Last year I had a problem.
I wanted to spice up the social life with a new group of friends to supplement the current collection, but being married with a child and involved in many activities, I didn’t have much time to invest in the pursuit.
In an effort to streamline the process, and avoid the nightmare of making plans based on a conversation at a party only to find later that person was an idiot, I had an idea that a list of questions would determine quickly, at first contact, if a recruit was worth my time.
After several iterations, I was able to reduce the list to five questions, each chosen for their specific topic and insight revealed. In application, my plan has had much success. Now, in an effort to help others in the same predicament, I share the list with the public.
While some may think the questions are superficial and could not possibly determine compatibility, the fact is most do not want to discuss serious topics with people they’ve just met, and it is initially the superficial topics that determine whom we socialize with.
The rules are simple: Each correct question adds 20% to the odds of a successful compatibility match (note: this test can also be used to determine success in team activities, such as a project at work or a traveling ultimate team spending a week together in South Korea).
Good luck.
1. Do you have a wind chime in your yard?
correct answer: no
intent: identify social responsibility
Wind chimes are arguably the most heinous invention ever. Its intent is solely to provide unsolicited noise for a large geographic area, usually at the moment you want absolute silence (at night when you sleep).
It is unclear how society is able to legislate noise from barking dogs, house parties, or construction work, yet a person can do nothing about hours of hideous clanking and banging of metal or wood in four different octaves every night until one takes a baseball bat to the persons and item causing the disruption (not necessarily in that order).
How have we made it to 2008 without legislation banning wind chimes? I can’t add a covered porch to my house without getting a permit from the city, but I can have 16 wind chimes nailed to the fence so every neighbor within three miles can experience sleep deprivation. Anyone who owns a wind chime has a complete disregard for society and is not someone you should invest further time with. Be thankful you found out now.
2. Do you like Flight of the Conchords?
correct answer: yes
intent: identify sense of humor
FotC is a comedy on HBO about two musicians from New Zealand who moved to New York to make it big. Each episode includes a few songs that parody a genre or musician, with humorous lyrics related to the episode. The running gag in the series is that while the duo is completely incompetent in their regular lives, they are creative, talented, and confident in the fantasy music videos about their lives.
FotC is an acquired taste that requires the ability to watch an entire 30 minute episode, so this question also identifies if one has ADD or is addicted to crack cocaine (an added benefit).
3. Is the BCS good for college football ?
correct answer: no
intent: identify concept of fairness
College football, without question, has the most arbitrary and unfair system to pick a champion than any sport at any level in the civilized world except for Olympic sports involving judges.
In every sport, college or pro, no one really cares where a team is ranked in some arbitrary poll or computer formula- except NCAA Division I football subdivision. This is because every other sport understands that the media and its coaches do not have the time to watch every game and accurately rank teams (most submit their polls before the late games in the West have even finished), even if they were able to somehow put aside geographical, friendship, and conference biases (which no one can).
As such, everyone else tolerates the polls for friendly debate- and then resolves who is best by having a playoff system. The BCS resolves it by guesswork.
Many people want to dump the BCS, but many inexplicably want to keep status quo, as if it is some historical tradition that should be appreciated (it started in 1998). No other sport has its fan base asking for their current playoff system to be dumped and replaced with a process similar to the BCS. Can you imagine the NFL picking the top five teams in training camp in August and having it actually significantly determine who plays in the Super Bowl?
It is asinine, and if your social recruit is for the BCS, let him know that your computer rankings just came out, and he wasn’t selected (but ask him not to despair, because if your current top five falter he will suddenly be worthy again).
4. Do you believe in dinosaurs?
correct answer: yes
intent: reveal religious fanaticism
People who take the bible literally believe there is a conspiracy to mass produce fake bones that are then shipped to museums in an effort to brainwash people. Those same people call gravity a “theory,” even though no case exists of a person climbing out of bed in the morning and finding himself walking on the ceiling.
Combining a dinosaur believer with a religious fanatic is a relationship that will never work, because the forthcoming intellectual clash is inevitable, regardless of subject or environment. For example:
Todd: “I am sweating a lot playing basketball on this hot day. I better hydrate so that I may retain a proper water volume in my body to avoid headaches, dizziness, and possible death. What do you think Fred?”
Fred: “I think that is another example of the phony science machine brainwashing you so they can get your money selling useless water products to finance their orgies, drugs, abortions, and homosexual agenda, when that money should go to something important, like new carpet in the church. If you are thirsty, pray to God, and if you are worthy, his love will hydrate you. If you die, it was your fault for not having faith.”
You can’t cherry-pick science. You either believe in the process of gathering observable, empirical, and measurable evidence to support a belief and test that belief to determine validity, or you do not.
5. Do you smoke?
correct answer: no
intent: identify death wish
In 1966, the U.S. Surgeon General cautioned that “Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health”. In 1970, it was upgraded to: “The Surgeon General Has Determined that Cigarette Smoking is Dangerous to Your Health.”
Thirty-eight years later, when even the people who don’t believe in dinosaurs agree nicotine kills, an estimated 20% of Americans still smoke and about 90,000 die of lung cancer each year.
You don’t need to know why your potential buddy smokes, because there isn’t a reason that will justify it. If he is trying to quit, offer your support for that action, then excuse yourself and try the girl in the corner who likes to bungee jump- at least her death wish won't contribute to your early exit.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Friday, February 08, 2008
Faith in Marriage, Part II
People often say you need to have faith. The word faith, or faithful, is common in wedding vows.
I recently read a book called "End of Faith" by Sam Harris. The book is an argument against religion, and he makes a differentiation between religious faith and faith in something proven. Harris argues that religious faith is harmful and wrong, because religious faith is the belief in historical and metaphysical propositions without sufficient evidence. Faith in someone or oneself, however, is okay, if it is based on quantitative results.
For example, I have faith in my son's ability to do well on a spelling test, as he has done well in every spelling test he has taken this year at school. That would be a valid use of faith. In contrast, it would not be good to place faith in my ability to bench press 300 pounds, because I can have never done more than 250, no matter how much you believe in me or I pray to God to give me the strength. Any bets on that result would be lost money.
So, to have faith in a marriage succeeding is fine, but not if that faith is in the words of a vow, an overlord god, or in superstitions that even today still play a huge role in planning a wedding. The faith has to be in something that can be proven, in order to be a valid prediction of success.
But the problem here is that the most important attributes of a successful marriage are subjective concepts that cannot be quantitatively measured nor uniformly defined.
In other words, you cannot have faith in a marriage. It is an oxymoron.
How do you identify or measure the faith a couple has in themselves and each other? How do you identify or measure their love? What about trust? People can say they have faith, love, and trust in their spouse, but all couples said the same wedding vows, so obviously what someone says at a wedding cannot be taken as a true oath until death do them part, even if the bride and groom speaking at the time say it with honesty and sincerity.
To have faith in someone being married forever is no different than believing your next coin flip will be tails, that your dealt blackjack hand of 14 will bust with another card, or you will win a game of eeny meeny miny moe (all of which have odds around 50%).
People may want the marriage to last, but there is no evidence to think that the wedding you went to last week is any more likely to last than the next one Britney Spears is involved with.
In fact (and this will really anger you), there is no reason to believe YOUR marriage is more likely to last than a neighbor's, for the same reasons: You don't know what is in your spouse's heart any more than I do.
Do you think every divorce ended with one spouse saying, "Yeah, I knew he would cheat on me" or "I could see it coming that she would neglect the kids" or "I knew he couldn't hold a job and would lose everything we had in savings" or "I knew I would get bored with her sexually"? Of course, not. So what makes you immune to this possibility?
People change as they get older, and now, more than ever, the likelihood of not being aligned over time exists. It wasn't much of an issue when women couldn't hold property, vote, initiate a divorce, be a CEO, file charges against the husband for rape or abuse, and do everything a man can. It's easy to keep the divorce rate low when a women has no rights, but that is not the case now in America. Sure, Muslim arranged-marriages are still going strong, but I don't think that is reason to push women's rights in the Western world back to the 14th century.
The divorce rate increase in America is not a result of sex education, rap music, or the removal of "Merry Christmas" from public schools, as Christians would have you believe; it is directly aligned with the progression of women's rights. Over two-thirds of all divorces are initiated by women, with the rate increasing with the level of education of the woman involved.
In other words, the more women are given options in a society, the more likely they are to decide the option of staying with their husband sucks, because the fact is marriage has always been broken- women just weren't able to do anything about it in the past. In addition, the reality that people died in their 30s hid a lot of discontent that may have existed over decades of marriage, as exists today.
Again, my point is not to push women's rights back to what they are in Saudi Arabia but to point out that the issues with marriage have always existed but have been masked by flaws in society- marriage has always been flawed.
In Vegas, the odds always favor the house, yet people still give their money, risk their future, their children's future on the next bet, and wonder what happened when they lose everything or their lives don't turn out as they imagined. Marriages seem to be the same method of operation.
People think the weddings of their family and friends will work, because they think they know the bride and groom, the family, and other key players. They feel they have well-founded faith in the happy couple who are, by all accounts, good people. But no matter how hard you try to quantify it or create a test, the reality is you can’t predict the success of a marriage, because we can’t look into someone’s heart and know if the "feeling" is there.
So, can we do anything about it?
It is a fact many people get married who should not. We also know that the consequences of these decisions are significant and impact us all directly. Yet I don't know of a way to fix it, because only the bride and groom know if they really have faith in each other and if the love they feel is truly for better or worse, through changes unforeseen.
I do think that many engaged couples know deep down they aren't ready to marry at the time they plan to, but do so anyway. Society doesn't encourage or acknowledge doubt in weddings ("It is normal to have cold feet... You can't call it off now... You do love me, don't you?"), so they keep their doubt quiet, accept the gifts and attention, and hope in bad times or moments of temptation that somehow behaviors demonstrated in the past will suddenly change and pleasantly surprise them.
So, lacking a mind-reading lie detector and a time machine, we cannot prevent divorces in American marriages. But can we at least decrease the frequency?
I think so, but no one will support me on it. I believe that we need to create via mandatory pre-marriage counseling session to better educate people before they get married, using the third-party impartial interviewer solution that I previously described.
Similar to an inspection before you buy a house, adopt a child, or visit with your bank to get pre-approved for a house loan, this solution is not perfect, but it would identify the big showstoppers.
If you would gladly pay $200 on a $200K investment of replaceable wood, cement, and glass, how could you not pay $200 to better understand the investment that will be with you forever, in flesh and blood.
If this cost is too high for everyone, then maybe the government should subsidize it for the poor, because surely the cost saved in a significant decrease in divorces and all of its consequences would easily pay the cost of state-provided counseling.
I realize most people, if not all, will laugh at the idea of having state-mandated marriage counseling by a stranger not affiliated with any religious organization, and will say they don't need the government telling us what to do, but I have seen the results of the religious counselors, and I am not impressed.
And if we require government-mandated training to own a gun, drive a car, or flip burgers at a fast-food restaurant, why not for marriages?
The government already tells us how we can raise our kids (social workers remove kids from homes every day), our pets (animal control takes pets from people every day), and take care of our yard (homeowner association fines for weeds), so what is the big jump to marriages? A strange result of all this thought on marriage is that I started off thinking marriage should be completely redefined or dissolved as an option for relationships without children, but I found that marriage does work for some and that option should not be removed.
I still have faith in marriage, if not in the people who are getting married and their ability to handle it. After all, I estimate 20% of them are happy, and they should not be punished.
My wife's friend Jen certainly is not going to seek my approval on her decision to marry.
But, if she were to ask me: "Should I get married?"
I would respond: "I don't know. But if you choose to get married, I promise to be supportive, not be silent or turn a blind eye if I witness actions that are harmful to your marriage, and I do everything in my power to help your marriage last forever."
And maybe that is what we all need; a little more support from our friends and family beyond a new blender, a car with cans tied to it, and a Hallmark card.
I recently read a book called "End of Faith" by Sam Harris. The book is an argument against religion, and he makes a differentiation between religious faith and faith in something proven. Harris argues that religious faith is harmful and wrong, because religious faith is the belief in historical and metaphysical propositions without sufficient evidence. Faith in someone or oneself, however, is okay, if it is based on quantitative results.
For example, I have faith in my son's ability to do well on a spelling test, as he has done well in every spelling test he has taken this year at school. That would be a valid use of faith. In contrast, it would not be good to place faith in my ability to bench press 300 pounds, because I can have never done more than 250, no matter how much you believe in me or I pray to God to give me the strength. Any bets on that result would be lost money.
So, to have faith in a marriage succeeding is fine, but not if that faith is in the words of a vow, an overlord god, or in superstitions that even today still play a huge role in planning a wedding. The faith has to be in something that can be proven, in order to be a valid prediction of success.
But the problem here is that the most important attributes of a successful marriage are subjective concepts that cannot be quantitatively measured nor uniformly defined.
In other words, you cannot have faith in a marriage. It is an oxymoron.
How do you identify or measure the faith a couple has in themselves and each other? How do you identify or measure their love? What about trust? People can say they have faith, love, and trust in their spouse, but all couples said the same wedding vows, so obviously what someone says at a wedding cannot be taken as a true oath until death do them part, even if the bride and groom speaking at the time say it with honesty and sincerity.
To have faith in someone being married forever is no different than believing your next coin flip will be tails, that your dealt blackjack hand of 14 will bust with another card, or you will win a game of eeny meeny miny moe (all of which have odds around 50%).
People may want the marriage to last, but there is no evidence to think that the wedding you went to last week is any more likely to last than the next one Britney Spears is involved with.
In fact (and this will really anger you), there is no reason to believe YOUR marriage is more likely to last than a neighbor's, for the same reasons: You don't know what is in your spouse's heart any more than I do.
Do you think every divorce ended with one spouse saying, "Yeah, I knew he would cheat on me" or "I could see it coming that she would neglect the kids" or "I knew he couldn't hold a job and would lose everything we had in savings" or "I knew I would get bored with her sexually"? Of course, not. So what makes you immune to this possibility?
People change as they get older, and now, more than ever, the likelihood of not being aligned over time exists. It wasn't much of an issue when women couldn't hold property, vote, initiate a divorce, be a CEO, file charges against the husband for rape or abuse, and do everything a man can. It's easy to keep the divorce rate low when a women has no rights, but that is not the case now in America. Sure, Muslim arranged-marriages are still going strong, but I don't think that is reason to push women's rights in the Western world back to the 14th century.
The divorce rate increase in America is not a result of sex education, rap music, or the removal of "Merry Christmas" from public schools, as Christians would have you believe; it is directly aligned with the progression of women's rights. Over two-thirds of all divorces are initiated by women, with the rate increasing with the level of education of the woman involved.
In other words, the more women are given options in a society, the more likely they are to decide the option of staying with their husband sucks, because the fact is marriage has always been broken- women just weren't able to do anything about it in the past. In addition, the reality that people died in their 30s hid a lot of discontent that may have existed over decades of marriage, as exists today.
Again, my point is not to push women's rights back to what they are in Saudi Arabia but to point out that the issues with marriage have always existed but have been masked by flaws in society- marriage has always been flawed.
In Vegas, the odds always favor the house, yet people still give their money, risk their future, their children's future on the next bet, and wonder what happened when they lose everything or their lives don't turn out as they imagined. Marriages seem to be the same method of operation.
People think the weddings of their family and friends will work, because they think they know the bride and groom, the family, and other key players. They feel they have well-founded faith in the happy couple who are, by all accounts, good people. But no matter how hard you try to quantify it or create a test, the reality is you can’t predict the success of a marriage, because we can’t look into someone’s heart and know if the "feeling" is there.
So, can we do anything about it?
It is a fact many people get married who should not. We also know that the consequences of these decisions are significant and impact us all directly. Yet I don't know of a way to fix it, because only the bride and groom know if they really have faith in each other and if the love they feel is truly for better or worse, through changes unforeseen.
I do think that many engaged couples know deep down they aren't ready to marry at the time they plan to, but do so anyway. Society doesn't encourage or acknowledge doubt in weddings ("It is normal to have cold feet... You can't call it off now... You do love me, don't you?"), so they keep their doubt quiet, accept the gifts and attention, and hope in bad times or moments of temptation that somehow behaviors demonstrated in the past will suddenly change and pleasantly surprise them.
So, lacking a mind-reading lie detector and a time machine, we cannot prevent divorces in American marriages. But can we at least decrease the frequency?
I think so, but no one will support me on it. I believe that we need to create via mandatory pre-marriage counseling session to better educate people before they get married, using the third-party impartial interviewer solution that I previously described.
Similar to an inspection before you buy a house, adopt a child, or visit with your bank to get pre-approved for a house loan, this solution is not perfect, but it would identify the big showstoppers.
If you would gladly pay $200 on a $200K investment of replaceable wood, cement, and glass, how could you not pay $200 to better understand the investment that will be with you forever, in flesh and blood.
If this cost is too high for everyone, then maybe the government should subsidize it for the poor, because surely the cost saved in a significant decrease in divorces and all of its consequences would easily pay the cost of state-provided counseling.
I realize most people, if not all, will laugh at the idea of having state-mandated marriage counseling by a stranger not affiliated with any religious organization, and will say they don't need the government telling us what to do, but I have seen the results of the religious counselors, and I am not impressed.
And if we require government-mandated training to own a gun, drive a car, or flip burgers at a fast-food restaurant, why not for marriages?
The government already tells us how we can raise our kids (social workers remove kids from homes every day), our pets (animal control takes pets from people every day), and take care of our yard (homeowner association fines for weeds), so what is the big jump to marriages? A strange result of all this thought on marriage is that I started off thinking marriage should be completely redefined or dissolved as an option for relationships without children, but I found that marriage does work for some and that option should not be removed.
I still have faith in marriage, if not in the people who are getting married and their ability to handle it. After all, I estimate 20% of them are happy, and they should not be punished.
My wife's friend Jen certainly is not going to seek my approval on her decision to marry.
But, if she were to ask me: "Should I get married?"
I would respond: "I don't know. But if you choose to get married, I promise to be supportive, not be silent or turn a blind eye if I witness actions that are harmful to your marriage, and I do everything in my power to help your marriage last forever."
And maybe that is what we all need; a little more support from our friends and family beyond a new blender, a car with cans tied to it, and a Hallmark card.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Faith in Marriage, Part I
My wife has a friend (we'll call her Jen). I have known Jen for about 18 months.
Jen's boyfriend, who lived in another state, recently got a new job and is moving to the same city Jen lives. They have a serious relationship, and when you remove the barrier of distance, it is likely a marriage proposal will take place in the near future.
Coincidentally (or not), Jen and I have had some deep conversations on this topic. I have a negative opinion of marriage, even though the most honest and open relationship of anyone I know is between myself and my wife.
We have been married for 13 years this month. Neither of us has committed an act of infidelity, we have a happy and healthy son, we vacation together several times a year, we go out and do things together, and we have an open communication on the topics that tend to result in marriages falling apart (finances, sex, religion, in-laws, parenting, employment, etc.).
Despite this background, I think marriage is a broken concept that needs to be fixed.
(ground rules for this discussion: I am not saying that people who are unhappy should not get divorced, as it is unhealthy to be unhappy until you reach your breaking point and shoot your spuse, your co-workers, then put the gun on yourself. If a father is sexually molesting a child, then you obviously have to divorce the bastard. My comments are not for extreme corner cases that are not preventable but directed at the relationsips that most of us experience every day.)
It is pretty much accepted by all sides that about half of all marriages end in divorce (and the divorce rate is higher for second and third marriages). So, if we have 100 married couples, 50 are getting divorced.
Of the remaining 50, I think it is safe to say not all are happy. I estimate about 20 of these couples are on their way to getting divorced but taking a bit longer to get there. That leaves us with 30 couples.
Of that 30, it is likely not all of them are perfectly happy, so let's assume 10 of them are not really considering divorce as an option and will never be a statistic, but at the same time aren't happy with the relationship (in counseling, cheating on their spouse, avoiding each other, hiding financial issues, etc.). That leaves us with 20 couples.
I could probably argue that a significant amount of those 20 are on thin ice themselves, just an unexpected pregnancy, layoff, bad financial decision, in-law moving in, etc. away from becoming an unhappy marriage because the relationship is only as strong as their success, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt and state they are happily married.
That means I estimate about 20% of marriages are successful and happy. I could go into more detail with my thoughts on the reasons for believing this and the explanation of why marriage is falling apart, but that is another blog entry. For now, understand that I have explained these thoughts in detail to Jen.
I have asked her, if you had a 50% chance that the car you buy will blow up when you start to brake, would you buy that model? Of course not, she replied.
If you had a 50% chance of getting food poisoning at a restaurant, would you eat somewhere else? Yes.
If a toy had a 50% chance of breaking, would you buy it for a child? No.
Yet, even though everyone knows there is a 50% chance of a marriage ending in divorce, marriage is still valued by society and encouraged as the only option for at-risk individuals who clearly don't have the resources, capabilities, and maturity to handle the complexity of marriage.
I told Jen most people shouldn't get married. The risk is too great, and the impact financially, socially, and mentally on people is too devastating and long-lasting. And while some may say that it is a personal choice and not my concern, I disagree. It does impact me, because most people cannot contain the problems of their personal life to just their personal time.
I have to deal with your transference when you commit acts of aggression on the road, blow off your responsibilities at work, or act ignore the rules of civility in society, all because you are fighting constantly with your wife and you've had enough with everyone and everything.
And the impact is even greater when children are involved; the majority of prisons in the US are filled with males who did not have a father influence in their lives due to failed relationships/marriages, and the father was no longer a daily influence (research shows the greatest influence on a child's life is the same gender parent). This doesn't include the millions of kids who are not felons but are disruptive in classrooms, bullies outside of school, and destructive to themselves and society, who also grew up raised in the home of a failed marriage.
Why should our kids get beat up walking home because your son is acting out his aggressions from watching years of mom and dad yell at each other? Why should we have to pay for the vandalism your kid caused because he watched mom throw things at dad when he was six and thinks that is how you behave when you don't get your way? Not only should you not have had kids; you never should have been married to begin with.
After listening patiently to this rant and waiting for me to pause for air, Jen asked me (and I am paraphrasing here): "What am I supposed to do when there is only person who makes me feel that way? Am I supposed to avoid it? I want to experience that feeling."
That, of course, is the crux of the problem: Every engaged couple feels their love is eternally strong. Even if one concedes my argument on the number of failed marriages, no one thinks that they will be the ones getting divorced.
So how do we know a marriage will be one of the successful ones?
After all, in every wedding I have been to or heard about, everyone celebrated the bride and groom without reservation, hugged and cried, gave gifts, said congratulations, commented on how great they look together, and by doing this explicitly supported the union.
I have never heard of anyone ever actually speaking up when asked to by the preacher and saying: "Walk away! He's a bum! In seven years she will tire of your looks and start to fool around with your neighbor!"
Clearly you can't trust friends or family to tell you if this is the right person for you to marry, because they are either incapable of considering the possibility the marriage might fail, too emotionally attached to see things clearly, or maybe they have doubts but don't have the guts to tell the truth; either way, we celebrate and buy presents for thousands of couples each year who will hate each other before the warranty runs out on the applianace you gave them.
I told Jen that although it may be awkward and certainly unusual, the best thing one could do before marrying is to find someone who is neither a family member nor close personal friend of the bride or groom, someone who has no agenda, someone who is open-minded and an intuitive thinker who bases decisions on fact and not emotion, and ask that person if the marriage should take place, based on honest evidence and arguments presented by the person getting married, supporting the case for marriage.
While a religious person is often the most common third-party advisor in pre-marriage counseling (as was the case with mine), they are not a good resource for this task, as their religious agenda makes them no better than family and friends.
I know many people who have been "counseled" by a religious person from a church prior to marriage; I know of none whom have been told not to marry. The goal of the church is not to honestly counsel these people but to have them do some surveys, hear scripture about God, and get them into the Church machine.
Only a true impartial person would have the best opinion on the possible success of the marriage. It may not be perfect, but it certainly would result in a success rate above 50%. It may be a whole new profession- the Wedding Approver. Sure, it would raise the cost of a wedding, but it would be money well spent if it avoided years of screaming, crying, and heartbreak- "The best $200 I ever spent!" people would tell their friends years later, after emotion passed and they realized what a big mistake they almost made.
I joked with Jen that I am available for this consultation when she is ready.
(see part II for conclusion)
Jen's boyfriend, who lived in another state, recently got a new job and is moving to the same city Jen lives. They have a serious relationship, and when you remove the barrier of distance, it is likely a marriage proposal will take place in the near future.
Coincidentally (or not), Jen and I have had some deep conversations on this topic. I have a negative opinion of marriage, even though the most honest and open relationship of anyone I know is between myself and my wife.
We have been married for 13 years this month. Neither of us has committed an act of infidelity, we have a happy and healthy son, we vacation together several times a year, we go out and do things together, and we have an open communication on the topics that tend to result in marriages falling apart (finances, sex, religion, in-laws, parenting, employment, etc.).
Despite this background, I think marriage is a broken concept that needs to be fixed.
(ground rules for this discussion: I am not saying that people who are unhappy should not get divorced, as it is unhealthy to be unhappy until you reach your breaking point and shoot your spuse, your co-workers, then put the gun on yourself. If a father is sexually molesting a child, then you obviously have to divorce the bastard. My comments are not for extreme corner cases that are not preventable but directed at the relationsips that most of us experience every day.)
It is pretty much accepted by all sides that about half of all marriages end in divorce (and the divorce rate is higher for second and third marriages). So, if we have 100 married couples, 50 are getting divorced.
Of the remaining 50, I think it is safe to say not all are happy. I estimate about 20 of these couples are on their way to getting divorced but taking a bit longer to get there. That leaves us with 30 couples.
Of that 30, it is likely not all of them are perfectly happy, so let's assume 10 of them are not really considering divorce as an option and will never be a statistic, but at the same time aren't happy with the relationship (in counseling, cheating on their spouse, avoiding each other, hiding financial issues, etc.). That leaves us with 20 couples.
I could probably argue that a significant amount of those 20 are on thin ice themselves, just an unexpected pregnancy, layoff, bad financial decision, in-law moving in, etc. away from becoming an unhappy marriage because the relationship is only as strong as their success, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt and state they are happily married.
That means I estimate about 20% of marriages are successful and happy. I could go into more detail with my thoughts on the reasons for believing this and the explanation of why marriage is falling apart, but that is another blog entry. For now, understand that I have explained these thoughts in detail to Jen.
I have asked her, if you had a 50% chance that the car you buy will blow up when you start to brake, would you buy that model? Of course not, she replied.
If you had a 50% chance of getting food poisoning at a restaurant, would you eat somewhere else? Yes.
If a toy had a 50% chance of breaking, would you buy it for a child? No.
Yet, even though everyone knows there is a 50% chance of a marriage ending in divorce, marriage is still valued by society and encouraged as the only option for at-risk individuals who clearly don't have the resources, capabilities, and maturity to handle the complexity of marriage.
I told Jen most people shouldn't get married. The risk is too great, and the impact financially, socially, and mentally on people is too devastating and long-lasting. And while some may say that it is a personal choice and not my concern, I disagree. It does impact me, because most people cannot contain the problems of their personal life to just their personal time.
I have to deal with your transference when you commit acts of aggression on the road, blow off your responsibilities at work, or act ignore the rules of civility in society, all because you are fighting constantly with your wife and you've had enough with everyone and everything.
And the impact is even greater when children are involved; the majority of prisons in the US are filled with males who did not have a father influence in their lives due to failed relationships/marriages, and the father was no longer a daily influence (research shows the greatest influence on a child's life is the same gender parent). This doesn't include the millions of kids who are not felons but are disruptive in classrooms, bullies outside of school, and destructive to themselves and society, who also grew up raised in the home of a failed marriage.
Why should our kids get beat up walking home because your son is acting out his aggressions from watching years of mom and dad yell at each other? Why should we have to pay for the vandalism your kid caused because he watched mom throw things at dad when he was six and thinks that is how you behave when you don't get your way? Not only should you not have had kids; you never should have been married to begin with.
After listening patiently to this rant and waiting for me to pause for air, Jen asked me (and I am paraphrasing here): "What am I supposed to do when there is only person who makes me feel that way? Am I supposed to avoid it? I want to experience that feeling."
That, of course, is the crux of the problem: Every engaged couple feels their love is eternally strong. Even if one concedes my argument on the number of failed marriages, no one thinks that they will be the ones getting divorced.
So how do we know a marriage will be one of the successful ones?
After all, in every wedding I have been to or heard about, everyone celebrated the bride and groom without reservation, hugged and cried, gave gifts, said congratulations, commented on how great they look together, and by doing this explicitly supported the union.
I have never heard of anyone ever actually speaking up when asked to by the preacher and saying: "Walk away! He's a bum! In seven years she will tire of your looks and start to fool around with your neighbor!"
Clearly you can't trust friends or family to tell you if this is the right person for you to marry, because they are either incapable of considering the possibility the marriage might fail, too emotionally attached to see things clearly, or maybe they have doubts but don't have the guts to tell the truth; either way, we celebrate and buy presents for thousands of couples each year who will hate each other before the warranty runs out on the applianace you gave them.
I told Jen that although it may be awkward and certainly unusual, the best thing one could do before marrying is to find someone who is neither a family member nor close personal friend of the bride or groom, someone who has no agenda, someone who is open-minded and an intuitive thinker who bases decisions on fact and not emotion, and ask that person if the marriage should take place, based on honest evidence and arguments presented by the person getting married, supporting the case for marriage.
While a religious person is often the most common third-party advisor in pre-marriage counseling (as was the case with mine), they are not a good resource for this task, as their religious agenda makes them no better than family and friends.
I know many people who have been "counseled" by a religious person from a church prior to marriage; I know of none whom have been told not to marry. The goal of the church is not to honestly counsel these people but to have them do some surveys, hear scripture about God, and get them into the Church machine.
Only a true impartial person would have the best opinion on the possible success of the marriage. It may not be perfect, but it certainly would result in a success rate above 50%. It may be a whole new profession- the Wedding Approver. Sure, it would raise the cost of a wedding, but it would be money well spent if it avoided years of screaming, crying, and heartbreak- "The best $200 I ever spent!" people would tell their friends years later, after emotion passed and they realized what a big mistake they almost made.
I joked with Jen that I am available for this consultation when she is ready.
(see part II for conclusion)
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Book Review: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayann Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia and raised as a Muslim, moving from one bad situation to another as a child and young adult in African and Saudi Arabia. Her experiences, from female circumcision to beatings by men, chronicle in great detail the lack of options and rights a female has in the Muslim world.
As she gets older, she begins to question a prophet (Mohammad) and set of rules (Quran) that require total slave submission to the master (Allah) and keep a society in an environment of war, starvation, and brutality.
The final straw is an arranged marriage (per Muslim tradition) by her father to a man she doesn't know nor cares for, who lives in Canada. On route to her new life as a wife, she seeks refuge in Germany, eventually making way to the Netherlands, where she works as a translator for Dutch officials interviewing other refugees from Africa.
She eventually gets Dutch citizenship, and assimilates into Dutch culture, noting that Europe and the West are much more organized, clean, fair, and democratic than Muslim countries, and not the decadent sex-obsessed clan of infidels that she was taught as a young child.
Her concern for Muslim women being abused and killed for actions they did not perform (for example, girls killed by fathers for getting raped and embarrassing the family) leads to her involvement in Dutch politics as an advocate for these women, but it comes at a price.
Because she is so vocally critical of the Muslim faith, she receives death threats and must be protected by the Dutch government (as a member of Parliament). She writes a movie with noted Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh that is critical of Muslim practices, and one day Van Gogh is stabbed on the street in broad daylight, and a death notice to Ali left stabbed in his chest.
Ali is moved across the country in secrecy and eventually to the US for several weeks, while questions of her past result in her Dutch citizenship being revoked. Eventually, her time in office ends, and thus her government protection ends, and even her neighbors sue her for all of the inconvenience the security has caused on their lives.
She now lives in the US, and continues her fight against injustice against Muslim women. She is now a self-proclaimed atheist, and she said she has learned to live with the death threats. One of the themes that I found interesting is Ali's stance that the West is better and should not tolerate Mulism inequalities, Muslim-only schools, etc., because it encourages the abuse.
"People accuse me of having interiorized a feeling of racial inferiority, so that I attack my own culture of out of self-hatred, because I want to be white. That is a tiresome argument. Tell me, is freedom then only for white people?" she wrote (p.348).
"Life is better in Europe than it is in the Muslim world because human relations are better, and one reason human relations are better is that in the West, life on earth is valued in the here and now, and individuals enjoy rights and freedoms that are recognized and protected by the state. To accept subordination and abuse because Allah willed it- that , for me, would be self-hatred."
Ali says that hundreds of millions of women across the world live in forced marriages, and 6000 small girls are excised every day. "My central, motivating concern is that women in Islam are oppressed. That oppression of women causes Muslim women and Muslim men, too, to lag behind the West. It creates a culture that generates more backwardness with every generation. It would be better for everyone- for Muslims, above all, if this situation would change," she wrote.
A first step would be to read Ali's book to better understand the Muslim belief system, from someone who lived it. The next step would be to consider the politically incorrect stance that to tolerance of abuse is no better than the abuser. While it is counter to everything we are told in the US (embrace differences, freedom of religion), if a belief is wrong and harmful, we typically don't allow it (child pornography, KKK, age discrimination, etc.). So why the acceptance of Muslims?
Maybe the future requires us to acknowledge that the Muslim faith, at least as it is practiced by hundreds of millions of people around the world, is not in the best interests of anyone. Of course, no one wants to live with death threats for saying so either.
As she gets older, she begins to question a prophet (Mohammad) and set of rules (Quran) that require total slave submission to the master (Allah) and keep a society in an environment of war, starvation, and brutality.
The final straw is an arranged marriage (per Muslim tradition) by her father to a man she doesn't know nor cares for, who lives in Canada. On route to her new life as a wife, she seeks refuge in Germany, eventually making way to the Netherlands, where she works as a translator for Dutch officials interviewing other refugees from Africa.
She eventually gets Dutch citizenship, and assimilates into Dutch culture, noting that Europe and the West are much more organized, clean, fair, and democratic than Muslim countries, and not the decadent sex-obsessed clan of infidels that she was taught as a young child.
Her concern for Muslim women being abused and killed for actions they did not perform (for example, girls killed by fathers for getting raped and embarrassing the family) leads to her involvement in Dutch politics as an advocate for these women, but it comes at a price.
Because she is so vocally critical of the Muslim faith, she receives death threats and must be protected by the Dutch government (as a member of Parliament). She writes a movie with noted Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh that is critical of Muslim practices, and one day Van Gogh is stabbed on the street in broad daylight, and a death notice to Ali left stabbed in his chest.
Ali is moved across the country in secrecy and eventually to the US for several weeks, while questions of her past result in her Dutch citizenship being revoked. Eventually, her time in office ends, and thus her government protection ends, and even her neighbors sue her for all of the inconvenience the security has caused on their lives.
She now lives in the US, and continues her fight against injustice against Muslim women. She is now a self-proclaimed atheist, and she said she has learned to live with the death threats. One of the themes that I found interesting is Ali's stance that the West is better and should not tolerate Mulism inequalities, Muslim-only schools, etc., because it encourages the abuse.
"People accuse me of having interiorized a feeling of racial inferiority, so that I attack my own culture of out of self-hatred, because I want to be white. That is a tiresome argument. Tell me, is freedom then only for white people?" she wrote (p.348).
"Life is better in Europe than it is in the Muslim world because human relations are better, and one reason human relations are better is that in the West, life on earth is valued in the here and now, and individuals enjoy rights and freedoms that are recognized and protected by the state. To accept subordination and abuse because Allah willed it- that , for me, would be self-hatred."
Ali says that hundreds of millions of women across the world live in forced marriages, and 6000 small girls are excised every day. "My central, motivating concern is that women in Islam are oppressed. That oppression of women causes Muslim women and Muslim men, too, to lag behind the West. It creates a culture that generates more backwardness with every generation. It would be better for everyone- for Muslims, above all, if this situation would change," she wrote.
A first step would be to read Ali's book to better understand the Muslim belief system, from someone who lived it. The next step would be to consider the politically incorrect stance that to tolerance of abuse is no better than the abuser. While it is counter to everything we are told in the US (embrace differences, freedom of religion), if a belief is wrong and harmful, we typically don't allow it (child pornography, KKK, age discrimination, etc.). So why the acceptance of Muslims?
Maybe the future requires us to acknowledge that the Muslim faith, at least as it is practiced by hundreds of millions of people around the world, is not in the best interests of anyone. Of course, no one wants to live with death threats for saying so either.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Top 10 US Presidents Series: George Washington
George Washington: As the first President, he faced circumstances no US president ever would. People forget that when Washington reluctantly took office, no American had ever known an elected leader (having always been under a King), and Washington had no precedents to follow in how he behaved, made decisions, and ran the office.
He had to justify his position to Americans and prove to the skeptical world that the US concept of self-government could work. In addition, this was done at a time of and without compromising the reputation and character of the new repbulic, and for this amazing achievement, Washington stands at the top of the list.
my favorite note of Washington: In 1799, six months before his death, some fellow Federalists urged him to come out of retirement and run for a third term, which he refused, saying that present conditions of politics int eh US made his candidacy irrelevant. In other words, individual character and influence no longer mattered as party politics took over, and a party could "set up a broomstick" and get it elected. This is a fascinating story, becasue it shows that the greatest leader the US has ever seen was already annoyed twenty years in with the political party system's ability to elect a figurehead instead of the best person for the job. Imagine what he would be saying today?
He had to justify his position to Americans and prove to the skeptical world that the US concept of self-government could work. In addition, this was done at a time of and without compromising the reputation and character of the new repbulic, and for this amazing achievement, Washington stands at the top of the list.
my favorite note of Washington: In 1799, six months before his death, some fellow Federalists urged him to come out of retirement and run for a third term, which he refused, saying that present conditions of politics int eh US made his candidacy irrelevant. In other words, individual character and influence no longer mattered as party politics took over, and a party could "set up a broomstick" and get it elected. This is a fascinating story, becasue it shows that the greatest leader the US has ever seen was already annoyed twenty years in with the political party system's ability to elect a figurehead instead of the best person for the job. Imagine what he would be saying today?
Thursday, September 13, 2007
No wonder my lawn is so green
A TruGreen truck pulls up in front of my house about 8:10am this morning. I am on a phone conference for work, so I happened to be in my office, which is at the front of the house, and see the whole thing.
Since I get these TruGreen advertisements in my lawn every once in a while, my first reaction was to roll my eyes, as my lawn is green and weed-free, so anyone can look at it and see I am doing fine with what I am doing and don't need to pay for a lawn service.
He opens up a door on the side of his truck facing the house, and there are three rolls of yellows hoses. He pulls out one hose, and starts walking up the driveway, where I have a row of three rose bushes. This seems odd to me, so I am paying close attention.
He looks at the ends of the bushes, but doesn't spray anything. He then walks to the other side of the driveway, beyond my view. I wait for him to return, but after a few minutes, he doesn't, so I walk out there.
As I walk out the door, the man is standing right there.
"What are you doing?" I ask in a normal tone."Spraying the bushes," he said."Why?"
He mentioned that it was part of my treatment plan, or something to that affect, to which I told him that I am not on any plan, and that I have never paid for anything.
"This costs money, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, I have never paid for this."
"You didn't sign up?"
"No."
"Well I've been doing this property for some time."
I LOVE this response. People use this approach all the time to defend a mistake, as if the frequency and time period the fuck-up has taken place has any relevance on the legitimacy of the mistake.
Being on the phone, I didn't want to argue at that point, but I wanted to make clear I am not a customer of this service, so I said: "Okay, that's fine, but I am not paying for it," and walked inside.
The man then got in the truck and left, although it wasn't clear to me if he was done anyway or he left early because of the conversation. He did stop a few houses down from mine and work on someone else's lawn, so I don't think this was a case of my house being targeted for something suspicious or that he was unethical... my guess is that our builder had this service, and after we bought the house a year ago, no one told TruGreen in the office, and as people are mostly incompetent, the office never informed the man on the street.
Two other interesting points:
1. The guy never actually sprayed anything, so if I were paying for the service, I wasn't getting anything for it. The bushes are healthy and fine anyway.
2. He said he has been on this property for a long time, which surprised me that I have never seen him before. However, I assume he only comes in the summer (and we bought the house at the end of last summer, so this was the first full summer we've been in it, and I typically don't work at home in the summer because my wife is home with the kid (she is a teacher), so if he came once a month, it is possible we've missed him, especially if he is just looking at healthy bushes for thirty seconds before moving on.
Bizarre. I don't like strangers walking around my property, let alone spraying chemicals I am not aware of.
Since I get these TruGreen advertisements in my lawn every once in a while, my first reaction was to roll my eyes, as my lawn is green and weed-free, so anyone can look at it and see I am doing fine with what I am doing and don't need to pay for a lawn service.
He opens up a door on the side of his truck facing the house, and there are three rolls of yellows hoses. He pulls out one hose, and starts walking up the driveway, where I have a row of three rose bushes. This seems odd to me, so I am paying close attention.
He looks at the ends of the bushes, but doesn't spray anything. He then walks to the other side of the driveway, beyond my view. I wait for him to return, but after a few minutes, he doesn't, so I walk out there.
As I walk out the door, the man is standing right there.
"What are you doing?" I ask in a normal tone."Spraying the bushes," he said."Why?"
He mentioned that it was part of my treatment plan, or something to that affect, to which I told him that I am not on any plan, and that I have never paid for anything.
"This costs money, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, I have never paid for this."
"You didn't sign up?"
"No."
"Well I've been doing this property for some time."
I LOVE this response. People use this approach all the time to defend a mistake, as if the frequency and time period the fuck-up has taken place has any relevance on the legitimacy of the mistake.
Being on the phone, I didn't want to argue at that point, but I wanted to make clear I am not a customer of this service, so I said: "Okay, that's fine, but I am not paying for it," and walked inside.
The man then got in the truck and left, although it wasn't clear to me if he was done anyway or he left early because of the conversation. He did stop a few houses down from mine and work on someone else's lawn, so I don't think this was a case of my house being targeted for something suspicious or that he was unethical... my guess is that our builder had this service, and after we bought the house a year ago, no one told TruGreen in the office, and as people are mostly incompetent, the office never informed the man on the street.
Two other interesting points:
1. The guy never actually sprayed anything, so if I were paying for the service, I wasn't getting anything for it. The bushes are healthy and fine anyway.
2. He said he has been on this property for a long time, which surprised me that I have never seen him before. However, I assume he only comes in the summer (and we bought the house at the end of last summer, so this was the first full summer we've been in it, and I typically don't work at home in the summer because my wife is home with the kid (she is a teacher), so if he came once a month, it is possible we've missed him, especially if he is just looking at healthy bushes for thirty seconds before moving on.
Bizarre. I don't like strangers walking around my property, let alone spraying chemicals I am not aware of.
Monday, September 10, 2007
People are lazy (big surprise)
I had the following interaction with a woman in a Wal-Mart parking lot:
I was about to drive into an open spot near the store entrance when a woman pushing an empty shopping cart walked into the spot as I started to turn in (seemingly oblivious to the possibility that a slowly moving truck a few feet away might be going into that parking spot, but that is another story). I braked, perplexed, but then noticed that directly on the other side of the space I was about to use was the shopping cart bin (the area where you park the carts). I assumed, since this parking space was the only open area within 30 yards either way, she was using this open space to better navigation to the shopping cart bin without any risk to other parked cars.
I assumed wrong. Instead of continuing to the other side where the entrance to the bin was, she instead stopped pushing and left the cart right in the middle of the empty parking space I was going to use, literally a few feet from the designated space for shopping carts. She walked away from the cart and towards my vehicle, which was about ten feet away. At first I was in disbelief and slow to respond, but a second later I did a quick tap on the horn.
"Can you move the cart please?" I called out. It was doubtful she heard me through the car, as my windows were rolled up, but she did look up from the sound of the horn though, and I pointed at the cart. She looked back at it and kept walking. I honked again, and spoke louder as she approached me.
"Can you move the cart, please? It is in my way." She kept walking towards her car (which was 2-3 stalls down from mine). As she walked by my window, she turned and said: "Don't talk to me like that."
I turned the engine off (the truck is still in the middle of the parking lot lane), got out, walked to the back of my vehicle and called out to her (she was about 15 feet away putting something in the trunk of her red car): "Tell me: How is it bad to ask you to please move the cart?"
Woman: "That is not what you said."
Me: "I asked you to please move the cart. You left it right where I was parking."
Woman: "It isn't even my cart. I was putting it there."
Hmm. Good answer. You don't deny that you put it in the wrong spot; your defense for being in the wrong is the person before you was lazy, so it is okay for you as well. Pass the buck to someone else... a kind of "f*ck you" pay it forward game. Nice.
I put the cart in the correct stall (it took all of three seconds), noticed she was watching me, so I called out: "Good attitude lazy ass!" and got back in my truck and pulled forward. A few seconds later, I saw her drive by me and out of the parking lot, knowing without doubt that she voted for George W. Bush twice.
I was about to drive into an open spot near the store entrance when a woman pushing an empty shopping cart walked into the spot as I started to turn in (seemingly oblivious to the possibility that a slowly moving truck a few feet away might be going into that parking spot, but that is another story). I braked, perplexed, but then noticed that directly on the other side of the space I was about to use was the shopping cart bin (the area where you park the carts). I assumed, since this parking space was the only open area within 30 yards either way, she was using this open space to better navigation to the shopping cart bin without any risk to other parked cars.
I assumed wrong. Instead of continuing to the other side where the entrance to the bin was, she instead stopped pushing and left the cart right in the middle of the empty parking space I was going to use, literally a few feet from the designated space for shopping carts. She walked away from the cart and towards my vehicle, which was about ten feet away. At first I was in disbelief and slow to respond, but a second later I did a quick tap on the horn.
"Can you move the cart please?" I called out. It was doubtful she heard me through the car, as my windows were rolled up, but she did look up from the sound of the horn though, and I pointed at the cart. She looked back at it and kept walking. I honked again, and spoke louder as she approached me.
"Can you move the cart, please? It is in my way." She kept walking towards her car (which was 2-3 stalls down from mine). As she walked by my window, she turned and said: "Don't talk to me like that."
I turned the engine off (the truck is still in the middle of the parking lot lane), got out, walked to the back of my vehicle and called out to her (she was about 15 feet away putting something in the trunk of her red car): "Tell me: How is it bad to ask you to please move the cart?"
Woman: "That is not what you said."
Me: "I asked you to please move the cart. You left it right where I was parking."
Woman: "It isn't even my cart. I was putting it there."
Hmm. Good answer. You don't deny that you put it in the wrong spot; your defense for being in the wrong is the person before you was lazy, so it is okay for you as well. Pass the buck to someone else... a kind of "f*ck you" pay it forward game. Nice.
I put the cart in the correct stall (it took all of three seconds), noticed she was watching me, so I called out: "Good attitude lazy ass!" and got back in my truck and pulled forward. A few seconds later, I saw her drive by me and out of the parking lot, knowing without doubt that she voted for George W. Bush twice.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Tough to live on $168K a year for Tony Snow
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow recently said that financial reasons may prevent him for serving the remainder of the Bush presidency.
"I'm not going to be able to go the distance, but that's primarily for financial reasons." Snow said. "I've told people when my money runs out, then I've got to go."
According to the Washington Post, Snow makes $168,000 at the White House spokesman. The former Fox News anchor-turned press secretary took a month long leave of absence earlier this year after cancer was discovered on his liver.
This is an interesting comment. It is not clear if he is referring to how tough it is to live off of only $168K a year these days, or if Snow is referring to his medical costs, but either way, the complaints seem odd coming from a Bush Republican, given their stances on minimum wage (if $168K isn't enough, how can you fight against a wage increase to $5.75 an hour?), the economy, and health care.
If he is lying, like everyone else in the Bush administration on the reasons why they left, he picked a horrible lie to try and sell, and it shows how disconnected he is to the average American family, who lives on less than half of what Snow makes.
"I'm not going to be able to go the distance, but that's primarily for financial reasons." Snow said. "I've told people when my money runs out, then I've got to go."
According to the Washington Post, Snow makes $168,000 at the White House spokesman. The former Fox News anchor-turned press secretary took a month long leave of absence earlier this year after cancer was discovered on his liver.
This is an interesting comment. It is not clear if he is referring to how tough it is to live off of only $168K a year these days, or if Snow is referring to his medical costs, but either way, the complaints seem odd coming from a Bush Republican, given their stances on minimum wage (if $168K isn't enough, how can you fight against a wage increase to $5.75 an hour?), the economy, and health care.
If he is lying, like everyone else in the Bush administration on the reasons why they left, he picked a horrible lie to try and sell, and it shows how disconnected he is to the average American family, who lives on less than half of what Snow makes.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Dress Codes in Public Schools
It's school time across the country, which means it is time to bring out the annual argument about school uniforms in public schools. About one in four public elementary schools and one in eight public middle schools in the US have policies dictating dress codes in some manner.
The argument for school uniforms: they improve the academic performance of the students by eliminating distracting clothing and creating an orderly atmosphere.
The argument against? Uniforms violate a child's constitutional right of free expression and violates the guarantee of a free public education, as uniforms can cost a family hundreds of extra dollars to suit up every child.
While I can agree that the cost is an issue, and families under certain incomes should be provided with free or reduced cost uniforms, one could argue that the cost of a uniform is still less than the cost of buying an entire school wardrobe, as theoretically the cost of clothing would decrease with school uniforms.
However, putting cost aside, I cannot get on board with the violation of the first amendment right. To say that a child is defined by what he wears is, first of all, the wrong message to begin with. Any parent arguing that has its own priorities messed up. A child can easily be herself and differentiate from others with the same clothing (as if wearing clothing from the Gap, Nike shoes, and a Yankees cap is unique anyway).
Second, it is not the intent of schools to allow for children to express their inner self whenever they want, however they want. There may be outlets for that via specific classes or activities, but the main intent of school is to learn, first and foremost.
Third, where does it say in the first amendment that similar clothing is restrictive of free speech? It doesn't, which is why most lawsuits against school uniforms fail. Parents against uniforms say it is their job, and not the schools, to say what is appropriate to wear, but even if I were to agree with that point ideally, the fact is the parents are failing on this accord, so someone has to jump in and fix it.
The argument for school uniforms: they improve the academic performance of the students by eliminating distracting clothing and creating an orderly atmosphere.
The argument against? Uniforms violate a child's constitutional right of free expression and violates the guarantee of a free public education, as uniforms can cost a family hundreds of extra dollars to suit up every child.
While I can agree that the cost is an issue, and families under certain incomes should be provided with free or reduced cost uniforms, one could argue that the cost of a uniform is still less than the cost of buying an entire school wardrobe, as theoretically the cost of clothing would decrease with school uniforms.
However, putting cost aside, I cannot get on board with the violation of the first amendment right. To say that a child is defined by what he wears is, first of all, the wrong message to begin with. Any parent arguing that has its own priorities messed up. A child can easily be herself and differentiate from others with the same clothing (as if wearing clothing from the Gap, Nike shoes, and a Yankees cap is unique anyway).
Second, it is not the intent of schools to allow for children to express their inner self whenever they want, however they want. There may be outlets for that via specific classes or activities, but the main intent of school is to learn, first and foremost.
Third, where does it say in the first amendment that similar clothing is restrictive of free speech? It doesn't, which is why most lawsuits against school uniforms fail. Parents against uniforms say it is their job, and not the schools, to say what is appropriate to wear, but even if I were to agree with that point ideally, the fact is the parents are failing on this accord, so someone has to jump in and fix it.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Yellowstone National Park
The family went to Yellowstone National Park for seven days in August 2007. We stayed in the park every night, in Grant Village. Below are the top 5 and worst 5 things about Yellowstone, which I highly recommend that everyone see at least once in their lifetime.
Top 5
1. Geysers: highest concentration of geysers in the world.
2. Grand Canyon of Yellowstone: includes multiple water falls, including a 300-foot one that dumps 37K gallons of water per second.
3. Wildlife: saw bison, black bear, coyote, elk, deer, pika, fish, osprey...
4. Nature
Bottom 5
1. traffic: the roads are all two-lanes throughout the park, but they have many pull-outs for slow traffic. Unfortunately, most drivers have huge egos and won't use them, even when they are 15 mph under the speed limit. Some say that it is a vacation and you should relax and enjoy looking at the back of a camper going 20 mph for 45 minutes on a road, but I say those people are full of shit and selfish. Yellowstone is beautiful, but not when sitting in a car on a road. If you want to enjoy the scenery, park the car and get out and look. Otherwise, drive the speed limit... if I wanted to spend my entire day in a car, I would have spent my vacation buying something at a Wal-Mart.
2. morons: I am not sure what it is about National Parks, but a lot of morons congregate here... people who can't read speed limit signs, don't know how to order food, forget how to walk on the right side on a four-foot wide wood path above boiling water.... if I wanted to spend my entire day in with morons, I would have spent my vacation buying something at a Wal-Mart.
3. food: the food is surprisingly pretty poor. Yellowstone has a vendor, Xantera, run all of the lodging and food restaurants in Yellowstone. While I expect to get hammered over the price as in any resort or protected area away from competition (and they say capitalism is bad), I didn't expect the quality to be significantly worse than dorm food.... If I wanted to spend my entire day eating bad food, I would have..... nah, it doesn't really fit here.
4. prices - gas, hotel, food, souvenirs: It is to be expected, but that doesn't mean I like it. Gas was 40 cents a gallon higher, and a poster for $16 was only $5 just 25 miles South at a visitor's center in the Grand Teton National Park. Explain that.
5. Mammoth Hot Springs: It looks neat in a picture, but in person, it is pretty bare, dry, and disappointing, compared to the rest of the attractions. It isn't that it should be skipped, but expectations need to be significantly lowered to avoid disappointment after the long drive North (unless you entered Yellowstone from the North Montana entrance, but who is doing that?).
Top 5
1. Geysers: highest concentration of geysers in the world.
2. Grand Canyon of Yellowstone: includes multiple water falls, including a 300-foot one that dumps 37K gallons of water per second.
3. Wildlife: saw bison, black bear, coyote, elk, deer, pika, fish, osprey...
4. Nature
5. Hot Springs: the hotter the water, the less living organisms, so you can tell the temperature of the spring by the colors it displays (blue is hotter)
Bottom 5
1. traffic: the roads are all two-lanes throughout the park, but they have many pull-outs for slow traffic. Unfortunately, most drivers have huge egos and won't use them, even when they are 15 mph under the speed limit. Some say that it is a vacation and you should relax and enjoy looking at the back of a camper going 20 mph for 45 minutes on a road, but I say those people are full of shit and selfish. Yellowstone is beautiful, but not when sitting in a car on a road. If you want to enjoy the scenery, park the car and get out and look. Otherwise, drive the speed limit... if I wanted to spend my entire day in a car, I would have spent my vacation buying something at a Wal-Mart.
2. morons: I am not sure what it is about National Parks, but a lot of morons congregate here... people who can't read speed limit signs, don't know how to order food, forget how to walk on the right side on a four-foot wide wood path above boiling water.... if I wanted to spend my entire day in with morons, I would have spent my vacation buying something at a Wal-Mart.
3. food: the food is surprisingly pretty poor. Yellowstone has a vendor, Xantera, run all of the lodging and food restaurants in Yellowstone. While I expect to get hammered over the price as in any resort or protected area away from competition (and they say capitalism is bad), I didn't expect the quality to be significantly worse than dorm food.... If I wanted to spend my entire day eating bad food, I would have..... nah, it doesn't really fit here.
4. prices - gas, hotel, food, souvenirs: It is to be expected, but that doesn't mean I like it. Gas was 40 cents a gallon higher, and a poster for $16 was only $5 just 25 miles South at a visitor's center in the Grand Teton National Park. Explain that.
5. Mammoth Hot Springs: It looks neat in a picture, but in person, it is pretty bare, dry, and disappointing, compared to the rest of the attractions. It isn't that it should be skipped, but expectations need to be significantly lowered to avoid disappointment after the long drive North (unless you entered Yellowstone from the North Montana entrance, but who is doing that?).
Monday, August 13, 2007
First Amendment doesn't protect you from stupidity
Every few months someone gets fired for saying something completely moronic (usually on the radio), and defenders of that person always scream that the offender's first amendment rights are being violated.
As a reminder, the First Amendment says the following: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Without the First Amendment, religious minorities could be persecuted, the government might well establish a national religion, protesters could be silenced, the press could not criticize government, and citizens could not mobilize for social change.
Of course, Congress has tried to make some laws at times, such as legislation banning flag burning, but the Supreme Court struck it down, and the courts deal continuously with cases regarding pornography, libel, hate speech, etc.
While most people are for free speech as a concept, many don't not believe that everyone at every time has a right to say or write whatever they want. An interesting survey on people's thoughts on the first amendment from 2006 can be found here: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/sofa_reports/index.aspx
But that is not the main point I am getting at. While the First Amendment does give you the right in the United States to march with the KKK, protest the President in front of the White House, and write blogs on the Internet, it doesn't mean your employer cannot fire your ass the minute they decide your comments and thoughts are harmful to them. The moment you forget this, is the moment you could be crossing the line and giving your employer undesired attention. At that point, depending on the comment and your value to the company, you may find yourself unemployed.
When people complain about Don Imus being fired, they are incorrect in their complaints. His employers have every right to fire him, regardless of whether it is fair or not, good business sense or not. Imus has no First Amendment protection to employment.
The First Amendment means that the U.S. government doesn't have the right to throw him in jail, as they do in China and Cuba when someone speaks out, if they are lucky enough to not disappear.
As a reminder, the First Amendment says the following: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Without the First Amendment, religious minorities could be persecuted, the government might well establish a national religion, protesters could be silenced, the press could not criticize government, and citizens could not mobilize for social change.
Of course, Congress has tried to make some laws at times, such as legislation banning flag burning, but the Supreme Court struck it down, and the courts deal continuously with cases regarding pornography, libel, hate speech, etc.
While most people are for free speech as a concept, many don't not believe that everyone at every time has a right to say or write whatever they want. An interesting survey on people's thoughts on the first amendment from 2006 can be found here: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/sofa_reports/index.aspx
But that is not the main point I am getting at. While the First Amendment does give you the right in the United States to march with the KKK, protest the President in front of the White House, and write blogs on the Internet, it doesn't mean your employer cannot fire your ass the minute they decide your comments and thoughts are harmful to them. The moment you forget this, is the moment you could be crossing the line and giving your employer undesired attention. At that point, depending on the comment and your value to the company, you may find yourself unemployed.
When people complain about Don Imus being fired, they are incorrect in their complaints. His employers have every right to fire him, regardless of whether it is fair or not, good business sense or not. Imus has no First Amendment protection to employment.
The First Amendment means that the U.S. government doesn't have the right to throw him in jail, as they do in China and Cuba when someone speaks out, if they are lucky enough to not disappear.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Portland Trail Blazers low point
Things are looking up if you are a Blazers fan, which I have been my entire life, a result of growing up in the Portland, Oregon area. But a question was asked today, which is the worst moment in franchise history?
Since I was too young to really claim to any memories of the 1970s, and I could write an entire blog on why the decision to pick Bowie over Jordan was historically wrong but not a bad decision at the time, the real answer is very obvious to me: The 1990-91 Western Conference Finals, which the Blazers lost 4-2 to the hated LA Lakers.
In 1990, the Blazers lost to a better Pistons team. In 1992, although they had a chance, the 1992 Bulls were better.
But in 1991, the Blazers were the best team in the NBA. They won 11 straight to start the season, started 19-1, and won 16 games straight at one point, finishing with a franchise record 63 wins in a season that had several championship-quality teams (unlike now, when only three teams are really capable of winning).
It was game 1 of the 1991 Western Conference Finals, and all was going well. Playing with home court advantage in the best of seven series, Portland had a 10-point lead over the Lakers heading into the fourth quarter and appeared headed to victory over a team they hadn't come close to defeating in their last three playoff meetings.
Then Adelman went completely nuts with his substitution patterns, sitting basically every starter at the beginning of the fourth (got to get Mark Bryant his minutes; can't have Walter Davis unhappy), and the Lakers won the game, and the series (thanks to some choking by Terry Porter and Cliff Robinson in game 6 in the closing moments).
1990-91 was the year the Blazers were to win the title, and the pressure for Jordan to win his first the following year may have led to a different result.
Sure, the collapse of 2000 was tough to take, but the Lakers were the better team, and many people forget the Blazers were down 3-1 in that series and no one gave them a shot to even make it to game 6.
Sure, drafting Bowie over Jordan looks bad historically, but no one argued with the pick at the time (see ESPN's "The Top 5 reasons you can't blame The Portland Trail Blazers for drafting Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan"). Sure, it would have been different if Sabas came over, but Portland can't control politics, and it has no control over injuries (Bowie, Walton) or coin flips (Olajawon).
But when you lose the game you are supposed to win, that hurts.
Since I was too young to really claim to any memories of the 1970s, and I could write an entire blog on why the decision to pick Bowie over Jordan was historically wrong but not a bad decision at the time, the real answer is very obvious to me: The 1990-91 Western Conference Finals, which the Blazers lost 4-2 to the hated LA Lakers.
In 1990, the Blazers lost to a better Pistons team. In 1992, although they had a chance, the 1992 Bulls were better.
But in 1991, the Blazers were the best team in the NBA. They won 11 straight to start the season, started 19-1, and won 16 games straight at one point, finishing with a franchise record 63 wins in a season that had several championship-quality teams (unlike now, when only three teams are really capable of winning).
It was game 1 of the 1991 Western Conference Finals, and all was going well. Playing with home court advantage in the best of seven series, Portland had a 10-point lead over the Lakers heading into the fourth quarter and appeared headed to victory over a team they hadn't come close to defeating in their last three playoff meetings.
Then Adelman went completely nuts with his substitution patterns, sitting basically every starter at the beginning of the fourth (got to get Mark Bryant his minutes; can't have Walter Davis unhappy), and the Lakers won the game, and the series (thanks to some choking by Terry Porter and Cliff Robinson in game 6 in the closing moments).
1990-91 was the year the Blazers were to win the title, and the pressure for Jordan to win his first the following year may have led to a different result.
Sure, the collapse of 2000 was tough to take, but the Lakers were the better team, and many people forget the Blazers were down 3-1 in that series and no one gave them a shot to even make it to game 6.
Sure, drafting Bowie over Jordan looks bad historically, but no one argued with the pick at the time (see ESPN's "The Top 5 reasons you can't blame The Portland Trail Blazers for drafting Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan"). Sure, it would have been different if Sabas came over, but Portland can't control politics, and it has no control over injuries (Bowie, Walton) or coin flips (Olajawon).
But when you lose the game you are supposed to win, that hurts.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Are the rich too rich?
A recent editorial in Fortune magazine (“How to Run a Budget Like An Idiot”, by Matt Miller, 6-25-07) summed up my beliefs on the current situation in the US in regards to income distribution. While I am far from a socialist or communist and am not a fan of income redistribution, I do think the system needs to be tweaked to make it more fair.
According to the article, new census data shows that the top 1% of US wage earners now take home a greater share of national income than at any time since the 1920s, and Republicans seem to be trying to match the inequity hit by Louis XVI, which led to a little thing called the French Revolution (which, unlike the American one, was a real revolution).
Will it change with new leadership? It doesn’t appear so. GOP presidential candidates not only want to keep the status quo, they have discussed more tax breaks. All of this while our deficit spirals out of control and spending continues with no relationship to income coming in (one of the biggest myths of politics is that Republicans are about small government and fiscal responsibility; maybe in Barry Goldwater’s time, but Ronald Reagan put an end to that, and Bush has taken it to new heights).
Ben Stein, in another interesting article in this same issue of Fortune, said if we managed our budget like the government, we would be broke and probably in jail. “They (conservatives) try and try to say we can do it (balance the budget) by cutting spending, and they never do.”
In the article, Miller points out that we’ve borrowed nearly $2 trillion in the past six years under Bush to cut taxes for the wealthiest in a time of war where spending has increased, meaning “we’ve slipped the bill for our war and our tax cuts to our kids.”
He also points out that while the top 5% of earners do pay about 58% in federal income taxes, Republicans who quote this number forget that income tax is only 47% of federal revenue today. So, when you throw other federal taxes into the mix, which tend to hit lower wage earners harder, you find that the top 5% make about 30% of the income and pay 40% of the overall federal taxes.
So, while the rich do pay more than their share and the US does have a progressive tax system, it clearly isn’t enough if we are headed towards an environment that historically leads to revolutions, and I don’t mean that figuratively.
It would be prudent for those in power in the US, regardless of political affiliation, to recognize this trend, acknowledge it is a bad one, and fix it, before it is fixed for them. And it would be good if Republicans would begin practicing what they preach. I may not like the fact that Democrats want a huge government and corresponding huge budget, but at least you get what you voted for.
How the Republicans continue to get votes from mid-to-lower income people in the Midwest and South is beyond me. I need to read the book that described this phenomenon that came out a few years ago… I think it was called “What is wrong with the people in Kansas?”
According to the article, new census data shows that the top 1% of US wage earners now take home a greater share of national income than at any time since the 1920s, and Republicans seem to be trying to match the inequity hit by Louis XVI, which led to a little thing called the French Revolution (which, unlike the American one, was a real revolution).
Will it change with new leadership? It doesn’t appear so. GOP presidential candidates not only want to keep the status quo, they have discussed more tax breaks. All of this while our deficit spirals out of control and spending continues with no relationship to income coming in (one of the biggest myths of politics is that Republicans are about small government and fiscal responsibility; maybe in Barry Goldwater’s time, but Ronald Reagan put an end to that, and Bush has taken it to new heights).
Ben Stein, in another interesting article in this same issue of Fortune, said if we managed our budget like the government, we would be broke and probably in jail. “They (conservatives) try and try to say we can do it (balance the budget) by cutting spending, and they never do.”
In the article, Miller points out that we’ve borrowed nearly $2 trillion in the past six years under Bush to cut taxes for the wealthiest in a time of war where spending has increased, meaning “we’ve slipped the bill for our war and our tax cuts to our kids.”
He also points out that while the top 5% of earners do pay about 58% in federal income taxes, Republicans who quote this number forget that income tax is only 47% of federal revenue today. So, when you throw other federal taxes into the mix, which tend to hit lower wage earners harder, you find that the top 5% make about 30% of the income and pay 40% of the overall federal taxes.
So, while the rich do pay more than their share and the US does have a progressive tax system, it clearly isn’t enough if we are headed towards an environment that historically leads to revolutions, and I don’t mean that figuratively.
It would be prudent for those in power in the US, regardless of political affiliation, to recognize this trend, acknowledge it is a bad one, and fix it, before it is fixed for them. And it would be good if Republicans would begin practicing what they preach. I may not like the fact that Democrats want a huge government and corresponding huge budget, but at least you get what you voted for.
How the Republicans continue to get votes from mid-to-lower income people in the Midwest and South is beyond me. I need to read the book that described this phenomenon that came out a few years ago… I think it was called “What is wrong with the people in Kansas?”
Monday, May 07, 2007
Gas prices in perspective
article on CNN.com about gas prices today: http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/07/news/economy/gas_prices/index.htm?postversion=2007050714
When inflation is factored in, Lundberg's record of $3.07 still trails the all-time high in March 1981. At the time, gasoline cost $1.35 a gallon - and in today's dollars, that's $3.13 a gallon, said Lundberg.
Also, Americans earn a lot more now than they did in the early 1980s, so by some measures what people spend now on gas is only half of what is used to be.
In 1980, the average American had to work 105 minutes to buy enough gas to drive the average car 100 miles, David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, said in a study last year. By 2006, the average American needed to work only 52 minutes, thanks in part to better fuel efficiency but mostly due to higher wages.
It's also worth noting that while $4 gasoline would be a record for American motorists, in Europe it's common. The average price for a gallon of gas in the Netherlands is over $7, and it's over $6 in many European countries.
When inflation is factored in, Lundberg's record of $3.07 still trails the all-time high in March 1981. At the time, gasoline cost $1.35 a gallon - and in today's dollars, that's $3.13 a gallon, said Lundberg.
Also, Americans earn a lot more now than they did in the early 1980s, so by some measures what people spend now on gas is only half of what is used to be.
In 1980, the average American had to work 105 minutes to buy enough gas to drive the average car 100 miles, David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, said in a study last year. By 2006, the average American needed to work only 52 minutes, thanks in part to better fuel efficiency but mostly due to higher wages.
It's also worth noting that while $4 gasoline would be a record for American motorists, in Europe it's common. The average price for a gallon of gas in the Netherlands is over $7, and it's over $6 in many European countries.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Book Review of Bush at War by Bob Woodward
This book is the first of three by Woodward about the Bush administration. Bush at War starts with the attacks from 9-11, covers the war in Afghanistan, and ends with a brief excerpt about the decision to go into Iraq (which is covered entirely in Book 2 of the series), and includes several interviews with President Bush and his administration, plus detailed notes and quotes from internal meetings within the administration.
This book is a must read for all Americans, whether you like Bush or not, because if gives unique insight into how the Bush administration made its decisions, with direct conversations from all the major players, including the CIA, FBI, foreign leaders, etc. At times you wonder what dirt Woodward had on people to get this much access and information, but his level of detail and insight into the decision to go to war and how to fight it is fascinating.
Some highlights:
- It was clear that al Qaeda was not a top priority for the Bush administration when they took over the White House, even though this was identified by the CIA and director George Tenet as one of the top three threats facing the nation when Bush took the presidency.
- After 9-11, the philosophy of the administration changed. Ashcroft shifted the FBI and the justice department from prosecution to prevention, which was a radical shift in priorities. Bush told Tenet that he could spend whatever he wanted to in order to get info and resources in the middle east, a significant change from the Clinton administration. And the role of the US in the world was to preemptively prevent any future terrorist attacks on the US.
- Bush never engaged the American public on the war on terror, never asking them to sacrifice as Roosevelt and Lincoln did. Ironically, this could have been the reason why Americans ultimately turned against the war. Shortly after 9-11, Bush said that in a month Americans would be watching football and the World Series (p. 45, in paperback version), so why he never decided to sell the war to the American public is beyond me (he instead infamously asked Americans to keep shopping).
- The Iraq obsession of Rumsfield, Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfield’s deputy, was present from day one, immediately after 9-11. Not coincidentally, all of those three were key players in the first Gulf War. It was obvious that the obsession these guys had with removing Saddam from power eventually convinced the President it was the right decision to go to war with Iraq. A month after 9-11, Rumsfield was asking about going into Iraq to fight the war on terror in round one (49).
- Bush never had a problem with the US going at it alone, in Afghanistan or Iraq, although Colin Powell was never eager to go that avenue. Bush: “At some point, we may be the only ones left. That’s okay with me. We are America.” (81).
- Powell was always at odds with just about everyone in the Bush administration, specifically Cheney and Rumsfield, even though he held a very esteemed position as Secretary of State. He never had a great relationship with Bush. This relationship became a bigger gap as the Iraq issue dominated, and ultimately resulted in Powell leaving the administration.
Rumsfield was always against using the US military for nation building. Ironically, it was the failure of the US military to rebuild Afghanistan and Iraq that he received the most criticism for and ultimately led to his dismissal as Secretary of Defense. While the US military did an incredible job of invading and capturing both countries (in all, the US commitment to overthrow the Taliban had been about 110 CIA officers and 316 Special Forces personnel (314), plus massive airpower- no ground troops), clearly the Bush administration failed with the execution of what to do, once the coup took place.
Bush also said he opposed using the US military for nation-building (237), but obviously Iraq and Afghanistan would collapse into civil war if the US pulls out, so a great history question will be: How did the Bush administration not see that, and what did they expect to happen that clearly did not, leaving the US in the lose-lose situation that will forever define his presidency? - Bush’s leadership style bordered on the hurried (256). He wanted actions, solutions. Once on a course, he directed his energy at moving forward, scoffing at doubt and anything less than 100% commitment. This is no surprise to critics of Bush, who feel he picked people based on loyalty instead of competence, and as a result was slow to dismiss Rumsfield, Tenet, Gonzalez, Ashcroft, etc., when everyone else thought their time was passed. And, of course, Bush still refusing to admit the war in Iraq was a mistake.
- Two of the biggest criticism in the Afghanistan campaign has been the allegiance with the Northern Alliance tribes and the treatment of prisoners at Gitmo. A related note in these two topics is money; the CIA spent $70 million dollars bribing people in Afghanistan to get information, obtain prisoners, even make people move from point A to point B. Tenet was “extremely proud” of what the CIA had accomplished, and no doubt the CIA was breaking into new ground around the world obtaining information it otherwise had no access to. Eventually thousands of people and suspects were rounded up and put in Gitmo, but how reliable is the info and prisoners, when the people you pay to give them up are themselves possibly criminals and drug lords, and have something to gain by turning in a rival? While most would agree the Northern Alliance is better than al Qaeda, there may still be a price to be paid for the relationship the US has with the Northern Alliance, held together only by money and a hatred of al Qaeda.
- Bush’s vision is the reordering of the world through preemptive and, if necessary, unilateral action to reduce suffering and bring peace (341). “We’re never going to get people all in agreement about force and use of force,” Bush said. Bush found that protecting and sealing the US homeland was basically impossible, and the country is only marginally safer today, despite all of the increased security and regulations. As such, the policy of preemptively striking a country that harbors terrorists was believed to be the only way to prevent another 9-11 on US soil.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
In the News - Feb 2007
1. Gore wins an Oscar for his documentary warning against global warming. The next day it comes out that he pays $30K a year for utilities in his 20-room mansion and pool house. But it is okay and not hypocritical, says a Gore spokesperson, because "every family has a different carbon footprint. And what Vice President Gore has asked is for families to calculate that footprint and take steps to reduce and offset it." http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/GlobalWarming/story?id=2906888&page=1
So it is okay to consume 20 times more carbon than the average family, if you have reduced it from 21 times more the year before? Click here to calculate your carbon footprint. Note that a major part of the formula is air travel, which Gore does frequently with a private plane. Oops!
One of the reasons given for the huge energy bill is both Al and his wife work from home. Yeah, that might make sense, if no one stopped to think. I work from home frequently, and my wife stayed at home for a year with our son (meaning the heat and the lights and the TV and computer was on all day), yet we still never came close to a monthly utility bill of $2500. I don't know what is worse- the excuse or the fact that they thought that it was valid enough to give as an excuse.
2. Hollywood raves over Gore and his green ways, driving to the Oscar ceremony in hybrid cars... then they go home to their 40,000 sq foot mansions and pools and hot tubs and private planes and consume more energy in one year than most of us do in ten years. It all makes perfect sense.
3. Girls are kicked out of a sorority because they are fat. Shocking. Things have changed so much from when I was in college, when all of the sorority girls were obese and the frat guys weren't interested in things like appearance and sexual attraction. Another example of America becoming too concerned about being thin. I am tired of seeing healthy people everywhere I look. I am tired of my health insurance going down because people are eating healthy and exercising. When will this all stop?
4. Stock market crashed 400 points to its biggest point drop since 9-11. However, this is immediately following eight straight months of gains and the largest peak ever a few weeks earlier. Analysts say the drop is expected and have been calling for a fallback. You have to love these guys justify their existence in a system that is completely arbitrary. Don't get me wrong: I own stock, most of my retirement funds are in stock, and I've made a lot of money off it, but admit it: There is little rhyme or reason to it anymore, especially now that anyone can get involved and it is as dominated by the huge mutual fund owners. It is a bit scary, if you think about it.
Why would the stock market be a great investment on one day (buy buy buy!) and then a horrible idea a week later (sell sell sell!), when everyone knows it is going back up past that sell-off point to record highs at some point anyway. All of the reasons given for the stock market to fall were valid a month earlier, yet then it didn't matter? It feels all very rigged to me.
5. Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears... why does this interest people? At least Spears has some talent and did something productive in her life... since when did Smith become a superstar at the level of Madonna or Princess Di? Shame on the media for talking about it, and shame on you for giving them the ratings to justify it.
So it is okay to consume 20 times more carbon than the average family, if you have reduced it from 21 times more the year before? Click here to calculate your carbon footprint. Note that a major part of the formula is air travel, which Gore does frequently with a private plane. Oops!
One of the reasons given for the huge energy bill is both Al and his wife work from home. Yeah, that might make sense, if no one stopped to think. I work from home frequently, and my wife stayed at home for a year with our son (meaning the heat and the lights and the TV and computer was on all day), yet we still never came close to a monthly utility bill of $2500. I don't know what is worse- the excuse or the fact that they thought that it was valid enough to give as an excuse.
2. Hollywood raves over Gore and his green ways, driving to the Oscar ceremony in hybrid cars... then they go home to their 40,000 sq foot mansions and pools and hot tubs and private planes and consume more energy in one year than most of us do in ten years. It all makes perfect sense.
3. Girls are kicked out of a sorority because they are fat. Shocking. Things have changed so much from when I was in college, when all of the sorority girls were obese and the frat guys weren't interested in things like appearance and sexual attraction. Another example of America becoming too concerned about being thin. I am tired of seeing healthy people everywhere I look. I am tired of my health insurance going down because people are eating healthy and exercising. When will this all stop?
4. Stock market crashed 400 points to its biggest point drop since 9-11. However, this is immediately following eight straight months of gains and the largest peak ever a few weeks earlier. Analysts say the drop is expected and have been calling for a fallback. You have to love these guys justify their existence in a system that is completely arbitrary. Don't get me wrong: I own stock, most of my retirement funds are in stock, and I've made a lot of money off it, but admit it: There is little rhyme or reason to it anymore, especially now that anyone can get involved and it is as dominated by the huge mutual fund owners. It is a bit scary, if you think about it.
Why would the stock market be a great investment on one day (buy buy buy!) and then a horrible idea a week later (sell sell sell!), when everyone knows it is going back up past that sell-off point to record highs at some point anyway. All of the reasons given for the stock market to fall were valid a month earlier, yet then it didn't matter? It feels all very rigged to me.
5. Anna Nicole Smith and Britney Spears... why does this interest people? At least Spears has some talent and did something productive in her life... since when did Smith become a superstar at the level of Madonna or Princess Di? Shame on the media for talking about it, and shame on you for giving them the ratings to justify it.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Predictions for 2007
I have no idea. No one can predict the future, so think for yourself and ignore the experts... they don't know either (not even Pat Robertson).
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Top Stories of 2006?
As 2006 closes, different news organization come up with their lists of the top stories of the year. For those who have not been watching Nancy Grace or Glen Beck and still think CNN has an accurate pulse of the nation (I sound like a right-wing Fox News fan but I promise you, I am not; CNN has just really been irritating me the past several years, and Ted Turner agrees with me), CNN ran a poll recently asking readers to vote for the biggest story of 2006. Below were its choices, along with my comments:
- Sago mine disaster: This is certainly a disaster and a horrible situation to endure for those involved, but just because a story is covered nationally doesn't make it a national story, especially if nothing comes from it (for example, legislation to help coal miners) and you can't remember much about it a week later. Since this disaster did not impact anyone outside of those directly involved, it can't be considered a big story for the US in 2006, and shouldn't be on the list.
- Darfur crisis in Sudan: While intellectually and emotionally I know why it is on the list (it was #10 on the AP's list as well), I don't think it should be, because most Americans don't know what Darfur is nor where the Sudan is on a map, let alone the crisis or its impact on them, and I am not sure one exists. The conflict has, unfortunately, been going on for several years. Why is it on the list in 2006, as opposed to 2003? Because it finally got some notice in the mainstream US media and by some famous celebreties. While I agree that is cynical viewpoint on my part, I am not sure what the story is here. The UN passed a resolution, which was rejected by the Sudan government anyway, so if the result is status quo, what is the big story? If the fighting ever stopped, then that would be a huge story.
- Democratic takeover of Congress: The first valid entry. Of course, it really is an overrated story, as nothing of significance will change as the result of this (I hate to break it to you, but both lobbyists control both parties, and the War will still exist in Iraq until Bush leaves office), but it is still a good story and theoretically impacts everyone in the U.S.
- Israeli-Hezbollah fighting in Lebanon: This is an interesting entry on the list, because its impact on the US is questionable, nothing was resolved in the sense that the "treaty" maintained status quo, and the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel is not limited to 2006 (Israel also invaded Lebanon in 1978), but you could argue an impact to the US via continue instability int he Middle East and the domino affect that has on other areas that do impact the US directly.
- Iraq war: Donald RumsfeldÂ’s resignation: This one is certainly a valid choice. The War in Iraq alone could be the biggest story of 2006 in the US, so any significant change in policy for that war would be a big story, and the resignation of its architect fits that description.
- Immigration debate: It is interesting that CNN added the word "debate" to the end of this, as if Immigration isn't capable of standing alone as a topic. I am not sure what "debate" actually took place of any substance or intelligence, but I agree that Immigration was a big story in the US, until it got too cold to parade outside and people got bored with it, and now it is December 2006 and still nothing has changed. But I guess that doesn't mean it can't be on the list,becausee if we only included topics that our government leaders actually solved, there would be no list.
- Nuclear concerns over Iran: By itself, I don't think it is huge story. I don't think too many Americans are too concerned about this. I am not saying they should or should not be concerned, but I think it is pretty clear few care about this... not with the NFL playoffs coming up or New Year's Eve parties to plan.
- John Mark Karr's false confession: At first glance, I thought this was the guy who confessed to killing JonBenet Ramsey, but I had to look it up to validate. I was right. The fact I couldn't remember his name, and the fact he confessed to something he didn't do anyway, must make this entry on the list easily the weakest. Who cares?
- Warren Jeffs' capture: Geez.. you'd think this was Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. I think he was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted, but how does this impact my life? I guess you can argue that his capture may save the lives of innocent children who are drawn into a life of manipulation, but this is a weak entry. I am beginning to think nothing happened in 2006.
- Scandals: Congress, the Rev. Ted Haggard: These are news stories only because they are covered by the media, but they aren't new, they aren't surprising, and they obviously have no impact because the scandals of 2006 will quickly be forgotten when replaced by the scandals of 2007 where idiots we elect do the same thing. Good fodder for a future episode of Jeopardy, but shouldn't be on this list.
- North Korea nuclear scare: What was the scare? If you have to ask, then it shouldn't be on the list. The blast was less than one kiloton, smaller than expected, and U.S. officials suggested that it may have been an unsuccessful test. There is also doubt North Korea has the ability to deliver a warhead by any successful means. However, we all know that Clinton and Bush have dropped the ball in the handling of North Korea, which would have been the story I would have put on the list: "US Diplomacy Policy with North Korea is a Joke".
- James Frey's fictional nonfiction: Like the Karr entry, the name didn't ring a bell by itself, but along with the description, I assumed he was the Oprah guy who wrote a fictional book and passed it off as real. I looked it up, and I was right, but this is yet another poor entry. Again, who cares?
- Celebs' bad behavior: I am not even going to talk about this. Pathetic, CNN. Really. And shame on anyone out there who picked this as the top story of 2006.
The real US top stories of 2006, were, in my opinion:
1. War in Iraq
2. Transfer of political power from Republicans to Democrats in House and Senate
3. Bush declining in Popularity
4. Illegal Immigration
5. Axis of Evil (Iran and North Korea) Moving Ahead with Nuclear Weapons Development
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Book Review of "The Betrayal of America"
The Betrayal of America by Vincent Bugliosi
Most Americans have forgotten, but in November 2000, we did not know who our President was after the election. There were issues with the ballots in Florida, and with the electoral college so close, the winner of Florida would become the winner of the election. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount of the ballots in question, so that a clear winner could be decided.
At the start of the recount, Bush held a slim lead over Gore. As the days went on, Gore gained ground. Either Gore was going to overtake Bush, or Bush's claim to the presidency would be validated. Either way, it seemed logical to wait and have it play out. The US is, after all, a democracy, and one of the foundations of a democracy is that the people decide. Of course, Bush predictably sued to have this recount stopped, on the basis that he would suffer "irreparable harm" should the process continue. Incredibly, the Supreme Court overruled the Florida court and agreed.
This book is about the Supreme Court decision on December 12, 2000 to stop the recount, and the author's outrage over the decision he argues was not based on any legal precedence or foundation in law or ethics. Bugliosi, who was a DA in LA in his previous life (and is most known for the conviction of Charles Manson), pulls no punches in his claims that the five members of the Supreme Court who authored the decision (no one knows for sure which justice authored it, as amazingly none put his or her name on it) did so out of pure selfish interests in wanting Bush to get the presidency over Gore.
The books is a disturbing look into how fragile the whole process is that we rely on for justice in America, even though most Americans think highly of judges and think a Supreme Court justice is above such petty motivesm, which may be misplaced. Most people have very negative opinions of lawyers and politicians. "Conventional logic would seem to dictate that since a judge is normally both a politician and a lawyer, people would have an opinion of them lower than a grasshopper’s belly," he said.
In the book, Bugliosi goes into great detail explaining the flaws with the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision from a moral, legal, and political perspective, to paint a very compelling picture to anyone looking at it objectively that the election was given to Bush by the Supreme Court.
I personally don't blame Bush nor would say he is an illegitimate President (the Supreme Court says he is legit, and they are the ones who decide legitimacy in this country), but there is little doubt that the Supreme Court undermined the Constitution, the will of the people, and acted in purely selfish interests. "That an election for an American president can be stolen by the highest court in the land under the deliberate pretext of an inapplicable constitutional provision has got to be one of the most frightening and dangerous events ever to have occurred in this country," Bugliosi wrote.
And for those of you who want to dismiss Bugliosi as a die-hard liberal who is just sour that Bush is President, he addresses those thoughts directly in the book as well, and Bugliosi is equally critical of the lawyers who represented Al Gore and argued to the Supreme Court, saying they "simply could not have been any worse."
This book is a reminder that even in the greatest democracy the world has ever seen, a few powerful people in well-placed positions can undermine everything right in front of our noses. Shockingly, most Americans supported the decision and have no problems with it, because their guy Bush got in, and that is all that matters (Bugliosi has some interesting comments about human nature being corrupted by personal self-interests).
Given the mess we are currently in with Iraq, one has to wonder what the course of history would have been if the state of Florida had been allowed to count every vote, as it legally and logically should have been allowed to do.
The book is based on an article Bugliosi wrote for The Nation in 2001. After this article, says Bugliosi, "came an unwelcome confirmation of something I had already concluded about the vast majority (not all) of human beings: They simply do not have sufficient character to rise above their own self-interests."
I completely agree.
http://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-America-Undermined-Constitution-President/dp/156025355X
Most Americans have forgotten, but in November 2000, we did not know who our President was after the election. There were issues with the ballots in Florida, and with the electoral college so close, the winner of Florida would become the winner of the election. The Florida Supreme Court ordered a recount of the ballots in question, so that a clear winner could be decided.
At the start of the recount, Bush held a slim lead over Gore. As the days went on, Gore gained ground. Either Gore was going to overtake Bush, or Bush's claim to the presidency would be validated. Either way, it seemed logical to wait and have it play out. The US is, after all, a democracy, and one of the foundations of a democracy is that the people decide. Of course, Bush predictably sued to have this recount stopped, on the basis that he would suffer "irreparable harm" should the process continue. Incredibly, the Supreme Court overruled the Florida court and agreed.
This book is about the Supreme Court decision on December 12, 2000 to stop the recount, and the author's outrage over the decision he argues was not based on any legal precedence or foundation in law or ethics. Bugliosi, who was a DA in LA in his previous life (and is most known for the conviction of Charles Manson), pulls no punches in his claims that the five members of the Supreme Court who authored the decision (no one knows for sure which justice authored it, as amazingly none put his or her name on it) did so out of pure selfish interests in wanting Bush to get the presidency over Gore.
The books is a disturbing look into how fragile the whole process is that we rely on for justice in America, even though most Americans think highly of judges and think a Supreme Court justice is above such petty motivesm, which may be misplaced. Most people have very negative opinions of lawyers and politicians. "Conventional logic would seem to dictate that since a judge is normally both a politician and a lawyer, people would have an opinion of them lower than a grasshopper’s belly," he said.
In the book, Bugliosi goes into great detail explaining the flaws with the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision from a moral, legal, and political perspective, to paint a very compelling picture to anyone looking at it objectively that the election was given to Bush by the Supreme Court.
I personally don't blame Bush nor would say he is an illegitimate President (the Supreme Court says he is legit, and they are the ones who decide legitimacy in this country), but there is little doubt that the Supreme Court undermined the Constitution, the will of the people, and acted in purely selfish interests. "That an election for an American president can be stolen by the highest court in the land under the deliberate pretext of an inapplicable constitutional provision has got to be one of the most frightening and dangerous events ever to have occurred in this country," Bugliosi wrote.
And for those of you who want to dismiss Bugliosi as a die-hard liberal who is just sour that Bush is President, he addresses those thoughts directly in the book as well, and Bugliosi is equally critical of the lawyers who represented Al Gore and argued to the Supreme Court, saying they "simply could not have been any worse."
This book is a reminder that even in the greatest democracy the world has ever seen, a few powerful people in well-placed positions can undermine everything right in front of our noses. Shockingly, most Americans supported the decision and have no problems with it, because their guy Bush got in, and that is all that matters (Bugliosi has some interesting comments about human nature being corrupted by personal self-interests).
Given the mess we are currently in with Iraq, one has to wonder what the course of history would have been if the state of Florida had been allowed to count every vote, as it legally and logically should have been allowed to do.
The book is based on an article Bugliosi wrote for The Nation in 2001. After this article, says Bugliosi, "came an unwelcome confirmation of something I had already concluded about the vast majority (not all) of human beings: They simply do not have sufficient character to rise above their own self-interests."
I completely agree.
http://www.amazon.com/Betrayal-America-Undermined-Constitution-President/dp/156025355X
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Why I stopped listening to Bill O'Reilly
I know what all of you are thinking: Why did you bother to listen to him to begin with? What did you expect? But that line of questioning, particularly from someone who has never bothered to listen to Bill O’Reilly on the radio, is exactly why I did. My seven-year-old won’t try food he has never tasted because it is different and thus must be bad. It would be good advice to an adult to use better logic than a seven-year-old. Whether you like him or not, O’Reilly is dominating cable news and the radio talk circuit, and has multiple best selling books. You can either ignore him, as CNN did, you can check it out and decide for yourself.
For $50 and a 12-month subscription to an archive of commercial-free MP3 files of his shows, I decided it would be more productive to listen to O’Reilly talk about current events during my workouts than listen to the same music.
For those who only know him from the cable show on Fox, which is nothing special and an array of topics that are short and sensational enough to capture the attention of the American who doesn't want to think about a topic longer than two minutes, the radio program is a better format for critical thought. The radio program is two hours long, devoting one topic to each hour, allowing ample time to discuss a topic in pretty good detail from several angles. O’Reilly’s method of operation is to start the discussion with his take on a topic, go to a commercial, come back with a guest who may or may not disagree with him, then come back and answer phone calls the rest of the hour. He takes about 8-12 calls an hour, and often includes about 3-5 people who completely disagree with him and think he is nuts. Granted, he has the last word and never concedes the big point, but he will acknowledge the occasional caller who makes a good counterpoint, which alone differentiates him from his peers.
But O’Reilly has several flaws as a journalist and a person that are cause for dislike, and his viewpoints on issues can be, in my opinion, intelligently countered via the same logic he uses and thinks is foolproof, but the irony is that criticism of O’Reilly is not about that but on reputation.
David Letterman told him that “60% of what he says is crap,” then later admitted in the same show that he never watches O’Reilly. Genius. Which person is worst? That one spouting “crap” or the one who hates someone he knows nothing about? I argue the latter. Letterman has been told that O’Reilly was evil and ran with it, and it is hard to find nobility in that approach through life. But when it comes to people’s view of O’Reilly, Letterman’s thoughts are very much the norm. I would guess 99% of the people who hate O’Reilly have never bothered to listen to him.
Many people hold the belief he is another Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, a guy who loves all things Republican and hates all things Democrat. But this is a lazy argument and simply not true. You don’t have to listen to more than a week of his radio show to come up with several examples of where he contradicts the Republican party line. For example:
- He is against the death penalty
- He is a libertarian when it comes to your personal life… be gay, watch porn… O’Reilly doesn’t care, as long as you don’t hurt anyone or break the
- Thinks the war in Iraq is a mess and horribly managed by the Bush administration
- Is very anti-oil companies and wants them regulated
- Has said repeatedly that Clinton had a successful presidency and doesn’t care about the Lewinski stuff (other than it took place in the Oval Office and that he lied about it)
- He is for gay rights in terms of economic equality, hospital visitation, inheritance, etc.
There are several more examples, but these alone are enough to demonstrate he is not Rush or Sean Hannity. Yet he is often referred to as a conservative columnist, which I think is lazy journalism. There is no doubt that the majority of his beliefs align with Republicans, but this is not because he is pro-Republican by default but because O’Reilly is a traditionalist, and a traditionalist is aligned with the Republican platform on most issues. He no doubt votes for mostly Republicans (although he says Democrats JFK and Robert Kennedy were great Americans), but that doesn’t make him one, and it is wrong to identify him as such. Some of his ideals are clearly not aligned with Bush.
With this premise, I started working out listening to Bill O’Reilly. I listened to about 80% of O’Reilly’s daily two-hour radio shows for an entire year as part of a premium membership. I found him different than the preacher types of Hannity, Limbaugh, and Air America, who do nothing but support their guy (the one with the “D” or “R” next to the name). As such, they are predictable. And being predictable, they are boring.
I initially found O’Reilly very refreshing, because while I didn’t always agree with him, I didn’t find him predictable, and that made him tolerable to listen to, even when I disagreed with his thesis. I also appreciated how he took phone calls from people who disagreed with him, and had some guests from the opposite viewpoint. Rush and Hannity would never do that.
After a year, however, I am not renewing my membership. The main reason? It took me several months to get to the core of his agenda, but I did eventually find it, and once known, I find O’Reilly is predictable, and thus boring. I can tell you what O’Reilly will say on any issue you can come up with.
On the positive, O’Reilly has a breadth of topics on his show, and it took me several months to start hearing the same responses (compared to about 20 minutes of listening to Hannity). However, because he is more agenda-driven and “spins” much more than he will ever admit, his viewpoints never wane and he is easy to predict, once you take get to that point, just like any other radio talk show host, regardless of political leaning.
As stated previously, O’Reilly is not a conservative Republican preacher, like many in radio talk, but he is a self-proclaimed traditionalist “culture warrior”, and his new book (which he can’t go four minutes without plugging), defines what all of this means and how the secular progressives (SPs) are bad and destroying America with its “San Francisco values.”
Here is where I begin to tire of O’Reilly. I found his arguments, at first, to be logical and valid, even if I disagree with them, because they seemed to be thought through. The problem though, and you have to listen to him awhile to find the patterns, is he is inconsistent with how he applies his logic, and I belief that his agenda drives his conclusions more than logical critical thought, counter to what he says. Some examples:
- View that the world is black and white: O’Reilly basically says those who think the world is grey don’t get it. I couldn’t disagree more. One example: He says an SP is for income redistribution (taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor), such as the estate tax. I personally am against this tax, as I don’t think the government should be able to tax you on stuff you’ve already paid taxes on after you die. (But I also know the estate tax only applies to 2% of all Americans and kicks in only after you first million, so I am not that concerned about it because it will never apply to me). So, if income redistribution is defined as estate tax and a higher tax rate for rich people, I am against income redistribution. But that is not true. Income redistribution also takes place in the form of taking more in social security than you put in (a 7-year-old collecting SS checks when a parent dies, for example), college grants, Medicare, paying taxes into schools when you have no children attending school, etc. Most people are okay with that. So, I guess I am for some forms of income redistribution but not for others. Put another way, the world is not black and white.
But O’Reilly constantly mocks SPs as those who always see the world as grey and live in a “kool-aid world” that needs clear answers. Unfortunately, I don’t see the world as black and white, and as such, I can’t live in O’Reilly’s world.
· Iraq War: He says the war is mess. He says on Oprah that he probably wouldn’t support it knowing what he knows now. Yet, he is against pulling out. Why? Because it will be worse, as millions of people will die in civil war. This is likely true and what happened in Vietnam that most Americans don’t know about (about 3 million Vietnamese were slaughtered after the US left Vietnam), but what is the alternative? Stay in Iraq and continue to have people picked off daily and spend billions each month and have American soldiers kidnapped and tortured? I don’t know the answer, and I am very glad it isn’t my call, but the fact is O’Reilly doesn’t know it will be worse any more than I know it can be better, which is the problem with preemptive wars: their value can never fully be proven or even known. My issue? O’Reilly never admits that. He just says his way is right, and Democrats and others are insane to think otherwise.
· Endless self-promotion: Every entertainer, and O’Reilly is an entertainer (he calls himself a news analyst, which thus makes it okay for him to provide commentary and speculation), self-promotes to some degree, but my god: enough with the book you just wrote and its sales and place on the NY Times best seller list, and enough about your book signings, and enough about your appearances on TV shows, and enough with your name droppings of celebrities that you have met or know (why do I know that he lives next door to Happy Gilmore? Why do I need to know that?).
· Double-standards: He constantly rips people who don’t appear on his show, such as Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and Stephen Colbert (why does he care if that guy comes on his show or not?), but meanwhile Dick Cheney has several times refused to appear on the show despite saying he will in the future, yet he never gets ripped. A caller once asked O’Reilly about that, but O’Reilly said he wasn’t ready to give up on the VP just yet (read: O’Reilly doesn’t want to tick off the Bush administration).
· Insecurities and vendettas: O’Reilly is a very insecure person. I know this, because he talks for a long time about things he says he doesn’t care about. He says he doesn’t care if no one reviews his books, because they will rip it anyway, then talks about how no one will review his books at some point in every show for two weeks straight after the book comes out. He also gets on people who don’t want to appear on his show, which of course is always because they are afraid of O’Reilly and have something to hide. But isn't it possible they don't want to appear on O'Reilly's show because they don't like him nor want to give his audience the story? Some people don’t like Letterman and only go on Leno, or Fox News but never CNN. It isn’t always about Bill O'Reilly. Get over it.
· Calling for boycotts: O’Reilly won’t go to France, won’t go to Vermont, won’t buy oil from one company, clothes from another, vacation here, won’t shop at that store there, this judge has to go, this senator can’t stay… a modern day J. Edgar Hoover. Enough with the lists. And what is the foundation of all these boycotts? Anecdotal evidence: O’Reilly is the master at using a random events (albeit true) to justify his viewpoints, but the fact 1% of a sample size is doing something doesn’t mean everyone is buying into it. I am willing to bet I can find people in the South who still want slavery, but I am not going to write a book talking about the threat of slavery returning to America, because the majority of people won’t tolerate that thought, and it will never happen. And just because one store says Happy Holidays isn’t going to keep me from saying Merry Christmas, and it doesn’t mean that Jesus will be boycotted from all churches across the land. Enough with the slippery slope arguments. We couldn't even make it to December before O'Reilly had to take an hour talking about a store not saying "Merry Christmas" (11/29, hour 2). Enough.
· Hates the media, but he is that which he hates: this is a whole article in of itself (is the media liberal?), but in short, he uses the fact that most newspaper editorial boards are liberal to extrapolate that all journalist can’t cover any news anymore, as if a kid out of j-school trying to be the next Bob Woodward is going to ignore the parking ticket scandal at city hall if the guy is a Democrat. The fact most journalists vote Democrat doesn’t mean they are giving a pass to Democrats (was he alive during the Clinton administration?), and the reason journalists attack the system is because journalists are supposed to be a watchdog of the other three estates, which is typically rich white males, who tend to be conservative Republicans. It isn’t personal. If suddenly Democrats owned all the wealth and power in the US and were the CEO of every big corporation, the Fourth Estate would be looking very closely into liberals as well. If you have no power or wealth, you can’t do much damage, and your scandal isn’t worth the media’s time.
· Hates the Internet: He admittedly knows nothing about computers, and they always say you fear that which you are ignorant of. I disagree with him on this topic, but I understand why he hates the Internet: Web sites list his mistakes (and I agree with him, when you talk 3-4 hours every day, you are going to say something stupid… I know I would), it takes power away from the central journalism core and allows people like me to publish ideas. I understand where his coming from. But he is wrong.
· Personal life choices: This is admittedly the weakest part of my whole critique of O’Reilly, but I just feel he did something he shouldn’t have, and it is hard for me to support him when I think he has some issues. I think this is why he is quick to forgive those who are caught publicly messing up (most recently Mel Gibson, which got a lot of air time on his show), because he has been there. Again, this is my opinion and not based on facts submitted into a court of a law, other than the lawsuit filed by the female who sued O’Reilly and is found here: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1013043mackris1.html. Only those two and God know what really happened, but I do know the female claimed to have tapes, O’Reilly was going to counter sue to get the tapes, and then suddenly the case was settled out of court. If I didn’t do anything wrong, and the tapes would prove it, I know I wouldn’t have settled. You can say that the settlement saved O’Reilly money in the long-run, but the guy is loaded with more money than he can possibly spend (he is a self-admited frugal guy) and has a huge ego: You really think he would have forked over millions if he were innocent? I don’t.
Obviously I don’t know the man, but O’Reilly seems to me like someone who is very insecure and has an anger-management problem, especially when challenged, and he is not someone I would want watching my kid (which is the barometer I use to judge people). He admits that he gets very angry sometimes (I remember one time he spoke about how he killed a phone), and I just get the feeling that he would not be a lot of fun to hang out with or work with, unless you agreed with him. Again, I admit this is a weak thesis on my part because I don’t know him, but sometimes you have to go with your gut. And I don’t want to financially support his empire, if I believe there is something amiss here.
For the reasons above, I no longer am listening to Bill O’Reilly. Not because I hate him, or because I am a “left-wing idealog bomb-thrower”, or because I am a registered Democrat, a person with “San Francisco values”, anti-American, a “secular progressive” or a terrorist. I no longer listen to O’Reilly because he has nothing left to say I haven’t heard before, and he has been reduced to a preacher talking to his choir, and preachers are entertainers with agendas. And I don’t find him entertaining anymore.
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