Listening and Hearing

I love music. I love listening to it and I love singing it. I consider my IPod one of the great inventions and use it every day. But surely, there’s a time and a place for it. I think that listening to music while driving is wonderful, enhancing both experiences at the same time. I think that listening while walking is also quite nice depending on where you’re walking and what you are listening to. Live concerts can be great place to hear your favorite singers. But must we endure it while on hold or much worse while listening to someone speaking on T.V.?

I must disclose that I am a bit hard of hearing. I’m usually fine on the phone or when talking with someone who is articulate and whose mouth I can see making the sounds. My hearing, like that of many of my contemporaries, starts failing when there is a bit of background noise. I can’t hear in a noisy restaurant or at a semi-wild party. Sometimes, this cannot be avoided. But then there’s television.

I resent background music on T.V. while someone is talking. I makes it almost impossible to make out the words in the midst of this unnecessary musical noise. I find it very frustrating. I don’t need music to have a reaction to the words the character is speaking, the ones I can’t hear. The words and the speaker’s presentation of them in context should suffice. I am hard of hearing, but I am not stupid or without the ability to react to verbal and non-verbal stimuli.

At this point some might be thinking, “why not use closed captioning to see the words you can’t hear?” Have you seen it lately? Sometimes it is so delayed that you have forgotten what the scene was. Sometimes when there are just one or two words you can’t quite hear, it turns out that whoever is typing the closed captions didn’t hear it either. Sometimes it seems like the transcriber just gave up. Being so much behind, the caption writer just says “the hell with it” and stops writing and we stop knowing what was being said. Why can’t whatever is not scripted be taped and then transcribed so when it airs we can see the words as they are spoken and not several minutes later? Those already scripted should have simultaneous subtitles. And it would be great if the words could be spelled closer to the actual.

And while we’re on the subject of gratuitous background noise, there are the laugh tracks. They do not interfere with my hearing. They interfere with my enjoying. Again, I understand the language well enough and get jokes well enough, as most of us do, to know what is funny and react accordingly. I find it superfluous and insulting to have a laugh track tell me what’s funny and when to laugh along with the make-believe crowd.

While I have a problem of listening but not hearing, there is also the issue of hearing without listening.

What is that noise at eight A.M.? Is it construction? No. Is it tree trimming? No. What is it and when will it stop? It is someone with ears covered using a leaf blower. Next question - why? Why is this person using a gas guzzling, noisy machine to do what a rake and/or broom could do more efficiently, more effectively and much more quietly? Why is the person who hired him letting him, or has the homeowner left for work already or gone deaf? Why is the worker chasing a single leaf out to the street? Why do we even allow noisy leaf blowers?

And what about people talking on the cell phones while in public? Must we hear their innermost thoughts even though we are not listening? What about privacy? Isn’t that the rage nowadays that we are all concerned that the government might have access to our communications? We have otherwise intelligent people acting outraged at the invasion of their privacy because the government has access to all hundreds of billions phone records that do not include the name of the person or what was said - just what number called what number for how long at what time.   Then why are we forced to eavesdrop on our neighbors and fellow customers? And it wouldn’t be so bad if the conversations we were subjected to were interesting. It might not be so bad if there was any humor or gossip or metaphysical speculation. But it is usually so boring you almost want to interject something to raise the level of discourse. I sometimes start singing real loud or I shout at my dog even if she isn’t with me at the time. If I have to listen to them, let them have to listen to me.

Then there are those who want to share their rap music with us. They drive worthless cars with state-of-the-art sound systems and they want the world to know.  The base is usually overwhelming making it impossible to hear the moronic lyrics. It’s like going to a restaurant where the service is so bad you forget about the terrible food.

It is now late at night and the only sound I hear is that of my steam heat radiator sizzling. It is one of my favorite sounds - the sound of warmth. This sound is being interrupted by the sound of my fingers touching the various keys to form the words I am writing. I’m going to stop now so to better hear the sound of soothing warmth.

A Question of Privacy

We have heard too many public discussions about the issue of privacy. We have heard seemingly intelligent people expressing outrage over recent revelations that our country’s spy agency is spying. They are spying, in part, by obtaining telephone and email data on American citizens right here on American soil. The billions of bits of data involve phone numbers, dates of calls and their duration as well as email connections made at certain times and dates. No one has suggested that the phone calls or emails’ contents were ever involved.  A recent in depth study found there to have been no known abuses. And yet some still cite the Fourth Amendment which forbids unlawful search and seizure.

I find it very hard to consider what they are doing at NSA a violation of the Fourth just as I don’t see how requiring guns buyers at gun shows to pass background checks or limiting the kind of weapons citizens can buy to defend themselves, prohibiting weapons like tanks, guided missile systems. atomic bombs and assault weapons, would be a violation the the Second Amendment.

I think both are fine examples of demagoguery.

So what constitutes an invasion of privacy?

I think having our medical or financial records made public would be a serious invasion. And stealing our identity for fun and profit is perhaps the most egregious trespass.

I think having naked or otherwise embarrassing pictures of ourselves distributed without our approval another.

I would consider having my private conversations made public or having my personal emails read aloud to a group people not considered admirers to be in this category.

Most of us would rather have privacy while having sex, some wanting complete privacy, with some couples insisting on separate bedrooms. The same with our time spent eliminating our waste products.

Also private thoughts and feelings are usually intended to remain so.

But what about our picture, should that be private? Should people not see you? Corporations and government agencies are working to produce a facial recognition system. The system would recognize each of us and produce advertising that would be best suit us individually. The system could track us as we shop at the mall and put up ads just for us. Will this be an invasion of privacy? Shouldn't this system be used only on people accused of shopping too little thus depriving our struggling economy?

It is now easy to find people we have been looking for, to find out where they live, how long they have been there, how much they paid for their home and how much it is currently worth. If you are willing to pay a few dollars, you can also find out how much the person owes on the mortgage, how much he claimed to earn, whether he has been arrested or married or divorced.We can also find out if and when a person entered the country by plane or board and even all the people who were on the same journey.

Should all that information be private?

A person in law enforcement could see your license plate and run it to find your name, address, birth date, aliases, height and weight as well as your picture. The person can then check to see if you own a gun, have ever been arrested and so on. Is that an invasion of privacy even if it is well supervised?

When we donate to a charity we start getting requests from every similar fund. If we give to an environmental group, we will hear from every other one. How does that happen? Is our privacy being violated?

When we go online, we see ads to the side of most entries. They are targeted at us specifically. How does that happen? Is our privacy being invaded?

What about when people listen in on our cell phone calls because we speak loudly in their close proximity and sometimes even have them on speaker phone so both sides of the conversation can be overheard? Is that yet another violation of our privacy? If so, why do we make it so easy for them?

Are our names, addresses and phone numbers private? If yes, then why do we have to pay extra to have them not made public by the phone company?

Can we keep this specific blog just between you and me? Surely, I am entitled to some privacy. That's why I write a blog.
  

Our Man in Moscow. What If?

For the past few months, we have been subjected to daily news accounts of secret government spying as revealed by a 29 year-old, high school dropout who was given the highest security clearance to view America’s computer spy network. This so-called “leaker” has been considered by many to be a bitter and angry traitor to his country. The leaks provided us with insight into the breath and depth of America’s spy capability, including our gaining access to all phone and internet transmissions at home and abroad. The NSA, our master spy agency, was even able to access the phones of several heads of state.

Some of us, especially those who feel that our nation should be cut down to size and not continue to tower in influence over the entire world, feel the revelations indicate outrageous violation of the fourth amendment because someone told us so. How dare the NSA have access to information that could prevent another terrorist attack. Whatever happened to the notion of a level playing field? Aren’t we at too great an advantage over terrorists?

The young “spy” announced to the world that it was he who leaked this embarrassing information and immediately left for China, probably not because it is so nearby. He then, after not being welcome there, left for another not nearby country, Russia. He has been there for a few months treated very well by what many consider America’s arch enemy. He has even been offered a job there. But winter is coming and Russia gets terribly cold. It now appears that the young leaker wants to come home and requests forgiveness without maximum prison time - life with no chance of parole.

But what if none of this were true?

What if, in the tradition of all great spy fiction, this is all a brilliant scheme?

What if America, and NSA in particular, wanted to neutralize China’s massive computer spy system? It is believed to have tapped into our largest corporations and stolen industrial secrets that would allow them to make products almost as good as ours. Could that be why the young leaker went there first? Was China wise to the plan? Is that why they deported him so quickly?

Russia also has a massive computer spy system. NSA wants to disrupt it. Could it be that our alleged spy is actually our man in Moscow? Could this be a brilliant plot to win Russia’s confidence by disclosing embarrassing but trivial spy information about NSA and making our young computer geek look like America’s public enemy number one? Could Russia be fooled into thinking that the enemy of their enemy is their friend?

But there’s more.

What if the administration had even loftier goals?

As most of us are painfully aware, we have been without a budget for four years now. The Republican-led House has put forth moronic, partisan schemes that they called budgets. These budgets would have enlarged our military beyond its current bloat; lowered taxes to the rich, so they can be even richer; and cut programs to help the poor, so that the poor can be even poorer. And they wanted to end the Affordable Care Act to help the uninsured end their lives of suffering sooner. What’s not to like?

The Democrats want the rich to pay higher taxes and would love to dramatically cut our spending for defense, which amounts to about one trillion dollars a year or half of the actual General Fund of $2 trillion. Theses costs include staffing our more than 700 foreign military bases in friendly countries throughout the world and our spy network which was dramatically enlarged after 9/11.

But how could they do it?

The Republican-led House would never allow us to spend less on defense. They want it increased. They believe we must have enough troops to fight two wars at the same time.

Our allies might be willing and ready to let us withdraw of troops from their sovereign land, but can’t ask - their people might object to losing free security. 

What if the White House, desperate to cut our defense costs, used this noble spy to inform our allies that we have been spying on them? The leaders probably knew and didn’t care. But they could act outraged in public and demand that we reduce our surveillance and insist that we quit our bases in their country.

The administration would then be “forced” to close at least 700 bases saving $100 billion a year, and to reduce our expenditures for spying much of which is a waste of time and money much more than being a privacy issue.

Could our young ex-pat, actually be our bravest and most inventive master spy? Could he really be an MIT-trained genius who can quickly destroy Russia’s computer spy capability while also enjoying free room and board in one of Russia’s many luxurious residences (think YMCA or Motel Six)?

And will he ever be able to come in out of the cold, like a John Le Carre character? With Russia and perhaps China on its knees, spy wise, will we credit this so maligned young hero his just desserts, or will he trapped in not-so-sunny Russia for the rest of his days?

How will this story end? What if it never does?

Those Who Know Should Say and Those Who Say Should Know!

This column has at times challenged well-respected phrases and sentiments. It turns out that we are not all created equal and that the Founding Fathers knew it all along. We can not be told to love everyone as we love ourselves and be expected to comply, but we can treat each person and event as an end in themselves as well as a means to an end. In one column I examined the great line from the mystics: “Those who know do not say and those who speak do not know.”

It was supposed to mean that if someone tells you they know how the universe works, it means that they do not know because it is unknowable. And if someone is enlightened and really knows, he would not say because it can not be put into words. Many students of Eastern wisdom would nod wisely in agreement with what seems to be clear. But is it?

I asked who said that those who know don’t say. Why did they say if they knew that you couldn’t know and say? It was like saying “I am a liar.” If you are a liar, I shouldn’t believe what you say. You say you are a liar so I don’t believe you. But that means that I think that you are not a liar in which case what you are saying is true which is that you are a liar.

If this saying of knowing but not saying were acted upon, we would have no columns like this one. People would not do research or write non-fiction books and mystics would all be silenced. This idea of having those who know not say, is what has happened to the Republican party. There are very few among them who know and they don’t speak for fear of not getting re-elected.

But as usual, my take is just the opposite of this bit of mystical “wisdom.” I feel strongly that those who know must say and those who say should be sure they know. I also don’t believe that the mysteries of the universe cannot be known or expressed. I have worked on these issues for more than half a century and am gratified to have finally found the answers. They are fairly simple, straightforward and expressible. Readers of this column have probably come across my metaphysical theory in columns like “Something for Nothing,” “Punctuation in the Grammar of Life” and “Why Do Bad Things Happen.” If you haven’t read them or can’t remember what they said, you are welcome to find them in the online edition or on my blog.

So who knows and what should they say.

The new Pope, Francis, is now saying what Catholic clergy should have been saying and realizing for years. The religion is not about birth control, abortion and gay unions. He could go further and admit to the faithful that the faith is also not about a virgin birth on Christmas morn.  It is not about turning water into wine and giving rise to such widespread alcoholism among the flock for two millennia. It is not about the Jews killing the Savior as is re-enacted every Easter at churches all over the world. As the new il Papa has said, Catholicism, Christianity as a whole, is about treating each other with kindness and compassion and realizing that whatever good fortune we have is by the grace of the Creator. Even our faith itself is by His grace. It is to cooperate rather than compete and to help the less fortunate rather than looking down on them.

And I think that it is even more than that.

I think that Christ, who was both a man and G-d, symbolized the fact that we are also both finite and infinite, both mortal and divine. This idea was also in Greek mythology as well as Hindu beliefs. We have now seen it in modern science. We now know of fractals as being infinite iterations of form within every finite object. So every finite object is infinite and the infinite is within the finite - the kingdom of heaven is within. And each of us is both finite and infinite - body and soul.

I think that the holy trinity, which started as the holy duality, is also very meaningful. The holy duality was G-d, the father and Christ, the son. This, I think, means the infinite and the finite or the subject and the object or consciousness and the object of consciousness. When it became the holy trinity, hundreds of years later, I think it symbolized the basic grammar of life - the subject, object and verb. G-d is the subject (the infinite consciousness), the Son or the finite world is the object and all that happens between the two, is the verb - the holy Spirit.
Surely, most Catholic theologians know all this but they don’t say. They focus instead on senseless beliefs and empty traditions and then wonder why their followers have so little understanding of the spiritual message and act so contrary to it.

Why don’t they say what they know? Do they think that we won’t understand?

Where are the Muslim religious leaders? Surely they know that Islam, like any major religion, believes in peace and human kindness. They must understand that if there is a paradise awaiting us after we die, it is not accessed by committing suicide while killing innocent people. They must know that there are no 72 virgins awaiting each man who destroys his life in order to hurt others. They must know that we probably won’t have human forms and won’t be into sex and that the whole idea is idiotic. Don’t Mullahs know that killing, hating, screaming, abusing women, lying and stealing are activities that go against all human decency and are beneath any religion? Then why don’t they speak? They know that women need not be subjugated and forced to cover themselves head to toe if Muslim men could learn to restrain their animal instincts, the very reason for religion to begin with. They know that their G-d never said, “Abuse your women and cover them so that you are the only one who does.”

Why don’t they say that their male worshippers must stop abusing women and stop killing themselves and others? Are they afraid their worshippers will not understand and grow even more violent?

And where are our politicians, our elected representatives?

Just recently Republicans closed government and threatened our debt limit in order to try to stop the Affordable Care Act from going into effect. It was their 42nd attempt. The cost of the first 41 was more than $50 million. The cost of the most recent failed attempt has cost the nation billions. The Speaker of the House, who knew that the blackmail would never succeed and made no sense, did not say so. After saying that he would never let the government shutdown but just wanted the President to talk with him, he would not allow a clean continuing resolution bill to be voted on in the House even though he knew it would succeed. Why did he say what he knew was not true? Why does he do this time and again when stating his position? If he knows, he should say.

Why didn’t he say what he knew? Was he afraid of losing his Speakership more than he was of hurting his own country and people needlessly?

House Republicans have decried the ongoing annual budget deficits. Surely, some know that they started in 2001 when the Republicans took the White House. They know that much of the cause of the deficits was tax cuts for the rich coupled with the cost of two unnecessary wars. Instead of saying what they must know, that the remedy then would be to get out of both wars, as our President is trying to do, and fix the tax code so that the most fortunate among us pay their fair share while we expand the tax base to include more than just half of all households. Instead, the Republicans say they want to solve the deficit problem by increasing military spending, further reducing taxes for the rich and cutting spending for Medicare and Social Security, neither of which has caused the deficits.

If they know all this, why don’t they say? Could it be fear of not getting re-elected or of not being liked by colleagues who either do not know or will not speak?

Where are our economists? How many predicted the crash of 2008? How many warned about the real estate bubble and easy financing? How many have joined together to say that the big banks should be broken up to be structured as they were until the mid 1990s, when banking restrictions were repealed? How many have formed a massive majority of knowers to tell Conservatives that they are wrong to want to dramatically cut the budget while our country is trying to recover from a massive recession? Why don’t they say that we would be a lot better off today were it not for conservative intercession? Why don’t the knowledgeable economists tell us the easy ways we can prolong Social Security and Medicare? Why don’t they get together and develop a simple and fair tax code? If I did it, surely they can.

Why don’t economists who know say? Could it be that they work for organizations that might have a bias against full disclosure?

And, of course, why does the mass media not say what it knows? Why do their journalists always report the worst case scenario rather than the most likely? Why do they use headlines and previews that exaggerate the true story? Why do a few news organizations actually create stories to further their political agenda, casting all appearances of integrity to the wind?

We saw it recently in our manufactured fiscal crises when the mainstream media piled us with draconian predictions knowing full well they would never come to pass: Social Security payments might cease and our military won’t get paid, no one will invest in our country, we will fall back into recession which could destroy the world economy and Santa might forget about Christmas.

Recently in the well-publicized death of a teenager, the media provided the wrong pictures of the victim and the shooter making the victim look like an innocent 14 year-old and the shooter like a big, fat, Mexican drug dealer, when in actuality, the victim was several years older than he appeared in the picture and was much larger than the rather small shooter. The media neglected for months to show the pictures of the shooter taken immediately after the event by police. The pictures showed the shooter had a bloody, broken nose and the back of his head was covered in blood. The media knew from the start that this vicious murder was actually a case of self defense.  A jury ruled it self-defense after the media seemed to be trying its best for months to convict the shooter.

Why do professionals in the media who know the truth, say it? Could it be that negative and sensational sells and the public is used to superficial coverage? Is it because they know how much we all enjoy gossip, especially when it is negative?

If you know, please say.

What's Taking So Long?

It has been said that the older we get, the faster time seems to go. That is because the relative length diminishes with age - so one year to a one-year-old is equal to his whole life but to a 100 year old, it is just one per cent of its length. Now that I am more than two thirds of a century old and in my last quarter, I notice how quickly Monday turns into Thursday and January becomes September. And yet I also am noticing how slowly things are happening on a national as well as local level.

On a national level, we are experiencing one of the slowest job recoveries in history after suffering one of the most rapid job loss in almost a century. The Congress has gone years without finalizing a budget and must rely on continuing resolutions to keep the government running. The government has yet to come up with a new, simple and fair federal income tax for individuals and businesses even though everyone agrees we need one and even though I have recommended the most obvious solution. We see little progress being made to improve our K-12 education though we have been waiting for it for decades. Poverty is still with us and growing and we are still in Afghanistan after all this time money and human suffering.

But I see it most vividly on a local level, here in San Francisco.

Every day I walk around my neighborhood for about two or three hours. I do it to exercise my dog and myself while able to enjoy my wonderful area. I live in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in one of the most beautiful cities in one of the most beautiful states in one of the most wonderful countries in the world. And I enjoy one of the best climates as well.

Walking with my eyes wide open always noticing my environment, I can not help but pass the same home improvement projects for what seems like years. There is one project that has lasted 12 years. There are some that have been ongoing for three years and have stopped before being completed. 

When I notice a project being worked on, I am always impressed by how few workers there are and how little work they are doing. I watched a group work on a project casually for a four month period. It turned out to be a bathroom remodel. It would take a week or two with four guys working eight hours a day, but it took four months with a couple of guys working a few hours for a few days a week, for 13 weeks!  There are four projects within a block of my home that have been ongoing for years. (It seems to be an unwritten rule among contractors that if any noisy work needs be done, it must begin at 7 a.m. including on weekends and holidays, even if it’s the only work done the day.)

Remember that almost 100 years ago, it took 18 months to build the Empire State Building, what was then the tallest building in the world. How could it take months to remodel a bathroom or kitchen and years to do an entire house?

I might have a few of the answers.

Several of the long-term projects might be contractor-owned taking the pressure off to hurry. Some funders might be having financial difficulties, not being able to raise the additional money needed to continue and finish the job. Other contractors might be having issues with the inspections which have set back the work and added to the cost.

I believe much of the delay is caused by contractors taking on new assignments during the work. In order to hook the new clients, the contractor must pull workers off the ongoing projects to start the new ones before the clients change their mind. When staffing falls to a trickle of occasional workers, it seems that the project never quite ends. Some large project have two workers working a few hours a day as though time did not exist. It’s like watching people in slow motion mode or like watching workers in Italy just before siesta.

In the meantime, many of these ongoing projects require parking spaces normally relied upon by neighbors without garages. (A single garage space can easily cost $3,000 a year to rent). Ironically, many of the projects involve adding garages. The Bureau of Building Inspectors authorizes and the Department of Public Works issues “No Parking - Tow-Away Zone” signs for the anticipated duration of the project. If the project ends early and the signs are no longer needed, they are not removed, but languish, keeping drivers from parking in the unused spaces.  DPW, with its five inspectors, cannot keep track of all the signs and has better things to do but to remove unneeded signs.

What can be done?

I have some ideas. It starts with the permit approval process. The process should include an agreement of how long the project should take and its required staffing. The permit applicant should also be helped estimate the cost of the project and be expected to show that the needed funds are available. The contractor should be held accountable to maintain sufficient staff working full days and to stay on schedule to complete the project.

The “No Parking” signs should be issued with large deposits for the agreed upon work period. The contractor should be motivated to immediately remove the signs when no longer needed by getting a refund for the unused days and avoiding a large fine subtracted from the deposit if the signs are not immediately removed. Members of the Department of Parking and Traffic should be authorized to remove expired or otherwise unneeded signs.

I have always been lucky with contractors. Each of mine had staff who did the job well, did it quickly and were gone. The contractors had several similarities. They were licensed and had a staff of workers who were paid for full time, year round employment. The workers were here legally and spoke English fluently. They knew their job and had not learned it a few hours before. The workers didn’t leave to work another job. They knew that they had to finish mine first. I paid most of the bill at the end when the work was done.

Never pay before the work is done! It is too much of a temptation for the contractor to forget to finish or to take his time doing it. Avoid charming contractors that have surely kissed the blarney stone. I found that the more charming the contractor, the worse the work.

In the meantime, if there is a project in your neighborhood that seems to have overstayed its welcome or has gone but left its signs behind, you can call and complain. In San Francisco dial 311 and tell them the problem. They will follow through and get action.

I’ve got to get back to my kitchen remodel to finish it before my yet unborn grandchildren retire. 

Saving the Affordable Care Act

The Republicans in the House have tried 41 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They are now holding the country's budget hostage. Why not suspend the mandatory provisions and make sign up voluntary for at least the first year? There are 30 million Americans who could get Medicaid and millions who have preexisting conditions who would want to sign up, could.  Businesses will help their employees if they want to and would have gotten around it if they didn't want to participate.

Insurance companies will be more competitive knowing that people don't have to sign up. 

The promised tax breaks should also be suspended.  They also drive prices up because insurers know that the government will pay the extra.

My question is why no one has suggested this very obvious answer. It is so obvious. Why haven't the media asked this and why haven't any elected officials mentioned this solution.

Absent the mandatory part, what can freedom loving Republicans object to - helping Americans afford healthcare? Are they against freeing Americans from the fear of lack of coverage and financial ruin if sick?

The same was true about the "housing crisis."  People found out that their dream home was temporarily worth less than they owed. So what? Those that could no longer afford their mortgage payments could have been told that they can arrange to pay just the interest on the outstanding balance at the current low rates until the market improves. And, as we have seen in Arizona, Florida and California, prices have rebounded, some to their high rates. 

Where was the media and where were our representatives? None could have mentioned this option that was available at the major lenders? Why was the choice to walk away or to get the government to pay down the debt?

Why does the media think that it's only job is to quote what people say during their 15 minutes of fame? Why don't reporters think that they should think too? 

And if none can think of these obvious solutions, why don't they listen to people like me when we give them the answer? 






















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What's News?

I watch and read a lot of news each day in order to stay informed and to gather ideas and data for future columns and blogs. I watch the network news each evening taping and seeing at least three broadcasts. I also read the local and premier American papers, I review the weekly columns of a few of my favorite columnists and I also read the news on the Huffington Post (HuffPost).

The problem is that each day I see a lot of repetition of the same story. That’s understandable. After a while a definite format pattern emerges especially among the big three networks.

The motif is sometimes sensational and superficial with a strong scent of bias.
The news elements have a deja vu quality to them.

Each night there is a sensational natural disaster. It could be heavy rain, hurricanes, tornadoes, forest fires, droughts, flooding, earthquakes, ice melts, record heat or record cold or a record for having no record. There is sometimes the requisite whipping boy or girl, usually meteorologists, who must report in the midst of the worst weather knowing that most viewers are watching hoping to see the reporter destroyed by the turbulence or at least knocked down and embarrassed by it. Why else expose them to the elements? Tragic victims are always interviewed putting on a brave face and promising to rebuild not matter how absurd it seems. And then there are the interviews with the victims of nature’s fury. Journalism made easy: “How do you feel now having lost everything?” “Yes, I have lost everything I have accumulated for the past 60 years, but I am so glad that no one was hurt. It was a miracle.” (Question not ever asked: “Wouldn’t it have been more of a miracle if it hadn’t happened at all?”) Reporting on the same tragic, sensational story will go on night after night as long as humanly possible.

This could be upstaged by an act of incredible domestic violence. Though such a story comes up too often, it is less commonly reported than the natural disaster stories which can go on for weeks. Reporters can not only visit and report on the scene, they can interview experts who can give us all the speculation and details that we don’t really need to listen to. We can then spend weeks getting to know the victims, each heroes in their own way. We can not help but be touched. We send donations to the affected families. We then do little to avoid having it happen again and again.

Then there is the obligatory international violence report. It always involves Muslims killing or rioting or killing while rioting or rioting because of a killing caused by rioting. The motto should be “Go to the Middle East and have a riot, they’re to die for.” There is always much empty speculation as to the cause and the solution. “What are they thinking and is it anything like what they are saying? Can we believe them or convince them that we do even if we don’t? And will they believe that we believe them? And does any of this speculation really matter?”

We are sometimes subjected to the opinions of politicians that no one can take seriously talking seriously as though they were able. The more often they appear on T.V., the less reason they have to do so or at least that we have to listen. When the word “war” comes up we can always count on an interview with the terribly senior senator from a great southwestern state. His answer to every international problem is the same - let’s go to war! Let’s bomb Libya, Egypt, Yemen, North Korea, Iran and Syria - at the same time if need be.  

Then there is the medical segment with a network medical expert who also manages to have a full time practice in another part of the country. Each night we learn of yet another change in modern medical theory. Something that was thought good is now bad. Something once thought harmful is now harmless. Medical procedures we were told were life-saving, we now learn were our greatest threats. One night we are told that a new study has found that we waste $750 billion on fraud, waste or unnecessary procedures. That amount, if true, exceeds our current annual federal budget deficit. We might wonder how many tests and procedures that we have had were unnecessary or even harmful. We learn that aspirin is good and we should all take one a day only to later be told to do so only if we have serious medical problem that requires it. Mammograms are and are not valuable, they save lives and produce false positives causing unnecessary testing. Coffee and alcohol are good up to a point but that point keeps changing perhaps affected by the amount we drink them. Cigarettes are still harmful, apparently. So far.

This segment can be followed by the day’s gossip. It usually involves some trouble involving a celebrity who became one by getting into the same trouble. Is so-and- so in rehab again? Did so-and-so really do that while driving? Are they really breaking up? Were they really ever together? Are they real? How do you know? And why should I care? And what is their take on the major issues of the day? This segment lets the media get back at their unfavorites, unusually the non-p.c. Did someone say something that could be racist, ageist, sexist or otherwise embarrassing? Let’s hear all about it, shall we?

 A celebrity known to be a female Southern Bubba recently revealed that she once used the “N” word. Can you imagine? No one else ever has, have they? Let’s watch her career fall apart day by day. How many brave sponsors have cancelled her because they would never have used such language, nor would any of their customers? What could be worse? I know. An actor said something bad about a religious minority group when he was really drunk. The network news allowed us to watch him be destroyed, a little more each week.  None of us have ever been drunk and none would ever say anything bad about any religious group would we? The media loves to see the successful fail, an American schadenfreude  (a great German word that means taking joy in someone else’s loss).

All this “news” usually ends with a positive story about an American or group of Americans doing good for others. The stories are truly touching and show how wonderful human beings can be. It almost makes you want to be one even after all the bad things we see that they do during the rest of the news.

Then there is the print media.

The print media including online stories try to grab us with the headline. The reporter seems to lose interest in the story right after the headline. I think that the problem is that the story can not live up to the headline. So the headline is “The President crushes the House leadership.” The story is that the President has said he would veto legislation that also included........ There is no crushing. No crusher or crushee. Just the headline that got you to read an otherwise uninteresting article.

But it’s worse than that in the print media. Not only are the headlines sensationalised, but the reporting is of such poor quality. News writers in general seem to have lost the basics like who, what, when, where and why. They forget to summarize the story in the first paragraph and then they go on to leave out essential parts.  There can be a story about an attack at a military base. Several of our people are killed. What happened to the shooters? Sometimes they actually leave that part out.  Or there is a report about sentencing and it neglects to finally say what it was or at least what it could be. During the war in Iraq, we got a nightly count of our casualties but never told how many Iraqis had died. And they never mentioned that they never mentioned it. It was hundreds of thousands in case you still haven’t heard.

It seems that many reporters think themselves more like stenographers. They just record what the person interviewed says, even when not being asked. Reporters seem to sometimes forget that they can ask challenging questions to get at the bottom of the story rather than staying on the very surface of it.

And just when it seemed that journalism had hit an all time low, it went further from course. It started years ago with cable news that must pad and almost create news in order to stay on the air 24 hours a day. And then there was Fox “news” or what some call “Fixed News” because it seems that it was scripted by people with a specific political agenda and not one that reflected intelligence, integrity or impartiality: the ultimate slap in the face of journalist standards.

But now there is something even worse. It is malcontents leaking masses of confidential information in the name of journalism.  Wikileaks and its sympathizers are seeking all the prestige and protection of journalism while actually just practicing mean-spirited gossip. The information they leak does not help anyone and is usually misunderstood and misrepresented. The mainstream media give these false journalists too much attention which only encourages their basic narcissism.

I have remembered the biblical passage admonishing the people to post sentries at all the gates of the city. Besides the straightforward tactical advice (something we are only now learning about the need for better border security), it is also symbolic. It means that we should control what goes into our body through its various entrances some of which are our eyes and ears. To this end, each evening I use fast forward to go past the repetitious, the gory, the gossip, and the sensational. It leaves me with a few minutes of interesting news.  And there is some interesting news, every night, no matter what, you just have to work hard to find it.

That’s what’s news.

NSA: READ MY EMAIL, PLEASE

There is much concern by some Americans that the National Security Agency has access to our emails and phone calls.  Those concerned feel that their privacy has been violated and fear that they may have been targeted because of their personal importance and their intimate emails might be shared with strangers who are overreaching their authority to indulge in some interesting reading and listening.

So the fear among some is that their requests for more information about some products available on the web like men’s shirts on sale for this week only, or a build your own BMW site could be viewed by others, strangers.  Some might fear that the funny cat videos we forward to friends could be intercepted and misinterpreted by spies desperate to get something on us because of our importance making everything we do is both sacred and subject to violation.

I have a different take. I have been writing my elected officials about problems that face us for years now with little success.  When the housing crisis hit and millions of homeowners were unable or unwilling to pay their mortgage amount because the value of their collateral - their home - had declined, I wrote letters suggesting a solution of sorts.  Never mind the fact that the home is the same home and provides the same value to its inhabitants.  Never mind that many purchases made with credit become worth less than the debt they created, everything from clothing to appliances to electrical devices.  I had the solution and wrote to every official I could.  My answer was to have the banks let these homeowners pay only interest at the current low rate on the remaining balance until the financial situation improves, cutting their payments by more than half and making them cheaper than the prevailing rental rates. The homeowners would pay less than half of their mortgage payment while maintaining their credit rating, banks would not lose money on bad loans and foreclosures and the government and taxpayer would pay nothing.

My letters were read by young interns.  These 20-something-year-olds are trained to find the topic and then mail back a form letter from their boss. The letter Senator Feinstein’s young staff sent me was a letter saying the senator totally agreed with me that the government should spend tens of billions of dollars to pay down the troubled mortgages and subsidize the fees associated with refinance. My letters to the President got similar form responses, disregarding my idea and repeating his own.

The same happened when I sent them all my tax plan which would eliminate all itemized deductions and credits for personal income taxes replacing them all with a standard deduction and would count all income as equal ( e.g., earned income is equal to dividends, UIB payments, Social Security, interest, etc.) with only about five tax brackets.  My plan would reduce fraud, simplify tax preparation, raise revenue and make taxes fairer getting the rich to pay more while getting more families to contribute something,  This brilliant plan has also been ignored by our decision makers who assure us that they are trying so hard to deal with these difficult problems.

I have found it impossible to get a good idea to our political leaders.

I write long emails also to friends on both the far right and left. I argue each point with them online articulating what I think our government should be doing like closing hundreds of our foreign bases, reducing foreign aid, cutting waste in government - by eliminating the penny and nickel, ending the blue Angels and Fleet Week, eliminating Saturday mail delivery, ending reimbursement for travel for training or conventions, etc. - simplifying our tax code, reversing outsourcing, dealing with the document free resident problem and immediately withdrawing from the Middle East.

I want NSA to read these emails and then show them to the President and our elected officials.  Maybe they could be also shown online and on the front page of all our major papers.  If they also show my picture, I want it to be a very flattering one, maybe it could be retouched a bit to make me look younger with a full head of hair - red hair might be nice.

Oh what fun all that attention would be. Maybe I could become an international folk hero like loyal Americans Ed Snowden and Private Brad Manning without years in prison, as they surely will. But narcissists probably feel that all the attention is well worth the penalties.

So please, NSA, don’t read my fellow Americans’ communications because surely they are precious, just read mine. I’ll make sure that the spelling and grammar are correct and I will always speak clearly while making phone calls to friends and relatives.  As an added incentive, I will try to include some humor, the kind I think you spies would enjoy.

What Are Americans Willing and Able To Do?

I was raised believing that America was the greatest country on Earth because its people were self-reliant, hard-working, honest, intelligent, creative, well-educated and generous.  American workers are still said to be the most productive by far, many times more than their Asian counterparts including those in India, China.

I am now being told that 47% of our people pay no income tax; that billions a year are paid to ineligible people for unemployment benefits and earned income credit, programs set up to help those of us who were not quite as self-reliant.  I am learning that many of our most successful Americans are hiding their assets in foreign countries to avoid paying their fair share of taxes while their money does not circulate in our economy.

My once-held beliefs about the American character are now also being challenged by our elected officials.

Representatives in the House and Senate are working hard to craft a comprehensive immigration policy.  On the Senate side, eight members have cobbled together what they think might be a good plan.  The plan disregards the fact that we have more than ten million Americans out of work and tens of thousands of high school seniors who want to get into the college of their choice;  that most of our unemployed have limited education and needed skills and that we have a good number of well-educated scientists out of their normal work.

This plan is based on a thesis that Americans don’t want to do many jobs like working in hotels, restaurants, construction, domestic service, farming and gardening; are not smart or diverse enough for many colleges and graduate schools; are not qualified for high level scientific jobs and are not productive enough to provide manufactured goods or even customer services.

Based on these assumptions, the plan is to bring more temporary, unskilled workers in to work in hotels, restaurants, construction, domestic service, farming and gardening.  The crafters of the bill want foreign students who go to American colleges to be able to stay to put their education to use here instead of their native land.  

Is it true that our fellow Americans feel themselves too good to do the kinds of work must be “insourced” by document-free residents?  Is it true that businesses are finding it hard to find Americans to fill their available jobs? Is it true that while American factory workers are said to be many times more productive than their foreign counterparts who are paid low wages and subjected to unsafe working conditions, it is still better to outsource our work?  Are our colleges finding it hard to attract qualified American students or are foreign students needed to provide even greater diversity to what must be the most overwhelmingly diverse country on Earth since the Tower of Babel?

So what can we Americans do for a living and for ourselves?  If we are unemployed and unable to find work in our field of choice, can we do this other work?

Can legal American residents do farm work, or can it only be done the document free as we have been repeatedly told?  What did Cesar Chavez, born in Phoenix, do for farm workers?  Did he set up a union for American farm workers to ensure that they had better pay, benefits and working conditions?   Why did he do it if only the document-free could ever do the hard labor?  Who did he unionize? Hello?

Can Americans with minimal education work in hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, construction sites, gardening and domestic work?  Is it not this very population that is most likely to be unemployed and of minority status?  (Black youth have a 42% unemployment rate and minority youth in general are at 20% while college graduates 25 or over have a 4% unemployment rate). Are these not the people in the greatest need for these jobs that are now being filled by those not here legally?

Meanwhile, why are we encouraging foreign students to enter our colleges? Why is it that high school students with perfect grade point averages and SAT scores can’t get into our top universities and graduate schools while the offspring of rich, powerful and/or famous foreign parents with much less to recommend them academically are accepted and accommodated?  The current president of Egypt attended USC.  What good did it do him except to let him meet some American coeds, albeit very short ones?  Do we think that he has learned to love freedom of speech and to champion gender equality?

The senators’ comprehensive plan also would allow more scientists to come to work and eventually become citizens in our country. Do we not have enough well educated scientists? If so, why are so many being underemployed now, working as research assistants and post doctorate fellows?  And don’t we have enough qualified college applicants to be science majors?  Are our students just not intelligent enough?

 And we need undocumented workers to do things we feel too busy to do like cleaning our own homes, maintaining our gardens, walking our dogs, caring for our infants, and to do the jobs unemployed Americans would not or could not do?

Is this true?  I still don’t believe it or maybe I just don’t want to.

Where did we get the idea that certain work is beneath us? Who said that we cannot even bother to take care of our own everyday chores?  What is wrong with vacuuming our carpets ourselves? Why do we have a dog if we pay others to walk it and we leave it alone all day while we’re away? Why do we trust a stranger who can’t even speak English to take care of our most precious ones or even our children, for that matter? 

As I walk around my San Francisco neighborhood, I can't help but notice that all the workers speak Spanish, except for roofers who are usually Asian and speak Chinese or Korean and people who work at nail salons all of whom it seems must be Asian - Korean or Vietnamese.

I had electrical work done in my apartment to correct code violations and pass inspection.  The American electrician spent a little time here and the rest of the time he had undocumented workers that he picked up for the days to have free reign of my apartment for three days and to do work that they had obviously never done before.   I asked that their sloppy work be repaired and it was - by another group of workers who spoke no English.

I am beginning to wonder if Americans are becoming more like the ancient Romans who became too good to do any work themselves and became more reliant on what they called the “barbarians.” Eventually, the barbarians took over the empire.  We now call those barbarians Germans.

I remember in 1991 when Kuwait was attacked by Iraq. They were defenseless and had foreign workers doing everything that needed to be done in their land.  Were it not for Saudi Arabia and the U.S. intervention, Kuwait would have been Iraq’s Tibet.

I think of the Pinter play “The Servant” in which an effete aristocrat becomes ever more dependent on his servant until the servant becomes the master.

Is that the way we are headed?  Do we feel too important or inadequate to be the self-reliant, independent, hard-working, creative people that we are cracked up to be?  Are we too distracted by the echoes of our own narcissism to fully live our own lives?

Will we soon be hiring people to eat and digest our food for us or to eliminate our waste in our stead?  Will these natural functions soon also be deemed beneath us?

I’d write more but the person typing these words and the other one who is dictating them told me that they are going on break and won’t be back until sometime next week between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.  I would have asked them to stay longer but the typist knows no English and the person reciting this text is deaf.

It’s so hard to get good help nowadays.

Appearances

      
This column has examined many commonly accepted “truisms” and found them untrue such as “all men are created equal,” “love thy neighbor as thyself,” “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and, my favorite, “those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know.”  Throughout time we have heard these phrases so often that we have taken them for granted without challenging them as we should.

Here’s one to add to our collection - “you can’t judge a book by its cover.”

Have you been to a bookstore lately?  Every book has an interesting cover.  They are designed to be interesting so that you will buy the book inside.  Book publishers and agents want you to judge a book by its cover.

Have you been to the market lately?  Each product is covered in a design intended to get the buyer to judge the product well by it.

But maybe the phrase doesn’t really mean “book” or even “product.”  Maybe it just means that we can’t judge people by their appearance.  Is that true?  What makes us decide to talk with someone or to get to know them or to go out with them?  What do potential employers judge us by?  Yes, it is our outward appearance.

So what can we do to improve our chances of giving a favorable impression?  We can try to look our best.  That might mean avoiding dreadlocks, body piercings, tattoos, pants that appear to be falling off, sloppy beards, dirty or greasy hair, bad breath, pants that are too long and lay crumpled on the floor, clothes that are too tight or too loose, body odor and/or baseball caps with misplaced visors.  And instead of always wearing solid colors we could try attractive patterns.  Look at the people in Guatemala, Pakistan, India, Kenya or Haiti and you see people dressed in beautiful colors and patterns.  You look at most Americans and it is all solid and uninteresting.

Even in men’s ties we have gone solid.  I think it started with Regis Philbin hosting   that million dollar game show.  He wore solid colored ties with matching solid colored shirts.  Then came “the Donald” who wore solid color silky, oftimes pink, ties.  Then there was George Bush II.  He almost always wore a dark suit with a white shirt and a light blue solid tie.  This became an almost international dress code.  I noticed one international conference where everyone, including George II, wore that same outfit.  Boring.  If you can’t wear a beautiful tie, don’t wear one at all. And don’t wear a striped tie with a striped suit (are you reading this Brian Williams?).  In fact, avoid striped suits.  They usually look cheap and make the wearer look like a trafficker in the world’s second oldest profession.  Even Tim Gunn can’t make them work (no offense, Tim).

Some of my previous columns have already lamented the improper use of what has been called “shorts” for men but are now more like “medium-longs” going below the knee on their male wearers.  And while real shorts are appropriate while on vacation in some tropical paradise, they are neither appropriate nor attractive on men during cool weather or in urban environments.  Most men’s legs are best when covered.

I have also surely said enough about big, fat watches.  They don’t make men look bigger or manlier.

But what about women, what are their sartorial issues?  They have come a long way since the big shoulder look of the 80’s.  Designers have discovered the miracle of spandex for women.  What a difference - finally pants that really fit to compliment and complement the female body.  Women also seem to be wearing less makeup during the everyday.  Women don’t need dark mascara on their eyelids  or eyelashes.  They don’t need pancake makeup, but a tan always helps. ( Force a dermatologist to tell you the truth and the doctor will confess that tans are nature’s way of providing sunblock.  But tans must be built up to gradually.) And though wearing high heels can improve a woman’s appearance making her legs look longer and slimmer and making her drooping posterior stay up better, especially under some spandex, it is too high a price to pay for beauty.  High heels really hurt women’s feet and are no longer necessary.  Some die-hard cultural relativists desperate to find a Western equivalent of the burkas and other full head-to-toe covering that some women under Muslim subjugation are forced to wear with Western women being forced to wear high heels.  Let us end burkas, full body coverings and high heels from any woman’s must-wear ideology.

Also as mentioned earlier, women, let’s have more interesting patterns, not just solid colors.  Look at Missoni (and look for him now too, he is still missing).  He knows patterns. Beautiful patterns can make a woman look bigger or smaller, depending on the need. And, please, no more black.  It is not really a color but the lack of one.  Black is for tuxedoes, funerals and the clergy, and I’m no longer sure about the clergy. I see black and white as plus or minus for real colors. Black darkens while white lightens.  

And pregnant women.  You are wonderful and shall be forever blessed.  But I have one request: no more tight fitting clothes until your body has released its precious gift and returned to normalcy.  We are all willing to wait to see the baby after it is born instead of snuggled and squeezed prenatal under your spandex.

With both male and female clothing wearers, the key should be dressing appropriate to the occasion and one’s physique.  Some part of the body that is too big should be covered by something that minimizes the effect.  Something that is just right should be displayed with elegance and appreciation. Sweat clothes are not appropriate at church or weddings, much less church weddings.  High heels, while not needed with anything, are surely out of place with cut offs or a bikini and on tennis courts.

Is this all too controversial?  Am I hitting below the belt and is the belt really appropriate?  Is this all too subjective?  Should we say say “to each his or her own”?

I say “no!”

We have reached consensus about moral issues like murder, lying, stealing and bragging, we can have a consensus about aesthetic considerations. Most of us agree about what looks good and what doesn’t.  Remember the Edsel?  You are probably too young or too old to remember.  It was designed in the late 50s.  Almost everyone agreed it was ugly and it failed terribly.  Look at the history of the Plymouth, Dodge and Desoto.  They were consistently unattractive and now many don’t even remember them. What about the Chevrolet Caprice of the early ‘90s?  It was so ugly, even police departments didn’t want them.  SFPD finally bought some against strong protest from its esteemed principal analyst.  No one wanted to drive in them.  It solved the take home policy problem - people were too embarrassed to take them home.  And let’s not even start about the Monte Carlo - consistently hideous. Gone too are padded shoulders for women, even those who held out vain hope that the large shoulders would make their large hips look smaller in contrast.  They were sadly wrong.  Gone are narrow ties for men as are their opposites, real wide ones.

So while aesthetics can be somewhat subjective, it can also provide standards that the vast majority can agree on.

My hope, here, is that we all agree with mine. 

In Search of the Magic Bullet

We have all been assured that life is very complicated and in some ways beyond our human comprehension.  There are no simple answers or solutions.  There are no magic bullets for life’s many problems.

I see magic bullets everywhere.

The magic bullet to saving someone whose coronary arteries were completely blocked was open heart surgery.  They are developing magic bullets to destroy certain cancers without hurting healthy cells. The magic bullet to prevent severe birth defects was prenatal testing and if necessary, first term abortions. The magic bullets to reducing auto fatalities were seat belts and then air bags and laws against drunk driving.

But are there magic bullets for a country’s poverty or to cure a culture of violence?  How can the poor countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East free themselves from their crippling poverty?  Can Muslim radicals such as Al Qaeda, Taliban, Hamas, and Hezbollah members end their lives of vicious violence? Can air pollution and climate change be reversed?

Surely, these are very complex problems dealing with culture, religion, history, genetics and ignorance.  There could be no easy fix.  Could there?

Yes, of course.

The magic bullet to end a developing country’s poverty by doing just one thing: educate the girls.  Educated girls will have children later and have fewer.  The key to a country’s economic rebound is fewer children per poor family. Educating all the girls might be easier said than done. Ignorant men, like the Taliban, do not want girls educated at all, the better to subjugate them.  Educated women would raise educated children who would behave in more productive and less violent manners.

But what of the magic bullet to end culturally institutionalized violence as we see in most of the Muslim countries?  Muslim men are said to be violent toward their women and to everyone they feel has somewhat different beliefs from theirs.  How does this tendency change?  I have the magic bullet.

Give them dogs.

Muslim men, probably the most violent on the planet, are not allowed to have dogs.  It is felt that dogs are somehow unclean. Their feet should never touch the ground and their saliva should never touch a Muslim’s skin.  Murdering, raping, lying, destroying and hating are OK, but not a dog’s footstep?

If we can convince Muslim radicals that their prophet had nothing against dogs, we could give them all our shelter dogs we have that will have to be put down - but no Pit Bulls, Rottweilers, Mastiffs, German Shepherds, Dobermans or Great Danes - just Cocker Spaniels, Golden Retrievers, Bernese Mountain dogs, Shelties and Cavalier Spaniels - warm friendly pups who not even a vicious terrorist could abuse.

While Muslim violence can be said to have several causes like low self esteem, feelings of inadequacy, low intelligence, envy, frustration and confusion; the chemical force that ignites the need for violence is testosterone.  It is the fuel of our reptilian brain which is the source of our fight and flight response as well as our sex drive. The counterbalance to this chemical is oxytocin.  Oxytocin is produced when a mother nurses a baby, or when someone is cared for or when a dog is petted.  Just as testosterone makes us violent, oxytocin makes us loving and kind.

Can you image a nursing mother getting mad and killing someone?  It can not happen.  So too, Muslims no longer denied the companionship of a dog who provides unconditional love and a healthy dose of much needed oxytocin will not hate and want to kill people. They will not commit suicide killing innocent women and children in order to go to paradise because they won’t want to leave their beloved pets.  Paradise would be here on earth with their loving pets.

What the magic bullet be and have been for our country's mortgage crisis? It started to unravel in 2007 and 2008. There were different elements to it. There were those who got mortgages even though they could not afford them. Then there were those who suffered income loss from our great recession. They were finding it hard to make their mortgage payments. Then there were those who saw their home values sink because of the foreclosures caused by the first two problems. Some of these people, realizing that their debt was greater than its secured collateral, walked away from their homes putting even more into foreclosure and further eroding homes prices. Surely, there can be no magic bullet for such a crisis. Should the banks lower the principals owed and take a loss? Should the government pay down some of these debts? Should their contracted interest rates be lowered? When "no" is the answer, where's the bullet?

Let the homeowners rent their homes by paying only the current low interest rate on their existing balance cutting their monthly payments in half, saving their homes and credit ratings, while not costing the banks a loss, not flooding the market with foreclosed homes and therefore not lowering property values and not making others move because of it. The answer was obvious from the start. I tried to tell every elected official but no one seemed to listen. I checked with the major bank and they said that my plan was always available - the magic bullet was known and obvious from both a fairness and a financially viability angle. Why wasn't it used extensively and advertized widely?

But what about climate change, what is the magic bullet to reverse the trend toward greater CO2 pollution leading to the gradual warming of the planet? Besides switching to cleaner burning fuels like solar, wind and hydroelectric power, what can be done?

Grow more trees.

Trees and all vegetation live on CO2 and produce oxygen. We have lost many if not most of our trees here and around the world. If we could immediately plant hundreds of millions of trees all over the planet but especially near highly polluted areas, the vegetation would thrive from all the CO2 available and would produce oxygen in its stead.

The Western world is addicted to a crippling drug called alcohol. It is the cause of several varieties of physical and mental illness. It destroys the liver and pancreas, it cause mood changes and memory loss. Alcoholism can cause people to fight and attempt to damage lives and property. Abuse of this elixir can lead to heart disease and failure, strokes, cancer, Alzheimer’s, driving accidents, type one diabetes and bar fights.

But what can be done to stem what has been a Christian cultural tradition since a Messiah turned water into wine? Alcohol provides an escape from the reality that sometimes is too much to bear. It is an accepted way for us to try to transcend our ordinary consciousness in the hopes of finding more peace and joy, or at least more fun and fewer inhibitions. Life is hard for all of us and we need a way to get beyond the past and future and submerge ourselves in some eternal present. So even though we are all aware of the severe price we pay for enjoying the fermented tonic too freely, we are willing because of the relief we find in it.

Could there be a magic bullet that would liberate us from the harmful effects of this much-needed transcendental device?

I say yes there is: marijuana.

Marijuana provides the essential transformational and transcendental experience almost instantaneously at low cost with no known bad side effects. Users will be smarter, funnier, more open, deeper, more compassionate, more creative, less neurotic and will have a much better appetite because food will taste and smell better. Love life will improve, while alcoholism can actually end it. It is also said to cure or at least lessen the effects of asthma. 

But what about education? Is there a magic bullet to improve America’s K-12 public school education system?  The system is plagued with all kinds of problems from tremendous student diversity, more probably than any other educationally successful nations like Norway, Sweden or Japan. Our system is impacted by strong teacher unions that make firing a poor teacher almost impossible.  Too many students come from broken homes or from great poverty or parents who do not speak English. While longer school years would help and the infrastructure can always use improving. But is there a magic bullet here?

Yes, smaller classes. They allow teachers to know their students better and to be able to identify problems much sooner. Does this child have a learning disability? Is that child being abused at home? Does this one really follow what we’re learning? Could that one be bored and need more of a challenge? It’s hard to answer these questions with 30 or 40 kids in a classroom. It’s much easier with just 15-20.  Smaller classes would also allow teachers to teach more effectively and would make inadequate teaching more apparent and subject to improvement efforts. The reduced class size would also allow for more experimentation by teachers and students while reducing the likelihood of trouble making.

There is even a magic bullet to reduce our deficit without hurting the recovery or causing damage: reduce the number of non-magic bullets and military bases abroad  and let the U.N. and the various regional treaty countries deal with foreign conflicts without enlisting the aid or unilateral action by the U.S. Making peace would be a large magic bullet for our economy, our morality and our very souls.

You see, there really are magic bullets.  They’re just waiting to be found, aimed and fired at their appropriate targets.

Punctuation Marks in the Grammar of Life

A long running cosmological theory is that the Creator spoke the physical world using the Hebrew alphabet.  The old Testament does begin with the Lord saying “Let there be light” in Hebrew. The proponents of this idea also believe that each moment still depends on His speech to exist. This cosmology introduces the idea of life being linked to language. The basic structure of language is grammar.  The primary component of grammar is the sentence consisting of a subject, object and verb as in “I love you” or “I eat food” or “I lost my gloves.” 

If you look at grammar and religion, the similarity comes more into focus.  The essence of Christianity is the Holy Trinity: The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Eastern religions believe that life’s duality is an illusion (maya) and that all is one. Judaism is also based on this premise: “Adenoi echad” - G-d is one.

So Christianity believes in the subject, object and verb. The Father, the Creator, is the subject and his creation - his son - is the object and the Holy Ghost is the verb, the act or process of creating.

Some of the Eastern religions believe that while there appears to be a subject and object, an I and Thou, there is just the one. Zen, however,  suggests that while  there is only one there are also two, hence the Koan “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” or “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” There is the subject who has consciousness and the object that cannot be said to exist without an awareness of its presence. A clap cannot occur without both hands - a subject and an object.

So when asked “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” the answer is “consciousness.”

We insert our own punctuation marks in the grammar of our lives.

 If we work Monday through Friday, then the weekend provides our period (.) after the end of our Friday work-day sentence.  If we work days, evenings supply us with commas and occasional semi-colons to get us through the week.

If we are students, our semester breaks are like new paragraphs, our year-end final exams mark the end of one chapter and the predictable beginning of the next.

Then there are vacations, holidays, illness, and daily lunch hours to break up our living sentences.  We also have our other meal times, rest periods and favorite T.V. shows to further divide up our daily labors (the way parentheses and “quotation marks” do in sentences).

If nights and weekends are commas, semi colons and periods, holidays might be highlighting, italics or underlining.  So when we celebrate a birthday, we are highlighting the importance that person is to us. We appreciate the person every day, but on this one day a year we want to emphasize that inclination.  Legal holidays are the macro version of birthdays. 

While we are, or should be, grateful for our lives every day, this feeling is put in italics on the fourth Thursday in November.  While we love one another as the reflections of ourselves at almost every moment of our waking hours, we feel it especially underlined on the 25th of December. The same goes for our daily  patriotism on July 4, May 31st, June 14th and best of all on the 11th day of the 11th month; our daily renewal on the first day of the first month of the year ( Jewish Chinese Americans can celebrate the new year three times a year); our unquestionable respect and adoration for our parents on the days set aside to honor them and our perpetual respect for our founding fathers on President’s Day and Columbus Day (now known as something else to some) and on Martin Luther King Day, commemorating the founding father of civil rights..

For those of us born on a holiday, that day is highlighted, italicized and underlined.

When we retire we find that we have and need fewer punctuation marks in our daily lives. What are evenings, week-ends and holidays off when you have nothing to be off from?  (Though we still have mealtimes, our T.V shows [for those of us who admittedly watch it], daily walks, bathing and eliminating waste products to break up our daily sentences.)

Our retirement should give us much more time to insert commas, semi colons, exclamation points, question marks and periods whenever we want to and to highlight, italicize and underline all of our celebrated feelings every day and then, at every moment of every day, so that each single sentence that we experience will be pregnant with our constant awareness and appreciation.  

Two Main Issues of the Day

The two main issues facing our government leaders are no longer unemployment, the deficit, the debt, our war in Afghanistan or abortion.  The main main issues today have become immigration and the regulation of firearms.

Immigration has become a top priority because the heavy favorable votes from members of the Latino-American community are credited for at least part of the President’s well deserved victory last November.

The regulation of firearms has come front and center because of the increasingly brutal mass shootings that have occurred in the past few years.

On immigration there appears to be the beginning of a bi-party agreement to resolve the issue of the estimated ten million or more people living in America without proper documentation caused by their illegal entry.  The plan seems at first glance to be very sound and well balanced. First our southern border will be completely secure.  Then a national i.d. system will be put in place to ensure that only legal residents are hired and are working in our country.  Then people here illegally will be given a criminal background check.  If they pass, they will be required to report where they worked and how much they earned for the time they were in this country and will then be assessed for back taxes with penalties and interest and only then will be issued green cards to work here legally.  To ensure that they are not taking jobs from Americans, the immigrants will be eligible only for jobs that no American wants.  They also must learn English and pass a U.S. civics test.  Then they will be allowed to place their names behind everyone else from their homeland who has been waiting for legal entry.

But at second glance, there are some problems.  First comes securing the border.  What does it mean and when will it be done?  We have been trying to improve security at our southern border for the past 12 years.  It is still not even half done.  When will it be completely secure? What are the criteria for calling the border “completely secure?”

Then there are the work histories.  The vast majority of illegal workers have worked off the books, for cash, for less than American workers would have demanded and for employers who were illegally exploiting their labor.  How will the illegals document their document-free employment?  How many employers will verify that they in fact hired and exploited the illegal workers?  How will the criminal justice system check on criminal history when the documentation of criminal identification is unavailable, because the arrestee is undocumented and not all fingerprints obtained during arrests are in the database?

How will back taxes be calculated absent any documentation?  How many illegal workers earned enough to owe taxes when 47% of American families didn’t? If there is a general fine, what if these poor workers don’t have the money for these fines?  They have to learn English.  What does that mean?  Do they really have to be fluent and be able to read and write English too?  And how much U.S. civics must they learn and where can they learn it?

Though many of them are already working here, they must yield their jobs if Americans want them.  They will no longer take lower wages than legal residents, so how many of their employers will see no reason to keep them?

And then they should get to go to the end of the line to get full citizenship so they can equal to everyone else.  Why?  Why isn’t letting them become legal residents with work permits enough of a reward for people who came here illegally and took jobs away from those here legally?  Why should they also have citizenship?  Is it so that they can be eligible for welfare benefits and later to Social Security and Medicare? Why can’t lack of citizenship be their penalty for their illegal, uninvited entry?

As a compromise, what about first securing our southern border, completely and tightening our monitoring of short term visitors’ visas while creating a national I.D. card system to ensure that only legal residents are hired, doing a criminal background search mindful that it might not be complete, give English language classes and charge each undocumented immigrant a flat fee, say $10,000, to obtain a green card to work and receive special driver’s licenses.  If as many as ten million paid $10,000 each we would raise $100 billion and ten million people would no longer be undocumented but would not be eligible to any welfare benefits.

With gun control legislation, it seems that all the ideas are good ones and couldn’t hurt and would probably help.  We don’t need assault style rifles.  We don’t need large clips holding more than 10 bullets.  We register car ownership and homeownership, we can register gun ownership too.  More has to be done about early detection of mental health issues for many reasons as well as gun safety.

But it seems clear that the real problem is our culture.  We idolize violence and make heroes of our most violent.  We love our military because they can crush their adversaries with brutal force.  Our soldiers are heroes.  Our favorite T.V. shows and movies are violent.  We love James Bond, Rocky Balboa, the Terminator, Rambo, Jack Bauer, Van Diesel, Dirty Harry, et al.  Even our news magazines have become showcases of past violence.  The CBS show “48 hours” used to be about different topics that occurred over a two day period.  The show is now only about murder cases. The same with NBC’s “Dateline.”  Both shows teach us that even white, middle-class Americans can be vicious murderers too. Then there are our violent video games that show what fun it can be to kill people and blow things up.

When we turn on the evening news to get away from all the violence, we see violence both locally and then internationally.  Every night the question is which Muslims are killing whom in what forsaken country (Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Mali, Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain, Turkey, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Chad, Niger, etc).  Lately each night holds news of another mass killing somewhere in our country. We are becoming numbed by and immune to the effects of more news of violence.

We are a violent culture and we must change our ways.  Just as we are polluting our atmosphere and causing climate change, we are polluting our society with violence and destroying the very fabric of our humanity. We must change our ways. But it won’t be easy.  We changed our culture regarding slavery, women’s rights, and civil rights, and are changing our cultural attitude toward gay rights, pollution and smoking. We’ve done it before, we can do it again. We must do it again.

Life After 12/21/12, A New Year and A New Chapter

The Mayan calendar was supposed to predict that the world would end on 12/21/12.  The Mayans obviously did not celebrate Christmas, otherwise they would have put the end off until after our after-Christmas sales are over.  The Mayans were not that good at predicting especially when it came to the end of their civilization. They somehow missed that one.

Now that this day has come and gone with no more than the usual amount of death and destruction, we are told that the Mayans actually believed that this was just the end of a cycle and the beginning of the next.  So what can we expect from this next cycle?

Here are my non-Mayan predictions. I believe that this date marks the beginning of the end of the following systems and institutions:

The right wing of the Republican party.  The vast majority of Americans are against all of right wing core issues.  Americans want the rich and corporations to pay higher taxes to afford government programs our civilized nation has come to expect.  The right wing doesn’t agree. Americans feel that it should be an individual’s free choice whether to have a full term pregnancy that would result in injury or death.  The right wing doesn’t.  Americans believe that women should have access to birth control to avoid unwanted or unhealthy pregnancies.  The right wing disagrees.  Americans believe that certain weapons and ammunition magazines should be banned and that all gun owners must have a background check before getting a weapon to prevent future mass shootings.  The right wing doesn’t. Americans believe that everyone should have health care coverage either through their employer, the government or affordable individual coverage, the right wing doesn’t.  Americans want Social Security and Medicare benefits maintained.  The right wing doesn’t.  The right wing of the Republican party will become the do do bird of the new era.  We will soon hear no more about Rush, Sean, Karl, Sarah, Michele B., Paul R., Eric H., and their ilk.  Fox “news” will no longer have an audience. It can not be soon enough.

The National Rifle Association has proven itself to be tone deaf and morally blind to the inadequacy of their position.  They stand firmly behind the second amendment wanting it to mean that there can and should be no restriction on gun possession by American citizens.  They believe Americans should be able to carry concealed weapons, assault rifles even machine guns if they want to.  Their solution to increased violence caused by increased gun possession is more gun possession to counter it with good guys with guns killing bad ones with guns. Even gun owners have become sickened by and ashamed of their lobbying organization.  The N.R.A. will soon no longer exist having shot itself in the foot once too often while it was in their mouth.

Organized religion has also outlived its usefulness.  Religion gave us a moral code to live by.  It inspired great art, architecture and music.  It gave us a sense of community and encouraged us to help our fellow man through acts of kindness and charity.  But each religion has based its teaching on its assessment of G-d’s will.  It is not logic or thoughtfulness that guide our actions, not intuition or instinct but a high priest’s pronouncement of what G-d wanted of us. Different religions offer different assessments.  They are mutually contradictory so one has to be right and the others wrong.  But which?  It is always ours is the true one and the others are mistaken.  People who strongly identify with their religion feel offended by the claims of those in other faiths.  Wars break out.  And all of religion’s beliefs and teachings are forsaken. Members of the world's largest and fastest growing religion have leaders who issue death warrants and encourage their faithful to commit suicide while killing as many innocent women and children as possible promising them eternity in paradise with 47 virgins or grapes, depending on the translation. 

We now have government with social services and its support of the arts and sciences. We have established laws and traditions based on centuries of past human experience.  We have a vibrant art and music culture supported by private as well as public resources.  We have a vast array of spiritual, political and philosophical schools of though to attend, participate in and identify with.  While some of the trappings of religion should continue - some of the great music like Ave Maria (Hail Mary), Hallelujah, the Kaddish, and Silent Night. The beautiful architecture reflected in many churches around the world should be maintained and used for community gatherings and weddings.  And we wouldn’t want to lose Christmas with its trees, lights and loving feeling.  We could perhaps cut back on the holiday toy spending to the tune of $600 billion during the holiday shopping season acquiring useless junk that even the kids don’t want but won’t admit.

Laws against marijuana will be revised making this beneficial herb legal but not mandatory. It’s about time.

We might start getting serious about waste in government including fraud.  No one can be in favor of waste and yet so little is being done to prevent it.  We waste money on foreign military bases that protect no one, on foreign aid that usually gets squandered and on a lack of accountability within agencies to ensure maximum efficiency and effectiveness. A recent large study found that we waste $750 billion a year on unnecessary medical costs.  They are unnecessary either because the tests, procedures and prescriptions are unnecessary or because of actual fraud, billing for products or services that were never provided.  Our tax code provides ample opportunity for false claims or intentional omissions.  We might get serious about reducing waste when it becomes clear that it is the best way to cut the deficit. We could get rid of the penny and nickel both of which cost more to produce than their worth and are rarely used anymore.  We could end Saturday mail deliveries since most of it is junk mail anyway.  We could end travel by government workers for training or conferences since both can be done via video conferencing.  We could end expensive publicity shows like the Blue Angels and Fleet Week.

There are some things that probably won’t disappear but should.

The abuse of animals from those subjected to painful and deadly diseases, to jungle creatures slaughtered for their tusks or their imaginary enhancements of sexual prowess, to the massacre of marine animals, to the endangerment of rare species, to the use of animals in fights to the death in bull fights, in cock fights or those involving canines should end but can’t soon enough.

The sale of children and adults into lives of slavery and their exploitation in factories with unsafe working conditions should not exist but does and will. American capitalism, our other great religion, has sent millions of factory jobs to third world countries where their workers are underpaid and subjected to unhealthy conditions.  American companies should be persuaded to bring its work back to America paying decent wages and providing clean and safe working conditions even if it means charging more for the products and making less profit with fewer executive bonuses and generous dividends.

America’s large global military footprint should be dramatically reduced but probably won’t be.  It has been 67 years since the end of World War II and yet we still have forces in Europe and Japan. It has be 60 years since the end of the Korean war and yet we still have 25,000 troops in South Korea.  It has been more than 20 years since the fall of the Soviet Empire and yet we are still developing defenses against their possible invasion.  We have been in Afghanistan for more than a decade and yet we are still there trying to build their country.  Meanwhile the money we spend there is needed right here in our own country.

Our political system is being threatened by its need for ever more money from wealthy donors to survive.  We have seen our national legislators act as handmaidens to big business interests who provide large donations for future campaigns. The bad situation has only gotten worse since the Supreme Court ruled that corporations were people and that political donations were expressions of free speech and therefore should not be limited.  Our system needs to be changed to end all political contributions.  Politicians would no longer have to spend much of their time raising money.  They could focus on the issues and make their decisions based reliable data and the will to always do what is best for the nation.  We should have much shorter campaign seasons and rely more on the candidates’ record and their plans for the future.  There should be extensive interviews and some debates but no advertising or  bus tours kissing babies and their parents’ asses.  All this should happen but I don’t see it in the near future.

We should change the federal income tax code to make it much more simple while widening the base to include more taxpayers and by obtaining more from the very rich.  The plan that I would love to see would eliminate all itemized deductions and credits (except for businesses) using instead a standard deduction.  I would count all sources of income at their full face value and have just five or six tax brackets with the lowest at 10% and the highest at 30 or 35%.  This also probably won’t happen because each affected special interest would fight to keep its most precious deduction.

The Congress should end the culture of pork barrel politics and earmarks.  Bills should be written clearly with articulate one page summaries including costs and benefits and each bill should be limited to its specific area. The federal government should have less to do with grants to states to encourage them to follow federal policy.

There is so much that we can do do to make this a better country and world.  We again have a chance to start a new chapter, eliminating the mistakes of the past and replacing them with realistic solutions for the future.  We could do them all if we insist that they be done, and soon.