember the ‘56 Sedan de Ville or Fleetwood?  Was that the Caddy’s finest hour?  Can you recall the 58 Eldorado Brougham or Biaritz?  They were hand-made and cost $12,500 back when that was enough for six or seven cars, but they were worth every penny.  Lincoln had its Continental that was $10,000 and a work of art.  Chrysler had its 300 series and the Imperial.  And there was the Corvette, a cute and hot little two seater.  The new version of this classic sports car is the size of a station wagon. I think that the 79 Seville was the last Cadillac that I thought was truly great and worthy of its name. Nowadays, the “American car” means a large, boxy SUV or pick-up truck.  We don’t seem to remember how to make exciting small sedans like we did in the early 60’s or even the great larger sedans, hardtops, convertibles and coupes of the 50s.  

We have gone from 16 American car brands down to what will soon be six when Dodge is the next line to fall after Mercury, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Saturn, Hummer, Volvo and Saab (originally Swedish), Jaguar and Land Rover (originally British), Plymouth and Desoto before all of them.  And no one will miss most of them, except, perhaps, their former dealers.

I go to my favorite department stores nowadays and see shirts, pants, jackets and coats that I wouldn’t own even if they were free.  And the shorts and bathing suits for men lack both function and beauty.  Why are they so long and baggy?  They look ridiculous.  Why do men buy and wear them?  Have they no pride? And everything in the stores is made in China. Who am I helping by buying them?

I could theoretically still be tempted by food. There are still some great restaurants, especially, here in San Francisco.  But the sad irony is that now that I can afford to eat at any restaurant and am aware of many good ones, I am no longer motivated because of my medical condition which is like a who’s who of entropy with almost every organ finding itself getting disorganized probably from overuse, resulting in malfunctioning  that is exacerbated by certain foods and food groups. 

A “compromised” heart makes the intake of food high in cholesterol seem much less appealing.  So foods like meat, cheese, cream, butter and especially shell fish (which I don’t eat anyway) have lost their pull on me.  Foods high in salt like pizza should also be avoided.

An underachieving pancreas makes the enjoyment of sugar-related foods suddenly bittersweet. And sucrose is not the only sugar.  It is in foods ending in “ose” like lactose (read milk), fructose (fruits and corn), and dextrose as well as foods high in carbohydrates like pasta, bread, etc.  And just when you thought that you at least had fruits and vegetables to fall back on, the kidneys slow down in sympathy with the other organs.  It’s like workers of a different union honoring the picket line of a striking union.

Kidney problems mean a need to reduce the intake of foods high in potassium or phosphorus. This includes most green vegetables, especially avocado, my favorite vegetable/fruit, many fruits like bananas, melons and then all the foods that I don’t eat anyway like nuts, beans, fish, and pork. It turns out there was a reason I never touched clams and oysters besides their disgusting appearance.

This leaves me two meal choices: water or cauliflower.   It is hard getting too attached to these options.

So the bad news is that the material world has very little that I am conditioned to desire (and I can no longer go swimming in public refusing to buy absurd looking trunks - someone has to take a stand). The good news is that life is no longer suffering for me because I no longer desire its fruits.

I think that I liked it better the other way.

Taking G-d Out of Religion

Religion appears to becoming an unacceptable obstacle to spiritual growth just as politics is seriously threatening effective government. 

The Catholic Church is again under fire for not only for its violation of trust by criminally abusing minors in its care, but also for its hypocrisy and image-protecting dishonesty. The evidence is leading directly to the Pope himself.  What no one has asked is how long has this been going on.  The fear is that the answer is something like 800 years but maybe 2,000.  According to some true believers, this was to be the next to the last pope.  The last one being an evil one. Could this one actually be the last?

The Protestants are not doing much better.  The Episcopalians, also known as Anglicans or Catholics Light, are splitting up over the ordination of homosexual priests and bishops. Some are in favor, and others are opposed.  The Lutherans and the Methodists have basically merged. Now the former must learn what the method is. Many Methodists must have long wondered.

Then there are the Baptists who while appearing to be the true guardians of orthodox morality have no doubt been saddened to see leader after leader fall prey to the worst of temptations. 

Christianity itself may have gotten off to a bad start by advertising that we are all sinners and the Christ died to atone for our sins.  Christians seem to have taken the religion at its word, perhaps feeling that they just can’t help but keep sinning knowing they will be forgiven.
 
Meanwhile, it must be getting much harder to be a Muslim nowadays. While being tarnished by the small minority of followers who are radicalized against Jews, Israel, America and Muslims of the other sect (Sunni versus Shiite, Shiite versus Sunni). This small radical minority of only an estimated 10 percent of their population, equalling a mere 100 million jihadists, do not hear their mullahs preaching against the violence.  They don’t hear them saying that suicide bombers do not go to paradise and do not get 72 virgins.  They do not hear every Muslim cleric in the world saying “Stop the violence, it is actually a sin, perhaps the worst of all.”

The Jews have been out of the news for a while.  It appears that many have been secularized enough to stay under the watchful radar of religious critics and atheists. Many Jews consider themselves part of an ethnic group more than members of a theistic religion. They are proud of their ancestors but don’t want to be like them by following their laws and praying to their one G-d. Many have never had a chance to study what their religion is actually about besides strange holidays.

Many in this country have looked to Buddhism as a kind of religion light.  They believe it to be atheistic and psycho-philosophical unlike their old-time-religions. Many Buddhists do not think that the Buddha nature and the Tao have anything to do with G-d, meaning that they too really do not understand their religion.

Then there is still Hinduism, claiming many loyal followers.  But this too must be feeling the strain of the modern age and India’s industrial evolution.  Many will find it harder to keep track of the many gods and taboos that no longer fit their lifestyles. How many remember Swami Vivekanada and his wonderful lectures on Vedanta, the crown jewel of Hinduism?

If this all sounds like the happy conclusion of a religion-hating atheist, don’t believe it. It is quite the opposite.  It is the resigned realization of a pan-religious, monotheistic metaphysician who is or has been Jewish, Catholic,  Hindu (Vedantic) and a Mahayana Buddhist (the Zen variety) and a past follower of a Sufi Mystic named Meher Baba.

So is G-d rendered dead?

Maybe not.  Maybe He was never the same as religion.

Many followers of Western religion have the impression that G-d is like a very large and powerful person.  He is seen as a father figure who wants only good for his beloved children.  Some were led to believe that tragedies had nothing to do with G-d. The belief was that though He was infinite, omniscient and omnipotent, our failures and misfortunes were somehow outside His jurisdiction.  Some hope that by praying He would intercede on our behalf against these outside forces. Others think that it is wrong to pray for themselves, believing prayers should only be the global good like world peace or whirled peas.

But many have seen their fellow humans do terrible things.  While history is full of Man’s transgressions, the most recent ones have caused many to lose faith.  How could G-d have let six million of his chosen people die so horribly in the 1940s in addition to 25 million others?  Why does he allow people to do terrible things like murder, torture, rape, kidnapping, pedophilia, embezzlement, fraud, lying, vulgarity, or even double parking?  Some fear that perhaps He has died.  Others wonder whether He ever existed.  Many have lost faith in their image of our supreme being.  Maybe He wasn’t as nice as we thought or as powerful or as wise.

Eastern religions, especially Buddhism, claim to be non-dualistic.  If all is one, then there is no separation between G-d and Man and therefore there is no G-d.  Could it be that there is no separation and therefore there is no Man?  Or, what if our Western definition of G-d is wrong? What if our G-d is not like a very large smart and powerful father, but is rather an impersonal force of which all things are a part? What if instead the infinite ruling the finite, what if the infinite were finite and the finite infinite? 

How about this idea. What if though all is one, as the followers of Buddhism, Vendanta and Kabbalah believe, it is made up of an infinite number of finite beings.  And though they are all inextricably linked, each being has an individual consciousness.  These beings include not only humans but all animals, vegetables and minerals as well as every cell and sub-atomic entity in existence.

An analogy would be the human body. It has fingers, toes, eyes, ears, blood cells, organs, micro organisms.  While they are all part of one body, each appears to be a separate identity and each has its unique role and function.  What if each had consciousness and believed that it was choosing to do what it was doing?  That is what Chinese medicine believes.  And even Western medicine has found that individual organs when detached from the nervous system connections to the brain, continue to function as though by their own consciousness. 

Scientists found the observation effect in play when studying cells under a microscope just as it affects humans when they are being observed. The cells behavior changed because they were being observed. Were they aware of being spied on and then did they decide to move differently?

Does every outside have an inside as students of Kabbalah believe and is the below a reflection of the above as Christians believe as in the Lord’s Prayer (Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven and Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us)?

Do our modern religions answer any of these questions?  Could it be that they are actually obstacles to our asking these questions and then to our finding the answers within ourselves?

Addressing Our Regrets

I recently spoke with an old friend who shared some of his latest regrets, making several assumptions about his past behavior that led him to believe that he had erred in very important ways. His thoughts about missed opportunities and poor decisions were haunting him.  I tried to dispel the feelings and the thoughts behind them.

It made me think more about regret which is so linked to self-doubt.  As we spoke, I remembered some of my past possible regrets that I never really indulged.

I probably should have not left military school before graduating, not that I was given any choice. My father was tired of paying all that money since I was 12.  I ended up graduating a year early at a coed boarding school in the Arizona desert where I had the time of my life.  Instead of going on to Harvard after graduating from military school, as was planned, I went on to a state university near the high school from which I graduated. Perhaps I should have left the desert.

Should I regret what I did?

Years later, after a long on and off relationship, I decided not to marry the woman who was then the love of my life. She lived in a different world. It would never have worked. She got married, had two sons, became an alcoholic and committed suicide when she was in her 40’s.  Perhaps, if I had married her, it would have worked out somehow and she would still be with us. 

Should I regret what I didn’t do?

So what’s the point of regret?  I think that part of it is taking responsibility for our actions and making amends for past mistakes, if possible. Regret should make us take a second look at the processes we use to make decisions. But they should not make us doubt ourselves.

Regret can motivate us to be more careful or thoughtful in the future and in that sense regret can be helpful.  But I have come to believe that carrying regret past its usefulness can be very destructive. If we are thinking about the past and feeling bad about it and ourselves, then we are not able to give our full attention to the present.  Our inattention will lead us to do more things that we regret which will further erode our self confidence into self doubt making us less likely to succeed in the future.

 I have come up with a few remedies for this malady.

First, we can realize that we are doing the best that we can at every moment. This is not to say that we could not do better in the future or that we already haven’t in the past. It is just that we bring everything with us at each moment including past experiences and future expectations. We bring attitudes, knowledge, talents, understanding, biases and blind spots to every new situation. 

So even if a past action or decision appears to have been totally wrong based on what we know now, that is not how it appeared at the time to the person we were at that moment.

And at the same time we can remember that everything happens for a reason and that sometimes it is hard to know what was really lucky and what was unfortunate. I have come to believe that everything is evolving and so every situation leads us to a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

If I had stayed at military school, I would never had the first few great romances that I had in the desert.  I would never have experienced the beauty of Tucson.  If I had gone to Harvard,  I would not have had the life that I currently enjoy.  If I had married that great love, I would not have had the two daughters that my wife and I have shared as well as my simple lifestyle.

If on the other hand I had done something terrible, I should have regret.  I should admit my fault, apologize where appropriate and do what I can to make amends. If it was bad enough, it could serve as a daily reminder to not repeat the transgression and maybe will even serve as a reason to do more for others to make up for the “sin.”

I think that if I were one of the monsters from the previous President’s administration, guilty of almost destroying this country, I would feel deep regret every moment of each day to the point that I could hardly eat or sleep. I would regret deceiving 300 million countrymen about the need to invade Iraq.  I would regret the loss of thousands of our sons and daughters in this combat and the loss of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who died prematurely because of this invasion.  I would regret the trillions of taxpayer dollars that will have been wasted on this conflict.  I would pray every day that I could be forgiven for the terrible things I did while entrusted to lead and protect the American people.

But the irony is that these folks probably feel no guilt for what they did and failed to do. They will learn soon a deeper form of regret also known as “very bad karma.”

But if I had been the only victim of my transgression, I should forgive myself my trespasses, promise to learn my lesson and move on.

That’s what I’m hoping my friend can do but I regret to say that I doubt that he will. He probably won’t even read this column.

Oh great, now I’m doing it.