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My Latest Entry [or Frameless] Pt. 2
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Sun. March 5, 2006
Frameless 2003 -- US: Hundreds of "Books Not Bombs" student protests nation-wide against Bush's planned war against Iraq. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/05/19/lies/ --The Daily Bleed Sunday Sermon X: Cartoons Provoke Führers . . . um, Furors Since this periodic sermon has no truck with fundamentalists of any stripe, the publication of 12 cartoons so offensive to Muslims they set off extensive rioting & killing of course provoked me to see what all the fuss was about. I could only hope to piss off Christians that much, as opposed to the "get a life"-type comments I usually garner. I honestly would not have predicted the cowardice & hypocrisy most outlets resorted to in covering the controversy while avoiding a look at the actual cartoons. Even given the common tip-toeing around religious dissent in the American press. And while Googling the subject produced endless pages of discussion -- pro & con -- about the 'toons, it actually was rare to find the illustrations, tho almost everyone said something to the effect that, of course, reprinting them wasn't necessary since they were readily available on the Internet. Not so, especially in the beginning of the uproar (as we shall see), so I then had a mission to provide a link to them for those who are interested but not to the point of making much of a search themselves. I didn't want just little thumbnails, either. So here they are. And I found the debate over re-publishing the cartoons to be more relevant to our society & its allegedly free press than the endless rehashing of why the cartoon are offensive to Muslims in the first place, & why they shouldn't be, or at least should be considered none of their business if appearing in the European, secular press. Or the American, which turns out to be just as squeamish. One of the few sites to print 6 of the 12 cartoons was the Daily Illini of the University of Chicago at Urbana-Champaign, Ill. I found that site thru a Blog, The Next Frontier, which apparently has a connection with students at The Daily Illini. That was one day ago as of this writing, & the links to The Next Frontier [http://thenextfrontier.net] are now dead, tho they are cached in Google. The original publication of Feb. 9 now appears on the Illini Web site without the drawings, presumably reflecting the controversy that resulted for the independent newspaper. From the New Frontier Blog, here is part of the entry covering that original publication, followed by a few comments that appeared there with many more: Running alongside the cartoons is the following Editor’s Note from The Daily Illini Editor-in-Chief, Acton Gorton: To the right [in the original] you’ll see a series of cartoons about the Islamic prophet Muhammad that have fueled a firestorm of debate all  over the
world.
These cartoons [sample at right] are bigoted and insensitive to the Islamic faith because they are depictions of the prophet Muhammad. In much of the Muslim faith, there is an absolute ban on drawing or portraying religious figures. I agree they are bigoted and insensitive, as do many others. However, this serious controversy has not been addressed by the press. By refusing to run the cartoons, Americans have no idea how “offensive” they are. The ensuing death threats, riots, murders and laying siege to embassies, leave most of us confused and appalled Recently, the U.S. State Department criticized the editorial cartoons, originally published in the Danish Jyllands-Posten. A student newspaper in Wales had all of their papers confiscated after they published the cartoons. Editors have resigned from the New York Press after the cartoons were pulled from the press at the 11th hour. Only one of the major newspapers in this country has run an example of the cartoons. All across this nation, editors are gripped in fear of printing … for fear of the reaction. As a journalist, this flies in the face of everything I hold dear. By refusing to print these editorial cartoons, we are preventing an important issue from being debated openly by the public. If anything, journalists all over this country should be letting the public decide for themselves what to think of these cartoons. As an editor of a college newspaper, I cannot claim to be a champion for free speech and at the same time restrict it from running its course. My gut has been turning for days questioning how to address this issue. It is only proper that you, the public, are allowed to think for yourselves. Within the coming days, I hope to promote a dialogue on the campus and in the community as to how people feel about this issue. I encourage everyone to write a letter to the editor and let us know what you think. Lots of discussion followed on the blog, including these: Harald Says: February 10th, 2006: Thank you for publishing these cartoons, now people can make an informed decision about the whole row. No major newspapers in Norway, where I come from, dares to publish the cartoons for fear of reprisals. Jyllands-Posten proved their point, there is no longer any freedom of expression concerning criticism of Islam in Scandinavia.
February 10th, 2006:
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Sat. Feb. 25, 2006
Frameless
1968 -- Discussing the war capacity of North Vietnam, a country that had been fighting for 23 years & had just staged the massive Tet Offensive, Beloved & Respected Comrade US General William C. Westmoreland, master of history & grand prognosticator, declares: "I do not believe Hanoi can hold up under a long war." --The Daily Bleed It's nice that someone at the Journal Sentinel has a rudimentary sense of proper English usage, though it doesn't extend to the notoriously weak copy desk. Joanne Weintraub, for example, a fine TV critic (meaning we often agree) takes some reality shows to task for common errors, such as contestants (or their writers) allowing such usages as, "He told Michelle and I a secret," or, "This is the most unique challenge we've ever had on this show [Dec. 29, 2005]. I might even take a contrary position, & argue that some things can be more unique than others as regarding the degree by which they stand out as different from similar tasks, but she gets credit for awareness, & goes on to list other amusing examples of TV-speak, such as subject-free weather forecasts: "Turning cooler tonight but warming up tomorrow." What exactly is turning cooler? Or "weekly basis" for "every week." Not incorrect, but pretentious. And "incredulous" for "incredible," "suspect" for "suspicious," "paramount" for "tantamount," & "'penultimate'" when you mean ultimate." (Even Gore Vidal & William F. Buckley argued over that one; I forget which one was caught using "penultimate" -- meaning next-to-last -- incorrectly.) For instruction about the above examples, she suggests, "You could look it up." And should. (I couldn't Google a quick answer to the penultimate question, tho I think it was in a Buckley newspaper column. Vidal (Al Gore's cousin) however, appears to have misused "begs the question" for "raises the question." a pet peeve of this Z-Blog. But these are not errors that JS writers are prone to make, at least as far as I have noticed. In that vein, I was slightly encouraged that a non-bylined sports story of Feb. 11 said that "Andy Roddick grew nauseated and lost his match . . . ." But I have to point out that in sports writing, one of the most common errors is never to name the game being discussed, as is the unfortunate case with that item -- tho "match," "sets" & "singles" would be a clue to some. But that's not sufficient. In any case, nauseous is so often used when nauseated is called for that it is encouraging that someone was on the (tennis) ball that time. If I don't take any credit for that, I do think that JS architectural expert Whitney Gould took to heart an e-mail discussion we had when I criticized her phrase about a Review Board member's description of the house that "Everyone hated." To quote: "A Jiffy Lube," one sniffed. As I told her, As the New Yorker magazine might have once put it, I doubt those are words that ever got sniffed. They could have been shouted, or whispered or croaked or simply said. But -- and this is a common annoyance with me -- they could not have been smiled, sneered or laughed, for example. If you think otherwise, when you have a private moment try to sniff them. Let me know how it sounds, if you would. She doggedly argued the point, with (suspect) examples from literature, but I simply suggested that a better phrasing might be, for example, to say that someone said "blah, blah, laughing" or "and laughed" rather than have him laughing something. And in a Feb. 17 article about Riverwest activist Vince Bushell's comments on the proposed Kilbourn Reservoir Park, she quotes him: "When we started on this thing, I didn't have any gray hair," he says, laughing." In the past, reporters such as Crocker Stephenson have actually written back to agree with a point I made; in his case, that enormity really means great evil, not something merely immense. So perhaps there is hope -- at least when individual reporters are contacted, tho I have no reason to think the notoriously weak copy desk is paying any attention. (Of course, since I rely on a free Web host for now, I haven't publicized this journal to them, only certain writers. Too much traffic gets it shut down for a while.) As evidence of this lack of effect I have in my hand (literally) stories to save for another column, repeating flubs for aggravated, oxymoronic & -- a willful abomination -- Ugly American as a disparaging description, when that term was coined by author Eugene Burdick to describe a sympathetic character in the eponymous novel. You could look it up, laughing or not. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sun. Feb. 19, 2006
Frameless
1807 -- Vice President Aaron Burr arrested in Alabama for treason; later found innocent. --The Daily Bleed Sunday Sermon IX: Presidential Piety Monday is President's Day, expanded from homage to Washington & Lincoln to cover them all. Real info on the religious practices (or lack of them) of modern-day presidents is in short supply, since -- like all politicians -- they have learned to present a conventional exterior to get elected. But some bare facts -- including the surprising (to some) number of the Founding Fathers & early presidents who denied the divinity of Jesus Christ (that is, they were deists) -- are available, & other aspects of their faith or lack of it can be surmised. For the curious, passing over, for the moment, historical references to presidential piety or lack of it, George W. Bush's beliefs are dissected & found lacking from a conventional -- if liberal -- theological point of view by Andrew R. Murphy, Assistant Professor of Humanities & Political Philosophy in Christ College, the honors college of Valparaiso University: Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting prisoners are, however, precisely the sort of tasks that the president continues to reject as budgetary priorities, ranking them, in terms of governmental commitment, far below tax cuts for the wealthy, militarization of global politics, reliance on foreign fossil fuels, and draining Social Security coffers. . . . Back to earlier presidents, it is worth noting that Unitarians (4) are much over-represented; one can speculate that they were only nominally religious but knew they had to profess something to be electable. Another, the largest group in absolute numbers, is the religion of the WASP, Episcopalian (11). It has always been the religion of the ruling class. Still, it is also important to recognize that many of the first 6, tho Episcopalian or Unitarian, are also counted as deists: 1) George Washington: Episcopalian (Deist) 2) John Adams: Congregationalist (raised); Unitarian 3) Thomas Jefferson: raised Episcopalian; later no specific denomination; held Christian, Deist, Unitarian beliefs 4) James Madison: Episcopalian (deist?) 5) James Monroe: Episcopalian (deist?) 6) John Quincy Adams: Unitarian And Jefferson, Lincoln & Andrew Johnson had no affiliations, despite the tendency of presidents today to pander by at least pretending to some denomination & the public's penchant for reading every presidential utterance as a sign of the favored pol's staunch Christianity, whenever possible. Similarly, the U.S. is often -- overbearingly by some -- touted as a Christian nation. But the significance of deism -- which, of course, was not an organized denomination but a philosophical viewpoint -- was that it denied the divinity of Christ. Tom Paine's Age of Reason is probably the best known example of that view of the universe as a sort of machine set in motion by a creator & then left alone to run according to laws of nature. Thus, the Bible (as revealed religion) was (& is) also considered a fanciful creation of mythologists: Historical and modern Deism is defined by the view that reason, rather than revelation or tradition, should be the basis of belief in God. Deists reject both organized and revealed religion and maintain that reason is the essential element in all knowledge. The case of Lincoln is complicated. Robert Ingersoll observed that Great pains have been taken to show that Mr. Lincoln believed in, and worshiped the one true God. This by many is held to have been his greatest virtue, the foundation of his character, and yet, the God he worshiped, the God to whom he prayed, allowed him to be assassinated. Is it possible that God will not protect his friends? On the other hand, tho many religionists have claimed Lincoln as one of their own, other biographers have accumulated much evidence to the contrary, such as this letter from Deism.org: "My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them." Lincoln in a letter to Judge J.S. Wakefield, after the death of Willie Lincoln. But tho all this veneration of the founders is traditional, it should be remembered that Milwaukee was the scene of a movement to memorialize the anarchist assassin of President William McKinley. The story is too old to easily document on any Web sites I know of (except mine), but here it is, briefly: In the early 70s, local youth were gathering at the lakefront for free concerts by local bands. With some confusion as to the best spot, authorities pushed a substitute for the popular location, which became known as the Alternate Site. It was under the bluff near Woodstock Avenue, but also on the inland side of Lincoln Memorial Drive across from McKinley Beach. Local Yippees & other activists thought it patronizing that some in the power structure wanted to call it Woodstock Park, after the famous festival of the previous year in New York. Instead, they suggested Czolgosz Park, after the assassin of President William McKinley in 1901. As an anarchist (tho perhaps insane), Leon Czolgosz sympathized with those who saw that Industrialization spawned great fortunes, but it also created a massive class of low-paid workers. In the 1880s and 1900s workers launched a series of violent strikes and a radical labor movement emerged. McKinley was anything but neutral during these conflicts, and his firm alliance with bankers and industrialists generated enemies. The cartoonist Homer Davenport drew McKinley as a marionette being manipulated by men who wore dollar signs on their suits. [from In These Times] McKinley, by the way, like George W. Bush, was a Methodist in his 2nd term who had an avid hunter for a vice-president (Theodore Roosevelt). He also believed the U.S. government had a duty to help spread Christianity and Western civilization to the rest of the world. The historical parallels seem to stop there, so far. TR refused to shoot a treed bear, while Cheney bagged a lawyer. The first person to send in a plausible punch line for this setup will win . . . all the publicity this site can supply, but don't let the Secret Service hear you speculate about a possible Czolgosz emulator. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Tue. Feb. 14, 2006
Frameless
1921 -- US: In New York, Jane Heap & Margaret Anderson face obscenity charges for publishing a portion of James Joyce's Ulysses in the Little Review. They got fined $50. --The Daily Bleed 
The confusion over Valentine's Day -- Does it honor a Christian Saint? Is it a decadent Pagan ritual? -- warrants a special Sunday Sermon, although Feb. 14th falls on a Tuesday this year. But for the loveless, especially the 42.4 % of "never-married African-American women" [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Feb. 2, 2006] there is hope here for some secular action. The About.com Atheism Page says in Valentine's Day: Pagan or Christian Holiday? Pagan Origins of Valentine's Day that . . . we don’t find a strong relationship between Christian saints and romance. There is a lot of debate and disagreement among scholars about the origins of Valentine’s Day. We’ll never be able to disentangle all of the cultural and religious threads in order to reconstruct a complete and coherent story, but the pagan connections to the date are much stronger than the Christian ones. From the Romans' Lupercalia [honoring Faunus, god of fertility] to several St. Valentines, it has reached the point where Valentine’s Day is no longer part of the official liturgical calendar of any Christian church; it was dropped from the Catholic calendar in 1969. It’s not a feast, a celebration, or a memorial of any martyrs. A return to more pagan-like celebrations of February 14th is not surprising — and neither is the overall commercialization of the day. Millions of people all over the world celebrate Valentine’s Day in one fashion or another, but it’s unlikely that even one of them celebrates it in an even remotely religious manner. But celebrate we do, and the romantic comedy film "Something New" suggests a large number of black women would like to have someone to buy them chocolates & flowers, as an article from the Sacramento Bee by Dixie Reid in the Milwaukee JS [Feb. 2, 2006] reports. She says the film asks, "Do you step outside your race to find love," and tells the love story of a "smart, gorgeous and irresistible" black Los Angeles accountant, Kenya Queen, who resists but falls in love with a white landscape architect hired "to resurrect the backyard at her new house" -- until a "dream guy" played by black actor Blair Underwood comes along. What to do? There are far worse problems she could have, of course; the movie was prompted by all those "well-educated and successful" women and the "declining number of African-American men they might find suitable to marry" -- a number that "has doubled since 1950." As a divorced white man over 65, my experience with interracial dating has been limited to almost none, as one might expect in this culture. I have written about attending Milwaukee's North Division High School in the late '50s, where the races effectively segregated themselves except for a few white & black nerds -- the kind who took part in student government & such. Whether any romancing went on at that level I have no idea, but we greasers & hoods didn't even talk about it. Race separation -- & the school was about 50-50 -- was an attitude absorbed by stepping thru the door, & it at least kept the peace so that we weren't aware of even anything beyond minor prejudices toward the unfamiliar. The jocks -- & my friends weren't any of those except for one who became a professional bowler -- probably had their mixed-race friendships, but if there were any interracial scandals (as they would probably have been considered by white & black parents) they didn't surface. That was the time of some sort of school dance where a colored girl (the term generally used then) asked me to dance, someone I had noticed in class as thin & intense, not especially light but attractive, with straightened hair (I wasn't that oblivious, & a girl of any color in a tight sweater would get my sidelong attention). I panicked, immediately frozen because I could never have made a first move -- & automatically turned her down. Later I admitted to myself I was interested, but I had enough trouble negotiating dating & sex with white girls. That was that, tho I continued to check her out from afar. College brought my only other opportunity. One young, bourgeois black woman (the daughter of a sheriff's deputy) was somewhat the darling of our group of white boys -- men? -- whom she dated exclusively, tho she said she had been singer Al Jarreau's girlfriend early on, & I had no reason to doubt her. She wasn't beautiful, but she was skillful in applying makeup. She managed my apartment building, & once when I was in her room she was getting ready for an evening & observed, "I have no natural beauty," & she was right, tho I had never noticed. She had been bedding these students serially of course, as college girls did even in the early & middle 60s, but the competition was stiff, so to speak, & tho we occasionally had drinks together & ended up with me giving her rides, I was too crude for her (she said), & we never even kissed -- tho I tried. I suppose picking her up in my Olds Rocket 88 convertible during daylight while drinking from a 6-pak turned her off, tho it was just part of my beatnik phase, complete with shades & army jacket. She was working at a psychiatric hospital while a student, & did indeed marry a white teacher, so I suppose she was the precursor of the talented, attractive -- or perhaps just ordinary -- black women asking, as the article says: "Do you step outside your race to find love?" But tho as a student & later I went to black jazz clubs & even had a phase just out of high school when I went to black bars in the core just because it was cool, she was my only brush with what I thought of as exotic (except an adopted Korean student I had a few dates with). After the riot of '67, by which time I was single again, I became more circumspect in my haunts, as a lot of white people did. I was mainly cautious about setting off the rare mean drunk who was irritated with my mere existence. The few jazz bars I frequented were mostly white, except for the musicians, as were all the other places where I was a regular. So things stayed that way, but as I aged into my 40s -- still single & looking, as they say -- I noticed several things. Every time a relationship ended & I dipped back into the pool of females I became, it seemed, more & more invisible. It was a good 20 year run, but it was odd: the JS's By The Numbers column of Feb. 13, 2006 reports that there are "120 . . . single men in their 20s for every 100 women in that same age group in the U.S." At the same time, there are "33 . . . single, widowed and divorced men age 65 or older for every 100" comparable women. Obviously, these would make crossing lines on a graph, so at some point the men should start to be in short supply -- & sought after. But as I found out, it's the young men who make out even tho older white & black women are increasingly alone. Yet the men are supposedly there & skewing the ratio to their advantage more & more as they die off. But even my own small circle of friends includes about 6 self-supporting single men (several are divorced) living on the East Side within staggering distance of a bar who would be more than eager to meet an affectionate woman over 40 -- not that they are alcoholics, you understand, just bored. And in the black population, men are said to be unavailable also because of murder, unemployment, drugs, & incarceration. In Wisconsin, 47% of prison inmates are African-American, according to a new sentencing report, says the Milwaukee JS [2/20/06]. But the marriage statistics don't surprise me, if the customer base of the (white) neighborhood bar is considered. Any given night, but especially during the week, guys of all ages are stopping in, while a woman over 35 is rare indeed. Except for the occasional 40-year-old waitress or nurse coming off 2nd. shift, their numbers dwindle rapidly for the over-30s. I suspect one reason is that even if divorced they get the house & the kids & remain in the suburbs; or they have a support group of married friends & church or club members -- or leave the marriage only when they have something else lined up. (When I was a social worker, a divorce court commissioner told me that was her finding). For whatever reason, they feel conspicuous -- & they are -- drinking alone. The guys have no such problem. For many, the bar is & remains a second home, or at least the traditional stop after work. And of course, from betting pools to bar dice to sports on TV, tavern life is the poor man's club. So most any predominantly white corner tap will have 5 or 10 or more regulars any given night, often single. Sometimes the gray-haired crowd prevails, yet the male to female ratio is 20 to one. On the East Side -- such as at Jamo's or Circa or Regano's, all unpretentious & without any live music -- this even has a name: Sunday, especially, is "swingin' dick night." My point on this Valentine's Day, ladies, is: Go back to your old watering holes or try some new neighborhood bars. The men never left. But especially the abandoned black women -- they may dress up in their finest & go out in groups to the inner city bars & clubs. or Downtown after office hours in clusters, but the single white men are lonely & congregating where they always do, even if you can't afford to hire a landscaper. (I did know one landscaper at OBG's; he stayed single for a long time, but died of lung cancer, something I attribute to all the chemicals he was spreading on lawns. Maybe there is better husband material). All women: Forget crowded but pretentious so-called singles bars like Victor's & Elsa's if you're looking for a sure thing (pubs like Wolski's & the Nomad are fun but overcrowded). Unfortunately the changeover at Jamo's brought with it a sound system often played loud enough to make conversation -- & getting laid -- nearly impossible for those older males who have to rely on sounding interesting, tho body language works just fine for the younger crowd. However, Circa has a nice satellite radio system & bartenders who generally play eclectic & tasty music. I have observed that the few black women who do wander in are treated with as much respect as anybody, or more, & sometimes do become regulars. Before OBG's became Jamo's, I grew friendly with one black woman who came in nights alone all the time; she was then working in a bank, but was also a poet whose self-published book I bought & enjoyed. There were no mutual sparks, but we e-mailed each other over the years until Jamo took over & lots of the old-timers gave way to a younger crowd. I understand she's working at a college, now. But she had no trouble attracting male attention, & I've observed a few others gain the instant popularity -- & free drinks -- accorded any even somewhat pleasant-looking, unattached female -- tho as I grow older fewer & fewer women of any race take notice of me. As the film has it, interracial dating is not for everyone (& I don't know the twists of the plot), but it's my suggestion to counter the widely-reported dearth of black men. At the very least they might make some white female friends -- or get even with them for competing for their scarce black men, a hot issue in the black community, according to the authors of Divided Sisters. Now, I can't guarantee marriage or a lasting romance, but that's not necessarily the point, is it? When the Romans celebrated a holiday on February 14th to honor Juno Fructifier, Queen of the Roman gods and goddesses . . . . In one ritual, women would submit their names to a common box and men would each draw one out. These two would be a couple for the duration of the festival (and at times for the entire following year). Sometimes the old traditions are the best, honored in our own way. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sun. Feb. 12, 2006
Frameless
1831 -- US: Nat Turner's plot to revolt in Virginia begins with divine signal -- solar eclipse. See also November 11. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1518.html --The Daily Bleed Sunday Sermon VII: Vonnegut, God, Pazz & Jop 
Several years ago there was an alleged Commencement Day address going around that was supposed to have been given by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. As was later learned, the speech -- among other things, advising the liberal use of sunblock -- was a hoax, & had been a Chicago Tribune column by one Mary Smich. I mention this because I recently received a link to the Sunday Herald of Scotland (of all places) featuring an excerpt titled Vonnegut's Blues for America (Sunday, February 5, 2006) from Vonnegut's new book, published as <A Man Without A Country: A Memoir Of Life In George W Bush’s America>: . . . But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas. . . . http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0205-29.htm I had to check whether this article at the progressive Common Dreams News Center was another hoax (why Scotland?) but it is genuine & furthermore makes a dandy Sunday Sermon. But I also had to put on notice the other recipients on the mailing list that the epitaph the excerpt begins with is contrary to everything Vonnegut has said about religion & -- to my knowledge -- has never disavowed. It reads: If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
I pointed out that
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Fri. Feb. 10, 2006
Frameless
1912 -- US: Emma Goldman's annual lecture tour begins in Ohio, February 10-18; speaks in Cleveland, Lorain, Elyria, Columbus, & Dayton; topics include "Anarchism, the Moving Spirit in the Labor Struggle" & "Maternity," a Drama by Eugene Brieux ("Why the Poor Should Not Have Children"). Source: 'Emma Goldman Papers' --The Daily Bleed My examples of products from the Journal Sentinel's notoriously weak copy desk's are from a pile of them saved in my office -- until the stack gets so big I feel I have to catch up. Some of the more creative missteps on the part of reporters that get by the copy desk are kind of fun to deal with, I have to admit, but many are just boring common errors and repeats besides. But, looking for a quick blog entry on this weekend, I noticed the pile had dwindled to almost none. A sign of higher standards? Actually, no; today's paper brings 2 items that, unfortunately, are still common repeats already dealt with -- but they make this task as easy as ever. A movie review by Paul Doro -- a freelancer -- says of National Lampoon's Pucked that it "begs the question . . . why anyone thought it was a good idea to make it in the first place." Needless to say (I thought) begging the question is a term from logic with a specific meaning. That is, to assume the truth of a proposition that one is defending by invoking that proposition. In other words, a circular argument. Of course, what is meant here is prompts or raises the question. In the same issue, the Spice Brothers' (Spivak & Bice) column twice uses invite as a noun to mean invitation. Now, the column often attempts to be folksy, but nothing is gained here in a straightforward discussion of an invitation to a judicial candidate's fund-raiser. It just comes off as iggorant. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sun. Feb. 5, 2006
Frameless
1973 -- Funeral for LC William Nolde, last US soldier killed in Vietnam War. 2003 -- UN: US Secretary of State Colin Powell presents US "evidence" against Iraq to the UN Security Council, without a "smoking gun"; some pieces of evidence turn out to be fabricated, most of it a pack of lies. --The Daily Bleed Sunday Sermon VI: The Arrogance of Ignorance A gentle wish for peace on earth, which would certainly be facilitated by an end to ignorance & superstition, drew the charge of "arrogance" mentioned in the last Sunday Sermon. There, I drew on evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins to counter with his own experiences of being labeled arrogant for merely stating what he believes to be correct -- & backed up by science & logic. But I didn't provide any specifics in my case -- thinking, I guess, that any strongly expressed message of atheism is enough to get the religionists exercised, so what did it matter? Besides, the particular exchange concerning my perceived arrogance involved some personal history that I thought I best not to go into. But Jeanne Ruppert in Fla. was interested enough to comment: . . . Who was it who called you 'arrogant'? Might we see the context of whatever he/she said? That would be the only way to see the point of your sermon of today. From the article you quoted by Dawkins it's easy to see how he would appeal to a rough-em-up sort of atheist, as it seems you are. But I believe people in various fields find him arrogant not so much because of his atheism or because of his personally abrasive, overbearing style, but because of the arrogance of his pronouncements on human psychology, consciousness, freedom, philosophy, and so forth. He's a very, very reductive thinker. See Alas, Poor Darwin, a collection of essays by his peers in various disciplines, reviews of, and extracts from which, are available at Amazon, at this link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/ 0609605135/104-2443292-6772727?v=glance&n=283155 Fair enough. First, my actual offense was a Xmas Greeting, similar to this year's Online Xmas Card. I sent it to my personal mailing list of respondents to items in this blog, & others, as my Sunday Sermon was not yet established. It drew this response from Marcia Smith: Your arrogance and self righteousness are overwhelming, Zetteler. Get a life. Peace on earth good will toward men . . . and let it start with you! Merry Christmas. Marcia A mixed message, I would say. On a personal note, that somewhat ambivalent sentiment came from a woman I had lived with for several years on the East Side (some 30 years ago), who had liked to call herself an urban guerilla & who contributed to feminist activities, including an article [as Marcia Drouin] on the emerging women's role for the Bugle American, an alternative paper I wrote for. In short, rational, progressive & not someone I had any cause to debate religion with. If we discussed the second coming, it had nothing to do with Jesus Christ. She appears on the Zonyx Report Web site in a reprint of that article on feminism, which even her equally (or more so, now) liberated daughter linked to on her own Web site. But time will work its changes, & as we e-mailed over the last few years, she reported that she was "more conservative" & had joined the Congregational Church in her small, new Wisconsin hometown. (She also approvingly quoted the racist, war-loving [at least in his early career] Conservative Winston Churchill. Even tho he despised Gandhi & called natives "wogs"; favored force-feeding the English Suffragettes; respected Mussolini; & advocated the fire-bombing of Dresden (& machine-gunning striking coal miners). Born of the aristocracy, he earned the title "Butcher of Gallipoli" for helping engineer one of his early military disasters; spoke in favor the use of poison gas in warfare; & was booted out by the British people after his usefulness as an icon of the war effort was over. Still, it comes as a shock to some that he is more respected today in the US than in England, so the well-known [tho probably spurious] quote that she used is not a surprise. Tho found in different wordings, it reads, in effect, that Any 20 year-old who isn't a liberal doesn't have a heart, and any 40 year-old who isn't a conservative doesn't have a brain. I spent a lot of time then trying to verify the quote; most sources deny that he ever said it, tho one with somewhat the same sentiment turned up (which shouldn't be surprising). Even the present reference says only: source (coming soon) Churchill did indeed defect to the Liberals before returning to the Conservative party, but in England, Liberals are more akin to what we call Libertarians; the working-man's party is, of course, Labour. He noted that "Anyone can rat [change parties], but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat." At any rate, for some of us, a good idea doesn't stop being a good idea because one is older, & injustice is injustice at any age. I recommend the lives of A. J. Muste (died at 82), Mother Jones (100), Eugene Debs (71), Bertrand Russell (98) & Milwaukee's own former long-time mayor, Frank Zeidler, still a live socialist at 93, for starters. Anyway, that short Xmas Greeting of December, 2004 reads: Season's Greetings, One & All: Just thought I'd acknowledge the spirit of these Holidays, however you define them, with a text from one of my favorite thinkers. I do this not cynically, but with some sadness for all the remaining ignorance in this, our world of the 21st Century. Can I get a Right On!? The text I passed along was from Robert Ingersoll: ------------------------------------------------- The Agnostic Christmas by Robert G. Ingersoll The Journal, New York, December 25, 1892. ************************************************** AGAIN we celebrate the victory of Light over Darkness, of the God of day over the hosts of night. Again Samson is victorious over Delilah, and Hercules triumphs once more over Omphale. In the embrace of Isis, Osiris rises from the dead, and the scowling Typhon is defeated once more. Again Apollo, with unerring aim, with his arrow from the quiver of light, destroys the serpent of shadow. This is the festival of Thor, of Baldur and of Prometheus. Again Buddha by a miracle escapes from the tyrant of Madura, Zoroaster foils the King, Bacchus laughs at the rage of Cadmus, and Chrishna eludes the tyrant. This is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let its observance be universal. . . . ****************************************************** It goes on, of course, pointing out the Pagan origins of the holiday as a celebration of the Sun. Rather benign, I would say. I confess I don't understand the Samson & Delilah reference, tho I researched it for another entry here. For more Ingersoll, scroll down the page at http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/ robert_ingersoll/agnostic_xmas.html I'm happy to report I got a lot of "Right On!"s from those who e-mailed in return; the only somewhat negative response, from Phil Wroblewski, was at least good natured, as the following exchange -- if you can stay with it -- will show: [From Phil:] And so hoping, let us celebrate the venerable festival of the Sun. For He is risen? You guys don't get holidays . . . you're an atheist . . . helloooooooo! [From Mike Z.:] For holiday, my Webster's lists: 2. a day of freedom from labor, often one set aside by law to celebrate some event 3. [Chiefly Brit.] a vacation But of course, you're free to worship that ancient religious icon, the flying reindeer with the red nose, if you wish. Still, a mass delusion, no matter how widespread, is still a delusion. Or, as Freud said, a socially acceptable neurosis. I guess the Enlightenment is a long time coming to these parts. [Phil:] Not this holiday . . . you can’t have it . . .“some event” here is the birth of Christ. Although I see that some child was sent home from the “holiday” party because he was dressed as Santa. Santa is now treated as a religious figure in the schools. . . . [Mike: ] And here I thought Santa Claus was another name for Saint Nicholas, a deceased bishop. (Wrong again . . . Santa Claus is the patron saint of the credit card --Phil) [Continued:] I think Jews & Muslims, to name 2 groups, can rightly consider this a religious figure that has no place in the school (that is, promoted by government), just as someone might object to a ceremony for an Ayatollah or Buddha. A purely social function is another matter, but there are some lines that must be respected. Of course, atheists may or may not object to a lot of these religious trappings as their conscience or intellect may dictate; it is an aspect of atheism that it merely means an absence of theism, but has no precepts dictating how one must deal with others' beliefs. Just don't force them on me. I can enjoy Xmas & its rituals (& I do) just as you might sit in on a Trobriand Islanders' ceremony without accepting the magic implied, & no one of my persuasion is authorized to call me on it. For a complete discussion of our holiday activity, see http://www.positiveatheism.org/mail/eml8291.htm But since religions are always looking for converts, no one but you would deny me the right to participate in such holidays for whatever satisfaction it provides. [Phil:] And what is this crap about celebrating “light over darkness. . . ." [Mike:] And, the point of my previous mailing, the "event" here is really the Winter Solstice, recognize it however you will. Light being a metaphor (to restate the obvious) for the triumph of reason over superstition & ignorance. . . . [Phil:] this in a society where 85% share that same “delusion” about Christ being God . . . terrible how the majority dominates and suppresses the minority [Mike:] If we have a majority of 85% rightly dominating others because they amount to only 15%, I seem to remember you are in the blue-eyed minority in this country & should beware of the rest of us making you a second-class citizen. I guess that could never happen, tho. Oh yeah, there were those dark-skinned folks we called Negro slaves. Maybe that's why Madison wanted us protected against the "tyranny of the majority." Interesting that you don't specify whether you share society's delusion, but since you write of the "event" of a birth as if it were fact, I assume this means accepting all the attendant "miracles": virgin conception, a star stopping in its tracks, an angel annunciating the whole plan, & of course continuing right on thru miracles & a Resurrection. If so, say so, that I might add you to my list of complete idiots. If not, & it is indeed a delusion, why should any of us who live in a scientifically described world of cause & effect be in thrall to it? And no, there is no middle ground. This is a scheme of sin, salvation, redemption or everlasting torture, not a cafeteria-style blueprint for morality or mere plan for exemplary living, by the prophets' own teachings. Reject part & the whole falls down. Which it should, leaving the debates on correct behavior to ethicists & philosophers, social scientists & my Aunt Helen. . . . This exchange -- spontaneous as it was, & therefore not really polished enough to be re-published -- was also copied to Marcia & others, maybe giving her a little more ammunition for that claim of arrogance. Still, as with Dawkins, I have to believe it's just the truth as I saw it & no more arrogant than any reasoned statement of principles. And what would be the alternative except silence? At any rate, rather than rebutting her at length, I decided this response would be sufficient: [To] Marcia: Thanks. I try to express myself with confidence, but am seldom credited with being overwhelming. For a discussion of arrogance, try http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/ robert_ingersoll/preface.html [scroll down to Preface] I never heard from her again. Not even a Christmas card. That link, to Ingersoll, is of course to a more scathing indictment, but that's his honored role as someone who really does well with the atheistic foundation, starting with: Preface I oppose the church because she is the enemy of liberty; because her dogmas are infamous and cruel; because she humiliates and degrades woman; because she teaches the doctrines of eternal torment and the natural depravity of man; because she insists upon the absurd, the impossible, and the senseless; because she resorts to falsehood and slander; because she is arrogant and revengeful; because she allows men to sin on a credit; because she discourages self-reliance, and laughs at good works; because she believes in vicarious virtue and vicarious vice -- vicarious punishment and vicarious reward; because she regards repentance of more importance than restitution, and because she sacrifices the world we have to one we know not of. . . . Now, I don't call even that arrogant, tho Jeanne & Marcia may. But note that Dawkins only said that one particular quote was always thrown at him as evidence of his arrogance. Thus, Jeanne's speculation that he may be considered arrogant for a host of reasons doesn't speak to that particular observation, namely that it is considered arrogant in itself, a claim I think he satisfactorily refutes. Personally, when I saw Dawkins recently on the Charlie Rose TV program I thought he was well-informed, kindly & affable. But then, so am I -- or at least I'm kindly. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Thu. Feb. 2, 2006
Frameless
1970 -- England: Philosopher/activist Bertrand Russell dies in Penryndeudraeth, Merioneth, three years short of 100. His War Crimes Tribunal was instrumental in providing a world forum which could not be ignored (even by US media), revealing US lies & atrocities perpetrated during the Vietnam War years. --The Daily Bleed Bleeding-heart Liberals -- a category that might be said to include myself, altho going back to my earliest true political awakenings in college I identified with those such as Professor Morgan Gibson who insisted that radical was a more accurate description of our sympathies (that is, favoring a restructuring of society at its roots) -- might think that Milwaukee Magazine's criticism of the Journal Sentinel's Crocker Stephenson in its February Pressroom column for not revealing most of his subjects' criminal backgrounds in his vignettes is rather heartless. It did bring a prominent defense by Managing Editor George Stanley, but the terseness of Stanley's response didn't really convey the extent of Stephenson's dereliction, as the magazine saw it. And Milwaukee's writer Pete Robertson does raise questions -- liberal sensibilities aside -- as to whether Stephenson had a journalistic duty to reveal more in the profiles of criminal backgrounds & objectionable behavior, regardless of how downtrodden the profiled may be. Stanley's response (excerpted further here) to Q. Why does Crocker Stephenson not report detailed criminal records of some people he writes about? answers briefly about the item published in Milwaukee Magazine, which cites several examples and concludes that "Stephenson doesn't bother to do background checks" on his subjects. The magazine's assertion is false. Stephenson uses the state's online court records database at wcca.wicourts.gov to review the legal history of his subjects before a column is published. Then he uses judgment to decide what to include in a 500-word column, which does not pretend to be a complete biography. . . . Stanley offers only one example: For example, one column described a drug dealer turned artist. It opened: "Short Dog hustled drugs. Crack. Weed. Whatever." It told of how the drug dealer saw two ways out of his "stupid desperate delusional life. . . . Go to jail. Or get popped." Four years after being shot six times, the former drug dealer lived at the Millway Care Center, abandoned by his "friends" on the street. He expressed his hopes, fears and rage through his paintings. . . . And concludes: Stephenson's columns often attempt to bring humanity and even dignity to people who live, or have lived, on the edges of society. He does not portray them as saints, but as more than the sum of their failures. . . . But most of Stephenson's award-winning Snapshots don't have even that much detail about criminal activity. Roberston starts with one example: Just last February, Stephenson faced withering criticism for failing to check court records before portraying Ron “Silly the Clown” Schroeder as a trustworthy entertainer. Turns out that Schroeder had two restraining orders filed against him (2000 and 2003), a battery conviction for spraying mace in a 9-year-old boy’s face (1992) and was still considered a suspect by Brookfield police in the 1991 homicide of his baby daughter. Alarmed editors removed the column from the newspaper’s Web site, and Stephenson had to do a follow-up column informing readers (and potential customers of Silly) of Schroeder’s legal problems. Stephenson, however, faced no disciplinary action and was less than contrite. Would he start doing more background checks? “Sure, probably,” he told us. In view of all the criticism, Milwaukee Mag followed up with checks on 50 persons profiled since that piece ran & concluded "it’s safe to say he didn’t learn his lesson." It goes on to list several examples: [In] an inspiring July 13 column, Stephenson wrote that homeless shelter director Doug Kay turned his life around while doing community service for the homeless after getting busted for “marijuana possession” 20 years ago. At best, that was half of the story. What readers didn’t learn is that Kay was actually convicted of marijuana possession with intent to deliver when police found more than 166 grams of pot, a balance scale, plastic baggies and a quarter-gram of cocaine in his home (1985). The column also missed Kay’s conviction for conspiracy to deliver marijuana when police found more than 225 grams of pot in his car (1995). . . . & If that’s not bad enough, try Stephenson’s poignant November 4 column on Luther “Shorty” Barnes, a double amputee trying to make ends meet by selling salvaged bricks to The Brickyard in Bay View. We were moved by “the way life has taken such a toll on the man” until court records ignored by Stephenson showed that Barnes is more villain than victim. Pointing out that In and out of jail for decades, Barnes was convicted of disorderly conduct for impersonating a police officer (2004), possession of drug paraphernalia (2000), disorderly conduct for throwing a glass bottle at his daughter (1999), disorderly conduct for threatening a man with a 13-inch knife (1996), disorderly conduct for threatening police and resisting arrest (1990) and attempted theft for trying to steal sheet metal (1988). There are several more such examples, including one with which I -- like a lot of East Siders -- am familiar. It's the "wheelchair pervert" as one UWM female student called Henning Yderstad, profiled on October 16 as a "harmless, wheelchair-bound loner" who is “grateful when people crouch down and talk to him at eye level.” To get people’s attention, he asks, “What high school did you go to?” Actually, reports Robertson: What the column didn’t say is that Yderstad has a long record for harassing young women after delivering that unique line. He was convicted of “unauthorized presence” at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee after school officials banned him from campus (2002), disorderly conduct for harassing an 18-year-old UWM student and groping her buttocks (1998) and disorderly conduct for harassing a 23-year-old female student at the school (1995). Court files and UWM police records show at least 13 incident reports on Yderstad since 1981. I have been ambushed by Yderstad myself on Downer Ave. as I naturally tried to remain polite when the unfortunate man in a wheelchair who obviously thought he knew me set me to combing thru my past on false pretenses. In vain I tried to remember this rather unpleasant, overly insistent person from high school. Now, he has a right to his conversational gambits, but he is far from the sympathetic character Stephenson made him out to be. A balanced portrait would have shown that, even if much of the apparently anti-social behavior documented by the magazine is only what you would expect from the marginalized & homeless & only a problem to themselves. The magazine adds a bonus section & tutorial on researching court records Online to its published column for Online viewers, with yet more examples of some weighty omissions, going so far as to check Stephenson's own record, which it found clean. But it couldn't help pointing out his "given" name is Ronald Scott Skrzynski (tho of course, the last part of it is a surname). No word on why a reporter would choose "Crocker," which so easily brings to mind "That's a crock" in discussions of his output. But especially interesting to me as a media critic was Stanley's defense of the Crockster, quick as he was to jump in on Stephenson's side, a trait somewhat surprising to a public used to thinking of editors as crusty taskmasters. But even Milwaukee editor Bruce Murphy, who spent 3 yrs. at the JS before writing an expose (that also called Stephenson lazy), In the Belly of the Beast, mentioned in this column, said of Stanley, "He could be downright childish, writing a snippy e-mail in response to a diplomatically written challenge. . . ." Which, as I wrote, was exactly my experience when I experimented with e-mailing some of the JS's reporters to get comments on their grammatical & other offenses (as I saw them), abetted by the JS's notoriously weak copy desk. Stephenson among them. Instead of thanking me for my concern, Stanley charged to the defense of his sensitive writers & threatened to cut me off: Mr. Zetteler: Berating and insulting people with multiple emails is no way to communicate. It's merely a way to get your messages automatically forwarded to junk mail boxes. If you have something to say in the future, please write it in a civil manner and mail it, since you do not appear to be capable of using email responsibly. You may be impressed by your own intelligence, but we're not. It should be noted that Stephenson's offenses were minor; furthermore, he had the grace to admit to the correctness of the dictionary definition of enormity I sent him, tho some reporters I dealt with wouldn't be caught dead admitting an error. The full dispute as I wrote about it on the Z-Blog & the Zone II ReMediaL Reading report -- complete with texts of e-mails to & from reporters -- is available for those interested in the details. Since then I have singled out Stephenson & the weak copy desk (as well as Milwaukee Magazine) for a few more lapses, but remain undecided in this standoff. But the reader can get a fuller picture on the magazine's site, tho apparently some features -- such as the Belly of the Beast expose -- are unfortunately removed after I've thoughtfully bookmarked them on this Blog. Nor can Milwaukee Magazine escape notice itself for being less than forthcoming. The January 2006 issue headlines an article on "Salary secrets of more than 130 Milwaukeeans" with Your Paycheck, Please, & delivers just that. From "Top Dog" James L. Ziemer, CEO/CFO at Harley-Davidson Inc. ($9,741,00) to massage practitioner Tracy Carpenter ($13,000), it's all laid bare, whether obtained voluntarily, thru "pure stealth" or from public records, in spite of "fear of jealousy, fear of reprisal, fear of laughter. . . ." Except one. That's right, author Dan Libit reports that "when I pressed our current editor Bruce Murphy, he told me to get the hell out of his office." So much for telling the whole story. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sun. Jan. 29, 2006
Frameless
1984 -- US: Variety Club auctions off a dinner with Gloria Steinem & Marlo Thomas. The winning bidder?? Al Goldstein, publisher of "Screw" magazine. --The Daily Bleed Sunday Sermon V: In Defense of Arrogance Hard as it is to believe, I have been accused of arrogance in my defense here of atheism. Apparently, in this pluralistic society, moderate theists accept that I can disbelieve in their theories about God -- as long as I don't actually maintain that I am right & therefore theists are wrong. That would be arrogant. I have protested against this arrangement, of course, quoting Robert Ingersoll on the arrogance of preachers, among other citations. But it does tend to make me appear shrill & self-serving if I point out the obvious, that by referring to my atheism I am merely denying that theists deserve any special treatment for their peculiar beliefs, & rightly so. Just as I have found theists to be insufferably arrogant in what they perceive as normal behavior in a long history of torture, scorn & banishment for non-believers & merely the different-believing. So it is helpful that I can call upon a professional to take on that question of arrogance: Ignorance Is No Crime by Richard Dawkins --------------------------------------------------------- The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 21, Number 3. ----------------------------------------------------------- "It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that)." I first wrote that in a book review in the New York Times in 1989, and it has been much quoted against me ever since, as evidence of my arrogance and intolerance. Of course it sounds arrogant, but undisguised clarity is easily mistaken for arrogance. Examine the statement carefully and it turns out to be moderate, almost self-evidently true. By far the largest of the four categories is "ignorant," and ignorance is no crime (nor is it bliss -- I forget who it was said, "If ignorance is bliss, how come there's so much misery about?"). Anybody who thinks Joe DiMaggio was a cricketer has to be ignorant, stupid, or insane (probably ignorant), and you wouldn't think me arrogant for saying so. It is not intolerant to remark that flat-earthers are ignorant, stupid, or (probably) insane. It's just true. The difference is that not many people think Joe DiMaggio was a cricketer, or that the Earth is flat, so it isn't worth calling attention to their ignorance. But, if polls are to be believed, 100 million U.S. citizens believe that humans and dinosaurs were created within the same week as each other, less than ten thousand years ago. This is more serious. People like this have the vote, and we have George W. Bush (with a little help from his friends in the Supreme Court) to prove it. They dominate school boards in some states. Their views flatly contradict the great corpus of the sciences, not just biology but physics, geology, astronomy, and many others. It is, of course, entirely legitimate to question conventional wisdom in fields that you have bothered to mug up first. That is what Einstein did, and Galileo, and Darwin. But our hundred million are another matter. They are contradicting -- influentially and powerfully -- vast fields of learning in which their own knowledge and reading is indistinguishable from zero. My "arrogant and intolerant" statement turns out to be nothing but simple truth. Not only is ignorance no crime, it is also, fortunately, remediable. In the same Times review, I went on to recount my experiences of going on radio phone-in talk shows around the United States. Opinion polls had led me to expect hostile cross-examination from creationist zealots. I encountered little of that kind. I got creationist opinions in plenty, but these were founded on honest ignorance, as was freely confessed. When I politely and patiently explained what Darwinism actually is, they listened not only with equal politeness, but with interest and even enthusiasm. "Gee, that's real neat, I never heard that before! Wow!" These people were not stupid (or insane, or wicked). They didn't believe in evolution, but this was because nobody had ever told them what evolution is. And because plenty of people had told them (wrongly, according to educated theologians) that evolution is against their cherished religion. I think it was my colleague John Endler, author of Natural Selection in the Wild -- a fine compendium of field evidence on that important subject -- who told me the following story. I may have got the details wrong, but it was approximately as follows. He was on an internal flight within the United States, and his neighbor casually asked him what he did for a living. Endler replied he was a professor of biology, doing research on wild guppy populations in Trinidad. The man became increasingly interested, so, without ever mentioning Darwin, natural selection, or evolution, Endler explained more about his research. The man was greatly taken with the brilliant simplicity of the theory underlying the experiments, and he asked Endler the name of this theory and where it came from. Only then did Dr. Endler reveal his hand. "It's called Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection!" The man's whole demeanor instantly changed. He became defensive, asserted abruptly that he didn't believe in that theory, and terminated the conversation. Ignorant certainly, stupid perhaps, but not wicked. I originally listed "wicked" as one of my possibilities, only for completeness. I have never been sure whether there truly are intelligent, knowledgeable, and sane people who feign disbelief in evolution for ulterior motives. Perhaps a political candidate needs some such dissimulation in order to get elected in certain states. If so, it is sad but possibly not much more reprehensible than the proverbial kissing of babies. Not deeply wicked. There are certainly many creationists who tell lies for propaganda purposes, wantonly and knowingly misquoting biologists, from Darwin on down. Such dishonesty is documented on several Web sites, and by the Australian geologist Ian Plimer in his book Telling Lies for God. Coincidentally, the worst occasion when I have been misrepresented in this way involved an Australian creationist organization, which fraudulently mis-cut the tape of an interview of me. The story, which is quite amusing though it irritated me at the time, is told in the Australian Skeptic by Barry Williams, editor of that admirable magazine [at] http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/news/file007.html. But such minor examples of wickedness can be excused on the grounds that ignorance and stupidity trump wickedness. Are there, then, any examples of anti-evolution poseurs who are not ignorant, stupid, or insane, and who might be genuine candidates for the wicked category? David Berlinski, who is certainly not ignorant, stupid, or insane, denies that he is a creationist, but claims strong scientific arguments against evolution (which disappointingly turn out to be the same old creationist arguments). As guests of a prominent rabbi, he and I once shared a platform in Oxford, together with the great John Maynard Smith and others. Maynard Smith spoke after Berlinski, and, not surprisingly, he soon had the audience roaring with laughter as he lampooned Berlinski's bad arguments. But what amused me was Berlinski's tactic for dealing with this mocking laughter. He sprang to his feet, held up a reproachful open palm towards the audience, and said (approximately of course, I can't remember the exact words): "No, no! Don't laugh. Let Maynard Smith have his say! It's only fair!" Happily, the Oxford audience saw through this tactic of pretending to think the audience was laughing at Maynard Smith rather than with him. And the rabbi, himself a devout creationist, afterwards told me he had been shocked at Berlinski's duplicity. I don't withdraw a word of my initial statement. But I do now think it may have been incomplete. There is perhaps a fifth category, which may belong under "insane" but which can be more sympathetically characterized by a word like tormented, bullied, or brainwashed. Sincere people who are not ignorant, not stupid, and not wicked can be cruelly torn, almost in two, between the massive evidence of science on the one hand, and their understanding of what their holy book tells them on the other. I think this is one of the truly bad things religion can do to a human mind. There is wickedness here, but it is the wickedness of the institution and what it does to a believing victim, not wickedness on the part of the victim himself. The clearest example I know is poignant, even sad, and I shall do it justice in a later article. ----------------------------------------------------------- Richard Dawkins is the Charles Simonyi Professor of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. An evolutionary biologist and prolific author and lecturer, his most recent book is Unweaving the Rainbow. --------------------------------------------------------------- Creationism as Dawkins discusses it is, of course, found in its latest manifestation as Intelligent Design. Furthermore, Dawkins seems too polite here to mention that all theistic views are as invalid as the creationism he invalidates with such apparent "arrogance." As for myself, I go with the insane label for religionists, tho Freud regarded such beliefs as merely a culturally acceptable neurosis. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sat. Jan. 28, 2006
Frameless
2003 -- US: Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Bush tells Congress Iraq tried to import uranium from Africa (one of many lies used to justify the NeoCon invasion of Iraq). --The Daily Bleed It may be uncommon (it is for me) to criticize a female sports reporter (& the notoriously weak JS copy desk responsible for editing her stuff), probably because to succeed they come on board with more knowledge & aptitude than the average male in the same spot, but the JS's Lori Nickel missed the boat Dec. 26, 2005. It is commonly thought by the public that humid air is "heavy," that balls won't travel as far under such a circumstance. The public is wrong; water vapor is lighter than the air it displaces & hard-hit or -thrown balls should travel farther. GB Packers new punter Ryann Flinn, wrote Nickel, did well enough under the conditions of "34-degree temperatures and very heavy air (86% humidity)" against the Chicago Bears. A discussion of this effect in football in the Football Outsiders site has this entry, among others: The “Launching Pad” effect in Atlanta has more to do with humidity than elevation. It's a bit counter-intuitive at first, but humid Air is ‘thinner’ than dry air. This is because water has a lighter atomic weight than air. A little Googling on the physics of this under baseball produces many such explanations, but those dealing with football are a little scarcer. However, Bobbie Babowski's Ultimate Capper.com site for baseball confirms the principle but does have a surprising twist in the case of baseball (with no indication that it applies to footballs): 2. Humidity. Air with high humidity is less dense, or thinner, than dry air. But this effect so slight it would only account for a long ball traveling a few inches farther on a humid day. There is, however, a significant and unexpected effect of humidity. According to Professor Robert Adair, the dean of baseball physicists, a baseball in a humid environment is actually heavier and less elastic than a dry ball, and, therefore, cannot be hit as far. The exact amount of this effect can only be determined experimentally, but, based on the data we've seen, we estimate a 400 ft shot on a day with average humidity would carry 415 ft on a very dry day with low humidity. So I suppose you could win a bar bet taking either position depending on the reference you use to back up your claim. Of course, the reason for the overall confusion is that humid air on the skin feels heavy because of slow evaporation. Especially in Milwaukee's Miller Park, with all that beer vapor in the air. To maintain the men's reputation in the faulty editing derby (my mandatory sports metaphor for this kind of critique) Bob McGinn writes of that same game that for the Packers, "it's hard to lay down in Green Bay, Wis., with Lambeau Field packed to the rafters. . . ." Why the weak copy desk doesn't at least flag this to be replaced with lie down on a Sports section front page is as mysterious as its lack of sports physics knowledge, or McGinn's use of yet another cliché, packed to the rafters (an unenclosed football stadium with rafters?). [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sun. Jan. 22, 2006
Frameless
1973 -- US: Roe v. Wade legal -abortion decision reached by Supreme Court. Inspires right-wing religious terrorists to bomb health clinics & kill people for the sanctity of human life. --The Daily Bleed Sunday Sermon IV: A Walk on the DarkSyde A belief in Santa Claus was compared to belief in God in last week's Sunday Sermon link to DarkSyde's entry on the Daily Kos, What it's Like to be an Atheist. Part II of his essay, Why I'm an Atheist, continues: This is about why I am an atheist, not why you should be one. And by atheist I mean that I strongly suspect that the core, underlying, supernatural claims of religion are nonsense. If you want me to not be an atheist and share your particular flavor of supernatural belief, you need to be able to perform the magic or produce the supernatural being you claim exists and subject that creature to a battery of tests under controlled conditions. . . . The 2 parts make a rather complete argument for atheism, altho volumes of commentary have been produced elsewhere on the questions he raises once more, a Sunday Sermon there is no need for me to further comment upon. At least until next week. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sat. Jan. 21, 2006
Frameless
1911 -- US: Senator Robert M. LaFollette of Wisconsin establishes the National Progressive Republican League. Yup. --The Daily Bleed Is the sky falling in Iraq? It is only war opponents & their media enablers who say so, according to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Perspectives piece [Dec. 26] by Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green of Wisconsin. He cites such gloomy events as flawed elections without a history of democracy behind them, the failure of the search for WMD & the "diversion" of the abuses at Abu Ghraib as merely "talking up the bad news and discounting any good news from Iraq." Now of course, whether he's right or wrong about our new crop of "nervous Nellies" (an archaic reference to the Vietnam War protestors as seen by LBJ), any knowledgeable person could point to references to support either position. Of course, I think he's wrong, but my purpose here instead is to call attention to a usage that matters in the case of a candidate for governor of Wisconsin, & that undercuts his own reliability as a commentator. He writes that "as the song goes, 'accentuating the positive' is critically important." He means, among other things, villagers "amazed to have drinking water that doesn't make them sick," & "girls attending school for the first time." Never mind that at most this is re-gaining ground taken for granted in Saddam's secular, if brutal, regime & lost through our invasion & occupation. What I found interesting is that though he puts them in direct quotes, "accentuating the positive," & "eliminating the negative" are nowhere to be found in the Johnny Mercer / Harold Arlen song. To be sure, the sentiment is, but direct quotes are to mean precisely the wording in the original. A paraphrase should be used otherwise, without the quotes. The closest the original song -- recorded by Bing Crosby & others -- comes, as everyone probably remembers, is: You've got to accentuate the positive Eliminate the negative Latch on to the affirmative Don't mess with Mister In-Between A line variation talks About the eliminatin' of the negative And the accent on the positive Is this important? Well, we're talking about a candidate for governor who -- assuming he writes his own opinion articles -- should know that precision is important in drafting legislation & arguing legal positions (as in the controversy over whether G.W. Bush ignored Congressional intent & the Constitution by warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens), & certainly in making a case for ongoing war. Quotation marks should follow the established rules, especially when used by someone with an office & aspirations as lofty as Green's. But remember -- especially when your neighbors & loved ones in the service are maimed & killed, that: You've got to spread joy up to the maximum Bring gloom down to the minimum Have faith or pandemonium Liable to walk upon the scene [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
Sun. Jan. 15, 2006
Frameless
Sunday Sermon III:
Why I'm on the DarkSyde
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Sat. Jan. 14, 2006
Frameless 1967 -- US: Gathering of the Tribes for the First Human Be-In (first hippie "be-in") at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. Probably 20,000 come to play, though Emmett Grogan says as many as 300,000 in Ringolevio. Familiar names include Michael McClure, Gary Snyder, & Lenore Kandel. Sponsored by Haight Independent Proprietors (H.I.P.) & the Communication Co. Among the performers are The Grateful Dead & The Jefferson Airplane. Speakers also include Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Timothy Leary. Participants were urged to bring food to share, flowers, beads, costumes, feathers, bells, cymbals & flags. The Be-In was produced by Michael Bowen. --The Daily Bleed Fiction Alert: Your assignment for today, rather than to scroll my latest Z-Blog entry, is to check out the latest in my fiction from M'waukee Stories, tales of the near-North Side in the pre-psychedelic '60s, Indexed at the left as the Pool Game. I know 1930s-style realism is passé, but there will be some contemporary stylistic surprises in store when the series is tied together. Of course, pitiful gropings & sexual misadventures are timeless, as is the slowly-growing awareness of cultural matters by a disenchanted factory worker at the end of the "uneventful" Eisenhower era. At least, I hope so. Just click here for the Frameless View. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sun. Jan. 8, 2006
Frameless
1353 -- Jews of Basel, Switzerland, burned alive in their houses. --The Daily Bleed Sunday Sermon II: Long-haired Plometts & Dead Miners Last Sunday's Sermon (Jan. 1) was tied to the accidental deaths of 12 W. Virginia coal miners, first reported alive -- to much jubilation. Understandably. But the cries of miracle turned to cries of grief when the report proved false -- tho Americans' deeply imbedded belief in the possibility of miracles & the efficacy of prayer no doubt remained unaffected. As I wrote, God never gets any blame when things go wrong, nor is it a sign of His indifference. So it was with the timely arrival of a link to a site that disputed the possibility of any miracle, ever, & therefore the equally silly belief in prayer as leverage with the Almighty that I covered the highlights of the Online book why does god hate amputees? by Marshall Brain Jeanne Ruppert in Florida took issue -- not with atheism -- but with my apparent militant tone, suggesting my hostility is a sort of howling at God for not existing, & that I could put my energies to better use. Of course, I think this is just setting up a straw man, since my efforts on this site are directed to those on earth. Were it not for this Journal & the worldly insanities I would like to counter, the thought of God or His non-existence would merely have no relevance for me. She summarizes her thoughts on my alleged outrage at a non-existent God: . . . all this professional atheistic anger seems pointless to me, unless perhaps it is somehow beneficial by diverting one's pain and outrage at the loss of those miners' lives (or whatever outrage one is focused on at the moment) to outrage at the evident lack of divine intercession in this and apparently all cases of great pain and /or great outrage. So, one gathers, you and other devoted atheists exercise your disappointment at the evident lack of God's caring by being mad at God for not-being-there. Why, I wonder, does this acute disappointment and resulting heated anger persist and persist? You might respond by saying that what you are actually angry at is organized religion, for misleading people and, worse, for holding the human race back from many worthwhile endeavors and possible forms of progress. But it doesn't come out that way. Reading the professional atheist, one usually, as here, senses most prominently the heat of the atheist's disappointment and outrage inspired by God's absence. And I don't get that. When I became an agnostic while studying the Philosophy of Religion at UW-M (the completion of a process that began in high school for me), what I felt was not anger but a sense of great relief, as if a burden had been lifted from my shoulders because I no longer had to attempt to make sense of the world in terms dictated by religion. If God is not there, then he/she/it is simply not there. No point in being angry at him/her/it. Be angry instead at capitalism, the corporations, tribal thinking, racism, sexism, classism, nationalism, militarism, and so forth. Be angry at the almost perfect historical record of our species for taking every discovery, invention and insight that comes its way and turning it into a disadvantage if not a disaster. Become a historian, a sociologist, an ecologist, or a politician instead of an atheist and try to redeem the species from its perverse path to self- and planetary/ecological destruction. Really, there's no time for all this obsession with God if we're going to have to take responsibility for what we've done and what we are doing and will do with the planet that has ended up in our hands. Anyone can see the illogic in my being mad at God for not-being-there, so she should have re-thought things right there. I suppose it's true of some lapsed believers that they never get over a sense of loss when their deity evaporates in the glare of reason, but I never had any such illusions. My exploration of atheistic authors just confirmed what I instinctively believed since I could think about it at all. So it is absolutely true, as she says, that You might respond by saying that what you are actually angry at is organized religion, for misleading people and, worse, for holding the human race back from many worthwhile endeavors and possible forms of progress. So why she feels that . . . it doesn't come out that way. Reading the professional atheist, one usually, as here, senses most prominently the heat of the atheist's disappointment and outrage inspired by God's absence. . . . I have no idea. Nor am I a professional atheist, tho I suppose I could be if someone would point out where the hiring hall is. I assume that is a rhetorical flourish, & my writing last time that God was doubly cruel, apparently, in toying with the grieving ones by first appearing to answer their prayers (there are always prayers, however ineffective they may have been on other occasions), & allowing their jubilation & ringing church bells, & then killing off the miners. might confirm that I personalize a God, but that is my own rhetorical flourish. From the point of view of the families, of course, God would (or should) seem cruel. So also, to arbitrarily take a recent local case, does this from the Journal Sentinel evoke a sadistic God: Leaders were trying to heal boy, pastor says Church minister arrested after an 8-year-old stops breathing, dies during a prayer service A pastor said Saturday that church leaders were trying to heal an autistic 8-year-old boy when he inexplicably stopped breathing and died during a prayer service Friday night. . . . The boy's mother had described such a service: She called it an exorcism," [a neighbor] said. "She said they held him down for almost two hours. He couldn't hardly breathe, and that shocked [his mother]. Then she said the devil started to speak through Junior's voice -- though he can't really speak -- saying, "Kill me. Take me. " The fat, jackleg preacher in the overheated storefront church was convicted of smothering the boy in an attempt to drive out the demons, but this is still an accepted practice in the 21st Century. But as Jeanne wrote If God is not there, then he/she/it is simply not there. No point in being angry at him/her/it. Exactly. And my targets are the same as hers: Be angry instead at capitalism, the corporations, tribal thinking, racism, sexism, classism, nationalism, militarism, and so forth. . . . But there's that straw man again, one who can't be active as an atheist & still try to redeem the species from its perverse path to self- and planetary/ecological destruction. Really, one Blog entry a week is not excessive; it is an important part of my life at this point, however -- as I've written -- one that involves a death-bed promise & old Joe Kennedy's sins. But since we are both socialists, it might be well to consider Marx's most famous analysis of religion, from About.com on its Atheism Site: "Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions." Follow the link for analysis and discussion . . . Now, this sums up in an introductory way the origin of some of my disenchantment with religion. But strangely enough, the complete discussion of this passage supports Jeanne's conclusion -- though she didn't say it directly -- that too much can be made of Marx's traditional condemnation of religion, or at least that there are less strident ways of looking at it. It may be that we can agree on a middle ground here. On the other hand, her -- to my mind -- uninformed appreciation of Intelligent Design (ID) as a supplement, if not alternative, to Darwinian evolution was subject to exhaustive analysis on these pages, & rejected, so the reader can go back & check it out. She wrote: As you no doubt know, there is currently a major challenge to Darwinism among many scientists based on the Human Genome project and on recent laboratory-level recognitions of 'complexity' and even what appears to be 'irreducible complexity' in microbiology, organic chemistry, and other scientific disciplines. Naturally the fundamentalist Christians attempting to take over our country and the rest of the planet are attempting to lead a new charge toward installing creationism, young earth theory, and the Bible in the curriculum of the public schools, and naturally many scientists and thinkers who are not fundamentalist Christians but do recognize the claims of 'Intelligent Design' theory are horrified, as they should be. My point in bringing this up is to say that proselytizing atheists are in for a hard time in the near future since most people cannot yet distinguish between the recognitions concerning 'intelligent design' theory and the conclusion that the Bible tells us all we need to know. It might be more useful, then, for such atheists to pursue Intelligent Design theory, and clarify what it's actually 'saying' -- that at some time, someone of unknown capacities and characteristics, appears, quite clearly now, to have manipulated the biological materials required to bring life out of nonliving substances. It might have been a super smart being or a college or consortium of super smart beings for whom there is no distinction between the natural and what we human beings think of as 'the supernatural'. It might have been a higher civilization of advanced extraterrestrials, or the brightest, most powerful individual, or computer, produced by that civilization. It might have forgotten all about what it started on this planet, or have gone away in stark disillusionment with what it had wrought here. It might have gone on to correct the problems set in motion here and developed, somewhere else, the kind of luminous race of intelligent beings that human poets, generally of an earlier time than ours, have postulated us to be. "As you no doubt know, there is currently a major challenge to Darwinism. . . ." I don't know any such thing, but as I understand her, ID has something to offer, & atheists should leave it alone because in explicating it, we alienate fundamentalists who think that merely contemplating it is an attack on the Bible itself. Sorry. All the allusions to Irreducible Complexity (IC) & the Human Genome Project don't disguise the fact that ID has nothing to offer as science, as the the judge in the Dover Area, Pa. School Board case agreed. Nor does it even pretend to offer a scientific account of the origin of life, as transcripts of hearings where its proponents (Behe, et al) testified show, beyond more theism. How then can she urge atheists to pursue Intelligent Design theory, and clarify what it's actually 'saying' -- that at some time, someone of unknown capacities and characteristics, appears, quite clearly now, to have manipulated the biological materials required to bring life out of nonliving substances. Quite clearly, no less? This is just a simple disagreement over the facts (or interpretations) between us, & I have to rest my case with what I cited in earlier postings about ID & my fears of religion in general (which includes Islam, too, & your various polytheisms). Of course, any Sermon here should contribute to this picture. But just as she feels I have a psychic axe to grind in my hostility to God & believers, I have to note that her listing of multiple possibilities for a putative intelligent designer evince a desperation for there to be not just a mystery (with which I am perfectly willing to live) but an ultimate truth about the origin of life in God's absence. Despite her protestations, there is a pathetic longing there for a higher power. (It fits with her long quest for validation of UFO visitations, too, but that's another story.) So she ends by accepting that which hasn't been established at all -- certainly not by me -- & inserting a delightfully sly verse that makes me risk appearing humorless in pointing out that it is useless as argument & simply begs the question of God's existence: Where does ID theory leave us? With lots to learn. And lots to enjoy. As Wallace Stevens saw it, we can, at least part of the time, ". . . enjoy the Ithy-oonts and long-haired plommets As the Herr Gott enjoys his comets." And in more serious moods, which are incumbent upon us, we can try to get ourselves straightened out as a species. And stop blaming the Designer. He might have been fallible. He might no longer care. He might never have cared. But we do. But I & other atheists don't blame a designer. He doesn't exist. And it is precisely because we care about this world that we are sometimes irritatingly implacable in saying so. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sat. Jan. 7, 2006
Frameless
1952 -- US: Actor Phillip Loeb, blacklisted in 1950 as a possible Communist sympathizer, is fired from highly successful TV comedy "The Goldbergs" because no one would sponsor it otherwise. Beloved & Respected Comrade Leader Ronald Reagan, FBI informant during the 40s & 50s who even had his own code name because of the prolific nature of his snitching, & others, deny to this day there was a "blacklist." --The Daily Bleed A Quick Hit by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial writer & columnist Gregory Stanford on Dec. 15, 2005 about Wikipedia, questions the advisability of "an encyclopedia edited by readers." He writes that he went to the entry for Rosa Parks & found her described as a "nigger seamstress." When he clicked back quite soon, he found the offending word replaced by "African-American," because the site is monitored & corrected. This came in the aftermath of controversies about entries for journalist John Siegenthaler (father of the TV anchor) & his purported role in the JFK assassination. This flap was satisfactorily resolved, & Wikipedia changed its posting policy to make such libels harder (tho not impossible), but I can understand Sanford's concern (& the original posting was available for 4 months). I had a similar experience when I was researching there Henry Ford's labor policy enforcer, head goon Harry Bennett for a Labor Day article. I ended up reading a lot about Henry Ford himself, & came across statements something like "he was known for his fondness for young boys," & "he liked to take the young cock." Those are not exact quotes, & sure enough when I went back to check after reading Stanford's paragraph (after several weeks) they were gone, falling into the archived category of being deleted due to "vandalism." But I remember well their tenor, out of keeping with the other biographical material & phrased so distinctly that I could hardly forget their intent. Yet at the time I had thought it odd, shrugged, & moved on. I mention this because of an e-mail from a Florida reader, a former Milwaukee Eastsider, who suggested a Zonyx Message Board, writing A Zonyx board would give all of us Milwaukee Eastsiders an opportunity to reminisce together and also to discuss the issues and share our thinking on the world we live in now. I made a lengthy response: Well, my site now is open to general comments, & I have of course posted some . . . & also have a direct link on my Index page to readers' remarks at Yahoo!: <http://us.geocities.yahoo.com/gb/view?member=mikelzet>, tho I get very few. . . . They have all tapered off, but I consider everything that comes in. I know that is probably not the give & take you have in mind, tho even my Blog makes it easy to post general & specific remarks on any topic (which I would edit). Still I get nothing; only when I get or send e-mails & sometimes respond to an entire group that makes up somebody's mailing list (or my own) do I get much action, & then only thru my private e-mail. But this is precisely what I started the Blog to avoid: If I'm going to spend my time composing something it's going to be for a larger audience (potentially the world) & available for a long time. I could indeed have a separate section on my Site for Eastsiders & expatriates, but I'm doubtful, given the responses to date, that there would be much interest. Space is a consideration, of course, since I rely now on free web hosting. . . . But I suggested she write a mission statement for such a blog, & we would see what happens. She rejected, though, having any direct involvement in a board, & especially the idea of any limits: Surely it should not be edited by anyone. It should be a place where people can say exactly what they like, and precisely what they mean, with contrasting viewpoints welcomed and certainly no editorial overseer. Somewhat repetitively, I answered: I'm in favor of a message board if it would attract any submissions. But as I said, my whole site is set up with ample opportunities to comment, reminisce, etc., & I have published (with some editing) exactly those kinds of things. Nearly all of them, in fact, tho some are in the category of being from relatives & not of general interest, & I have marked those as such. Still, almost all the comments were from those who found me thru a search engine or who were pointed there by someone else. While every posting on my Blog makes it easy to comment, I get none, so far, even tho I ask for specific or general remarks. . . . At that point I mentioned Stanford's & my experience with Wikipedia, & questioned, frankly, her idealism in thinking such a Board would police itself thru some sort of community consensus; at any rate, it would need editing if only for conciseness & relevance -- & surely to prevent any unwarranted slurs on unsuspecting or even aware contributors, even for a short time. Warranted slurs are fine; by which I mean, documented if necessary. She at least saw my point, & withdrew her suggestion, but had left me with her conception of a Message Board, which I hereby proclaim as one use to which this Blog might be put: It should be like a coffee house or a tavern where one drops in occasionally, or every day if it's a friendly and interesting place, to discuss matters of mutual interest; copy or link interesting blogs, recipes, or news items from the foreign or internet press; and, in the case of Eastsiders and Exiles, remember the good olde days, to refresh memory and friendship, to provide a venue for expressing our ideas and values today. Sounds good to me. So as a start to the New Year, I re-invite everyone to submit comments below. Controversy is fine, tho outright sabotage is not (& is indeed impossible under the current setup). I don't mind obscenity, especially my own, to the limits of my Web Hosts' tolerance, at any rate. You should be glad that I will continue to edit for spelling, punctuation, grammar & -- as they say -- originality & aptness of thought. Anonymity will be respected, if you care about it. What more can I say in trying to make this for all who drop by a Happy New Year! [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sun. Jan. 1, 2006
Frameless
1955 -- US: American Army begins training South Vietnamese army. How well they do . . . --The Daily Bleed Sunday Sermon I: Does God Hate Amputees? The recent West Virginia mining disaster brought with it the usual rejoicing of It's a miracle -- thanks to God! (or Jesus Christ) following the apparent rescue of 12 live miners. No similar outcry excoriating God occurred (at least not publicly) when it was announced that 11 were dead. Of course, He always gets the credit, but if things don't turn out, well, He's just inscrutable & certainly not at fault. In this case, God was doubly cruel, apparently, in toying with the grieving ones by first appearing to answer their prayers (there are always prayers, however ineffective they may have been on other occasions), & allowing their jubilation & ringing church bells, & then killing off the miners. But does God really ever answer prayers? Does he really work miracles? For example, Wisconsin's own Jeanna Giese was cured of rabies, the first such case in history that did not involve administering the vaccine, before or after the bite. Many called it a miracle, tho advanced medical treatment that hadn't been tried before was used. Now, this Site tries to hold down the links to other sites in favor of my own observations, which have the virtue of being original. Readers interested in other atheist viewpoints, after all, can easily seek them on their own. But sometimes, something so clearly written & irrefutable -- to my mind -- comes along that I have to just point it out in awe. So it is with one that asks, why does god hate amputees? by Marshall Brain. This deals not only with the Jeanna Giese "miracle" & other cases, but specifically points out the problem of prayer & miracles: But then there are other times when God doesn't answer prayers. For example, there are millions of children who die of starvation every year. Surely some of them are praying, and we know that many Christians in America are praying for them. God allowed six million people to die in the Holocaust, and it is safe to say that most of them were praying. You may pray for something that seems obvious to you, yet God ignores you. So the author suggest an experiment: Therefore, here is an interesting thought experiment for you to try as a Christian. For this experiment, we need to find a deserving person who has had both of his legs amputated. For example, find a sincere, devout, Christian veteran of the Iraqi war, or a devout Christian in your church who was involved in a tragic automobile accident. Now create a prayer circle like the one created for Jeanna Giese. The job of this prayer circle is simple: pray to God to restore the amputated legs of this deserving Christian. I do not mean to pray for a team of renowned surgeons to somehow graft the legs of a cadaver onto the soldier, nor for a team of renowned scientists to craft mechanical legs for him. Pray that God spontaneously and miraculously restores the soldier's legs overnight, in the same way that God spontaneously and miraculously cured Jeanna Giese. . . . No matter how many people pray. No matter how sincere those people are. No matter how much they believe. No matter how devout and deserving the recipient. Nothing will happen. The legs will not regenerate. Prayer does not restore the severed limbs of amputees. You can electronically search through all the medical journals ever written -- there is no documented case of an amputated leg being restored spontaneously. And we know that God ignores the prayers of amputees through our own observations of the world around us. If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs, we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day. After more examination of this problem, Brain concludes, logically, that God hates amputees. Unless, of course, there is a simpler explanation: When we pray to God to restore an amputated limb, there is only one way for the limb to regenerate. God must exist and God must answer prayers. What we find is that whenever we create a non-ambiguous situation like this and look at the results of prayer, prayer never works. God never answers prayers if there is no possibility of coincidence. We will approach this issue from several different angles in this book, but Chapters 6 and 7 are particularly important. . . . And in this case & in the myriad of others humans indulge in by asking the truly impossible -- that is, unquestionably miraculous -- there will be no miracle because there never is. This is only one chapter of a longer treatment of the insanity of Christianity, at http://whydoesgodhateamputees.com/god-toc.htm It is a complete treatise worthy of the traditional philosophers, but in a modern, refreshing style I can't recommend enough as a start to a Happy New Year! [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sat. Dec. 31, 2005
Frameless
1970 -- US: Congress repeals the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Congress finally fesses up to having been hoodwinked by a pack of lies the US military, NSA & the government had produced to test their knee-jerk reaction. Good knees meant heavy bombing & dramatically increased US military involvement in Vietnam. [Can you say deja vu, kiddies?] --The Daily Bleed Finishing the year by catching up with all the recent -- & some rather less timely -- editing errors made by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's notoriously weak copy desk is, sorry to say, unwieldy -- they turn 'em out faster than I can point 'em out. It is hard to maintain the enthusiasm for this when repetitions keep turning up, lapses that one would think would be extremely rare because copy-editing handbooks (& style books) are devoted to them & senior editors should at least be catching them after the fact & making sure they don't happen again. Apparently it doesn't work that way. Just as spell checkers can be turned on, so too could the database flag such candidates for abuse as alibi, enormity, invite, literally, minimize, moot, replica & whence, to list a few. Not to ban them but alert the user to think twice about their aptness. Just a suggestion for the JS's New Year. In the meantime, to expedite this & coming entries, I'm going to try to minimize my dissection of repeat offenses. This assumes the reader has been following this journal or else is educated enough to grasp the proper use of various terms or is motivated to look up definitions (try Google) -- one source, of course, is my own growing Introduction & log of common mistakes on the ReMedial Writing Page. It is more satisfying to deal with fresh material for criticism, & especially those that aren't textbook classics but new products of poor reporting or faulty thinking -- or even honest disagreement over usage -- because they stimulate my own research & more original writing & occasional satisfaction thru some mild (& universally appreciated, I'm sure) sarcasm. Working more or less chronologically, then: A minor but amusing flub comes from Crocker Stephenson in his Snapshots column for Sat. Nov 11. He writes about Thurmans "15" bar on Arlington Pl. & Pulaski St., once called "Zoom Zeppel." Only it was actually Zum Zeppel, which translates as to the Zeppel, just as Zur Krone on the South Side meant to the Crown; that is, of service to the crown (or monarch), as I recall from my college German. That leaves the question, what is a Zeppel? Babelfish won't translate it from the German, but the tavern is 2 blocks from my apt., & I seem to recall that it couldn't have a translation since it was a reference to the owner's name. He had been stationed in Germany & brought the idea back with him. But there was no zooming involved, unless it was my rush up to the bar to order at last call. An aside: I tended bar on Bartlett & Bradford at Al Calderone restaurant, which translated means to the cauldron -- but patrons often assumed it was owned by a guy named Al, a persona I sometimes adopted. On Sat. Nov. 5, Tom Heinen reported on Father Trevor Miranda who learned he would receive $1 million for his charity but who oddly was overwhelmed by "the enormity of what was about to happen to him. . . ." As I say, look it up -- here, if you wish. A rarer miscue (at least it's a first for this blog) was that by columnist Eugene Kane, who wrote on Sun. Nov. 13 about "aging baby boomers weaned on Stevie Wonder. . . ." Unfortunately, one is only weaned from something, not on it. I suspect the purpose is to convey that when one is weaned (taken to mean growing up & thus giving up the teat), something is used as a substitute. But this is wrong, & necessitates a new entry in my list. As for repeats, Rick Romell wrote wrongly (really) on Tue. Dec. 13 about someone named "Smith, who becomes nauseous around cigarette smoke. . . ." Oh, look it up or go here. Another common offense is found in the Kovels' Antiques column of Sun. Dec. 25, where they tell of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry "decimated at Little Bighorn." As I've noted, it comes from the Romans' use of selecting every tenth man for punishment; today it has broadened for some to mean widespread destruction. But the cavalry was completely destroyed, not just diminished, surely too much of a stretch in meaning. Lastly (but not yet comprehensively) an article by film critic Duane Dudek on Fri. Dec. 16 about comedienne Sarah Silverman contained not a editing error but yet again the cliché I've written a whole article about, describing her "vocabulary [that] might cause a dockworker to blush. . . ." As a former dockworker (21 years) I can report the blush potential is very small, but on the other hand, why bad language is always linked with dockworkers is a mystery to me, though it is a practice that just won't go away. Most people who use it probably never heard dockworkers converse, but we are no more obscene than reporters or professional athletes, to pick just 2 professions. To be honest, most probably don't even mind being considered tough, but I say knock it off just to encourage a more original comparison. What the fuck do you have to say about that, assholes? Happy goddamn New Year. To be continued . . . Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sun. Dec. 25, 2005
Frameless
1956 -- US: A good white Christian celebrates the Lord's birthday, bombs the home of anti-segregationist Fred Shuttlesworth. Birmingham, Alabama. --The Daily Bleed Sunday Sermon XVIII: Tree Worship & Obits With blogs springing up the way they are, it's certainly true, as a recent Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, that many are merely links to other sites & blogs, usually with a few of the author's relevant comments. This serves a purpose, but I had hoped to provide content that couldn't be found elsewhere. Someday someone will write to tell me if I am any good at it, but on this Xmas I will just link to an atheist site that I have pushed before, since it has a local connection that Wisconsin readers & Eastside expatriates may have overlooked & might appreciate. It is about the annual battle -- it seems -- over the Official Xmas Tree (or is it a Holiday Tree?) in the Capitol Rotunda:
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/226581.htm?nl=1
In another local context, appropriate to a
year-ending
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Thu. Dec. 22, 2005
Frameless
1905 -- Poet/essayist/critic/translator Kenneth Rexroth lives. Influence on the spread of Beat poetry. Translated many Chinese & Japanese poets into English. --The Daily Bleed As the year winds down I find Z-Blog far behind in its mission to publicize the most egregious errors of the Journal Sentinel's notoriously weak copy desk. In fact, they have accumulated to the point that more than one column will be needed to start 2006 with a clean slate. Next week should conclude with the balance of 2005. One reason for the delay is simply that it is discouraging to cover repeats, but here goes. Eugene Kane's front page column [Tue. Oct. 1, 2002], while "Visiting the scene of the crime" where local teenagers yet again beat a man to death revisits a crime against logic by writing "it begs the question" of "What's it like to live in a neighborhood like this?" But to beg the question is a term in logic, as I have pointed out many times, that means to assume the truth of the very premise that one is debating. In other words, circular reasoning. He means, no doubt, that it raises the question, or prompts the question, which he then explores. Of course, the copy desk should be well-versed in this, even if he is not, & automatically flag any use of begs the question for closer scrutiny. In the Perspectives section [Fri. Oct. 4, 2002], no less a word expert than the syndicated William Safire of The New York Times writes that Tom Daschle "was minimizing the ethical shortcomings of Sen. Robert Toricelli," while on Sun. Aug. 23, 2003 the JS's own Leonard Sykes Jr. wrote that "African-Americans have tended to minimize mental illness in their families." Certainly surprising coming from Safire, but in either case the weak copy desk should know that although Daschle may have fervently wished to minimize Toricelli's faults, only Toricelli himself could do that, thru better behavior. And while African-Americans may indeed speak cautiously about their endemic amount of mental illness, they are not especially noted for any efforts to actually reduce mental illness. In either case, minimize means effectively to reduce, not speak of something in a dismissive manner. Take that, Safire, tho I must acknowledge that some experts take a more relaxed view of the definition. In yet another example, syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker writes [Tue. Sept. 27, 2005] under Hurricane's clout that "no one wishes to minimize . . . the horror of these storms. . . . ," though that is exactly what any victim would want, if it were physically possible after the fact. More evidence that the weak copy desk is effectively asleep, not just incompetent? Michael Hunt on the front page of the Sports section [Sat. May 7, 2003] tells us about certain conspiracy theorists that "will crawl back under the rocks from whence they came." Don't most users of English know that "from whence" is redundant (as well as highfalutin'), that "whence" means "from where?" One wonders whence these editors obtained their degrees, probably master's at that. While Milwaukee's Bastille Days has many attractions, don't expect a 986 foot copy of the Eiffel Tower, tho Mary-Liz Shaw reports in the JS calendar for Fri. July 2, 2004 that you'll see a replica of that landmark during the festival. Of course, it will be a model constructed to some scale -- replica meaning exact copy. The error was replicated by Crocker Stephenson in his Snapshots squib of Wed. June 8, 2005 in writing about an "exact replica," no less, of a farmhouse that was nevertheless "inches tall," according to the story & caption. Now, any size farmhouse could actually be measured in inches, but as this model could be held in one hand it was just that -- a scale model or miniature copy. As I've mentioned, wire service copy -- in this case from the Associated Press -- requires scrutiny by the weak copy desk as much as local reporters do, & which the JS claims to provide. Especially in the case of terms so often abused they should immediately stand out to editors, such as fulsome (the only new entry in this roundup). As in this case from page 4 of the first section of Tue. Sept. 27, 2005, in which Tony Blair & Bertie Ahern "offered fulsome praise to the IRA" for apparently disarming. A term in fulsome prison is deserved for this use of a word meaning "overfull and offensive because of insincerity [Bernstein]" as a synonym for effusive. Even if some readers might find any sort of praise for the IRA offensive, it wasn't meant there to accuse those leaders of insincerity. With still more offensive lapses to be covered, Z-Blog will continue next week. Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sun. Dec. 18, 2005
Frameless
1972 -- Despite . . . War Criminal (& Nobel Peace Prize recipient) Hank Kissinger's statement on 26 October that "peace" is at hand, the US launches heaviest air barrage of the entire Indochina war against North Vietnam. . . . President Nixon later refers to this so-called "Christmas bombing" as "my terrible personal ordeal." Probably missed part of a football game that day. --The Daily Bleed Sunday Sermon XVII: Of Dubious Birth This Sunday one week before the arbitrary date of the celebration of Christ's  birth (November 17, 3 BC
is one commonly accepted date for his birth; other scholars point to April) is a good time for my Xmas message. I found one on the Internet I won't try to improve upon: 'Tis The Season What Does X-Mas Mean? Carey Sherrill <http://www.positiveatheism.org/> The supreme creator of the entire universe looks across billions of light years and finds one small galaxy. In the corner of that galaxy he finds a rather mediocre solar system. One of millions within that galaxy. He looks to one of the smaller planets in that solar system and finds hundreds of thousands of species of living organisms, but he picks just one of those species to concern himself with. Then he decides to create a bizarre little game with them. He creates a place of everlasting torment and tells them to obey him or they will suffer for eternity. Although he is the supreme creator he can't seem to control this one species very well so he changes the rules a little bit and decides to mate with one of their females so that 33 years later, a mere blink in cosmic time, the poor chap can endure a brutal death. He does all this just to try and convince the rest of the species that he really is a good and loving god. I think it's time to find a new Christmas story. If you need more in the true Xmas spirit, Robert Ingersoll, of course, raised a firestorm with some famous words in the form of his Essay on Christmas (1889), following here some commentary, along with A Christmas Sermon. Sabbath Superstition (1893) is also included here for good measure. Happy Saturnalia, all. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sun. Dec. 11, 2005
Frameless
1974 -- Go To Hell??! French priest Georges de Nantes is convicted of libeling Jacques Isorni in an argument over who was responsible for crucifying Jesus. --The Daily Bleed Sunday Sermon XVI: Delilah Can't Cut It Intrepid blogger Chelsea at <http://www.livejournal.com/~lickerish/> has an entry & some discussion from her followers about Erotic Moments, brought to you by the Bible, featuring A new calendar, coming out in Germany [that] features erotic photography depicting scenes from the bible. [Monday, December 5th, 2005] More info can be found at here at Yahoo; the Reuters article from Berlin notes that A German Protestant youth group has put together a 2006 calendar with 12 staged photos depicting erotic scenes from the Bible, including a bare-breasted Delilah cutting Samson's hair and a nude Eve offering an apple. The calendar site itself is in German, appropriately, & really isn't worth visiting (& seems to say the calendar is sold out) since it offers only one illustration, a  larger
version of the Samson & Delilah scene shown here: Harmless fun, but it led me to investigate that Biblical tale, which I suspected had been corrupted in the popular telling, as most such stories are, & furthermore don't stand up to much scrutiny no matter how much the faithful seem to think they mean something significant. Right on many counts, it turns out. In the first place, Delilah didn't cut Samson's hair, despite the common belief. Judges 16:19 plainly says: And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. So Samson was shaved by a man, one of the many she was apparently in the habit of keeping on hand, "lying in wait," as the verses report. Because Samson was also very dim, since he had lied to her (presumably normal behavior for a godly superhero) three times about the source of his strength & each time had been set upon by those same convenient assailants & prevailed but yet came back to Delilah. Seemingly, he suspected nothing & finally told her the truth -- tho why God had to locate the source of his power in his hair & why he was made vulnerable (tho this is, not surprisingly, a common theme in mythology) is a mystery, since God could have just made him invincible, instead of merely stupid & cruel (he slew 3,000 Philistines, after all, when his hair grew back, including the women & men who were bystanders, as well as the "lords of the Philistines"). He also consorted with prostitutes (& Delilah herself), tho apparently God wasn't troubled by this, & was a showoff as well who destroyed things for no discernible reason. As the Skeptic's Annotated Bible comments about an earlier, pointless adventure: Samson, after "going in unto" a harlot, takes the doors, gate, and posts of the city and carries them to the top of a hill. Why did he do this? Did God make him do it or was he just showing off? The Bible doesn't say. [see details at <http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/jg/16.html>] Tho Samson's head was actually shaved, the calendar shows Delilah wielding scissors. I was curious enough to look into this & found that scissors indeed existed as far back as ancient Egypt, but modern pivoted scissors weren't invented until about A.D. 100. Previously, scissors were more  like knife blades at either end
of a u-shaped springy piece of metal, as shown here: In the course of this diligent research, I uncovered another interesting site mentioning Samson & Delilah, in a spirited defense of polygamy based on biblical passages -- very convincing, I think -- such as: We need to be able to share that in 2nd Samuel 12:7,8 it says that God gave David wives. If God gave them, then it could not be wrong to have them. Otherwise it would be accusing God of participating in the sin! We need to be able share that Jesus never condemned having more than one wife, although he did condemn divorcing one wife to marry another. (Something that is very common in the western world these days). And so forth, with exhaustive citations. Another site that discusses Samson & Delilah also contains this unusual assertion in a sermon by Pastor Steven L. Shelley: Do you know Jesus died naked? He died naked. This is not a thing that we want to think about, our Lord dying naked. But He died naked with nothing. Gracious artist have given Him a little cloth to cover His manhood. But He died naked. And I believe there’s a message there. . . . Something for Biblical scholars to debate, I suppose, but it's appropriate to this sermon's  emphasis on
eroticism (& scissors), especially in light of Catholicism's enthusiasm for conflating visions of sex & torture (see St. Agatha, who had her breasts crushed & cut off -- as obsessed over by the young Garrison Keillor drawn to a library book showing her carrying them on a platter in Lake Wobegon Days), tho I doubt Christ's dangling manhood will show up soon on anybody's calendar. Still, given the short work relic hunters made of the one true cross, which litters Europe, it's amazing that particular trophy -- especially if bereft of even a shmatte -- didn't turn up somewhere. Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Tue. Dec. 6, 2005
Frameless
1918 -- US: Department of War abolishes the practice of manacling defiant prisoners to the walls of their cells in solitary confinement, used to torture conscientious objectors (COs) in US prisons during World War I. --The Daily Bleed Tech Note: Z-Blog has completed some upgrading & will resume within a few days of this explanation. PC hobbyists may be in interested in some details & may even have advice: The major hangup was that I have a dual-boot system with WIN 98 & XP. I went from 512 Mb RAM to 1.5 Gb. You may know that WIN 98 is notorious for choking on anything more than 512 Mb -- in my case not loading at all & generating "insufficient memory" messages, even tho that was plainly not true. It was a matter of insufficient resources to handle the additional addresses required by the new memory; research turned up the same few tips, which boiled down to variations on editing [VCache] in System.ini to: minfilecache = 5120 maxfilecache = 524288 chunk size = 512 And [386Enh] to contain ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1 But I found I had to first eliminate my permanent Swap File & let Windows handle the memory, & edit [386 Enh] by adding MaxPhysPage=40000 as MS support suggests, to allow using up to 1 Gb of memory. The other edits did nothing or made things worse, but Windows does now report that I have 1 Gb of RAM installed, & runs fairly well, tho I still have some problems with memory-intensive apps. XP runs great, of course. Attentive observers may notice that in the meantime I have added a link to the death notice for Jim Barker, founder of Milwaukee's Avante Garde coffeehouse in the early 1960s. The Sunday Sermon will be back, with the next installment to cover some discussion of erotic scenes in the Bible as well as the provocative question of whether Jesus died naked on the cross. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sat. Oct. 15, 2005
Frameless 1965 -- US: University of California-Berkeley Teach-in & march; 14,000 hit Telegraph Ave. (Norman Thomas spoke?). 10,000 march to an Oakland, California army base to protest the Vietnam War; Another is held tomorrow, along with 80 other cities across the US, against the Vietnam War. --The Daily Bleed Z-Blog will resume after hardware upgrade |
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Fri. Sept. 23, 2005
Frameless 1983 -- Brazil: More than 500 women looted a grocery store in Brazil's drought-ravaged northeastern region, taking seven tons of food, a local government spokesman said." the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's weak copy desk has repeated some previous offenses by ignoring the meanings of catalyst & nauseous, commonly abused words you'd think would automatically raise some red flags. This day, on the front of the Business section, Kathleen Gallagher writes "Research spending -- the catalyst for creating high-paying knowledge economy jobs -- is rising in the state. . . ." But a catalyst, as I have pointed out, is a facilitator of a reaction that in itself remains unchanged -- such as the platinum in a catalytic converter. It is an important distinction precisely because it tells you the substance is not consumed, & therefore will not have to be replenished. A charcoal filter in a gas mask canister, by contrast, will become saturated & need replacing. By its nature, research spending is consumed -- the very meaning of spending in this case. That lets us know more spending may be needed, or at least has a finite practical life. A useful substitute would be stimulus or impetus. The next day, Sept. 24, Community Columnist Kurt Spielmann wrote on the Perspectives page, ". . . the universe was in a mood to blend me up & make me nauseous. . . ." It's easy to joke that a "blended up" Spielmann may be a nauseous prospect for us, but it's apparent he meant it would make him nauseated. At least some originality is shown by Tom Silverstein on the front of the Sept. 13 Sports section, who reported that Packers' cornerback Ahmad Carroll drew penalties the team couldn't live with. Unfortunately, Silverstein repeated several times Carroll's perhaps forgivable observation that he "committed penalties." No, he committed offenses & received penalties. Right, Tom? What's the penalty for the weak copy desk for committing this offense? [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Sun. Sept. 18, 2005
Frameless 1987 -- Pope John Paul II, whose authority rests solely on 2,000 years of Christian tradition, speaks to Native American leaders in Phoenix, Arizona, urging them to forget the past --The Daily Bleed Sunday Sermon XV: Virgins & Other Myths By betting on an afterlife in their heaven, our Christian warriors in Iraq may be cutting themselves off from a reward as appealing as the one proffered to the opposing Muslim martyrs, with their promised 40 virgins -- & they wouldn't be expected to blow themselves up. They should, however, die bravely in battle against the enemy -- any enemy will suffice, tho Al-Qaeda or Sunni Iraqis would surely do nicely -- to enjoy the Valhalla of the Norse gods. They are dying there anyway, & as the recent edition of Atheism at About.com points out: Valhalla: Can You Take the Chance? A common Christian argument says that one should believe in God because it's too much of a chance not to believe. It's a bad argument that some Christians recognize as bad, but far too many continue to use it. We can, however, turn it around: why take the chance that Valhalla doesn't exist? Is it really worth the risk? Should you not die in battle, there is a lesser level of Valhalla waiting, tho whether you are Christian or pagan, this approach assumes one can deceive God or the gods by seeming to believe for the purpose of achieving everlasting life. But dying for a religion does evince a certain level of sincerity, one would think. If you at home persist in mocking the Norse gods, however, you are not alone. This Z-Blog remarked upon the ascension of O. Ricardo Pimintel to editorial page editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he had belittled just such beliefs: "This is the problem with myths. Zeus really didn't hurl thunderbolts. Icarus really didn't fly so close to the sun that the wax melted in his wings. And I've yet to see a flying horse. . . ." So I expressed my hope that he would be just as skeptical of such myths as Jesus turning water into wine or Joshua stopping the sun. This remains to be see, but you can read the complete entry for Aug. 24, 2004 here. Of course, while Christian Americans scoff at other, inferior religions in general, that doesn't mean they won't support the most oppressive when it suits US interests, as The Nation writer Katha Pollitt points out in a column about Iraq in Theocracy Lite: So now we know what "noble cause" Cindy Sheehan's son died for in Iraq: Sharia. It's a good thing W stands for women, or I'd be worried. The new Constitution, drafted under heavy pressure from the Administration, sets aside the secular personal law under which Iraqis have lived for nearly half a century in favor of theocracy lite. "Islam is the official religion of the state and is a basic source of legislation," Article 2 begins. . . . She goes on to write: women have a lot to look forward to: being married off at the age of 9, being a co-wife, having unequal rights to divorce and child custody, inheriting half as much as their brothers, having their testimony in court counted as half that of men, winning a rape conviction only if the crime was witnessed by four male Muslims, being imprisoned and flogged for premarital sex, being executed for adultery, needing mandatory permission from husband or father to work, study or travel. Never fear; Muslim women like it that way. A Sept. 15 entry at the About.com Atheism page asks: Atheist Women Envy Muslim Women? Islamic tradition forces women into an inferior role in society because it is assumed that men won't be able to control themselves around women. Instead of blaming men and getting men to exercise self-control, women are segregated for the good of society. Some Muslims can't seem to understand why everyone doesn't think this is a good idea. So Christian / Muslim ecumenism in Iraq has its benefits for the religious right in the US, too, as they no doubt secretly thrill to the idea of veiling & covering the womenfolk here & imposing legal punishment for loss of virginity before marriage if they can, even while a more secular France is demanding Muslim women not wear their scarves to school. It seems the culture war produces strange, if chaste, bedfellows. [Your Thoughts] [Read Comments] z-guide |
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Mon. Sept. 5, 2005
Frameless Labor Day A. Phillip Randolph: The essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement has been the haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor. Abraham Lincoln: Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. --The Daily Bleed Labor Commissioner Flower stated in the [Wisconsin] 1883-84 Biennial Report: "Strikes have been likened to war, but they also may be likened to boils which show the condition of the system. That it is deranged and the blood impure and a constitutional remedy is needed to drive the humors out". The last statement -- by a government official charged with overseeing labor concerns -- illustrates the hostility to justice for workers that prevailed at the time. But well-meaning paeans to labor today temporarily overshadow the pernicious arguments against fairness for the marginally-employed, still left behind by general advances for the unionized. The forces of reaction never sleep, & tho the gains realized by unions thru some heroic actions were recognized by many Americans in a general way, by the '60s -- in my experience -- a counter-movement had prevailed to the point where those not actually in heavily-unionized industries thought that "Big Labor" had gone too far, that they were somehow obstructing the American way of life. John Dos Passos himself had turned against us, & even in the working-class, news of a distant strike in one well-paying heavy industry or another left many (some being my own relatives) indifferent to, or suspicious of, labor's "demands," as the media usually characterized them. Shortly after a long factory strike in Milwaukee, my homeroom teacher in junior high, Mr. Pollnow, felt called to calculate for us the loss in wages by the workforce there during the stoppage, & claimed they would never make it up. The obvious fact that the victory set the stage for even more later gains was ignored. And in truth, labor chose to hold onto its gains by acting in a client / agency relationship with unions, rather than a movement that should be extended to the harder to organize employees in service occupations; low-wage factories (such as Southern textile manufacturers); & domestic, agricultural, day-labor & migrant workers. I paid my dues to the steelworkers for about 8 years as a working student, unknowingly abetting the indifference of labor leaders -- with their inflated salaries & grossly inequitable perks -- to the un-unionized, but as a college student with little sense of labor history, I have to blame corrupt & complacent officials. Their job, after all, was to protect & extend unionism, not reign over its demise. But drastically decline in influence it did, from 32 % to 12% of the workforce, until more progressive unions finally broke away from the AFL-CIO this year in frustration. But the last line of defense for those workers who never reaped the benefits of organization -- progressive legislation & sympathetic regulation -- seldom gets a fair chance at implementation, while in real dollars, Federal minimum wages have actually declined 30% since the '80s. The conflicts around the new state minimum wage & harsh practices under the Unemployment Compensation regulations ignore some of these other burdens faced by workers. The Wisconsin general minimum wage increased to $5.70/hr. on June 1, & is scheduled to go up to $6.50 next June. A separate rate of $5.30 for minors & entry-level workers younger than 20 in their first 90 days of work also is in effect. Wonderful, especially according to the self-congratulatory responses of many of the parties involved in the legislation for the 10.7% increase that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called "the result of a contentious process that involved parliamentary maneuvers, municipal one-upmanship and a lawsuit." Of course there was much acrimony surrounding the legislation, with familiar arguments on both sides. The major criticism of the increase, as always, is that low-profit businesses may cut back on hiring & perhaps be driven out of business, resulting in net job loss for those meant to benefit most. But the chief economist of the US Dept. of Labor said in 1996: In discussing the minimum wage, Robert M. Solow, a Nobel laureate in economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently told the New York Times, "The main thing about (minimum wage) research is that the evidence of job loss is weak. And the fact that the evidence is weak suggests that the impact on jobs is small." Other experts, such as former Labor Secretary Robert Reich have said the same. And of course it should be indexed for inflation to avoid the periodic revisiting of the debate & the interim decline. And -- for the record -- it is argued that many of the minimum-wage jobs are for new workers, not meant to be permanent (or family supporting) but valuable training & just the bottom on the ladder of success. Again, the evidence is otherwise, according to studies: Contrary to popular opinion, the average worker affected by an increase in the minimum wage is not just a teenager flipping hamburgers. Only one in fourteen is a teenage student from a family with above average earnings. The fact is, almost two-thirds of minimum wage workers are adults, and four in ten are the sole bread winner of their family. And of course there is the conservatives' unease with anything that interferes with their prerogatives as employers, & a general hatred of any kind of safety net that gives a little independence to potential new hires. A consideration should be that employers pay the going rate for raw materials; the going rate for human sweat -- & often blood -- should at least be a living wage, nevermind the minimum wage. In short, if employers can't afford the price of raw materials, they don't go into business -- society itself should set the minimum cost of labor at the poverty level. People are generally trapped by circumstances, whether families to feed, ailing loved ones to take care of, community ties, geographical obstacles, lack of education -- whatever. The presence of others like themselves on the market further depresses their apparent value -- & dignity. As railway baron Jay Gould (1896), said, "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." And no doubt desperate parents will work for starvation wages to feed their families, but that doesn't make it right. So the bargaining is skewed in the employer's favor unless our representatives step in. If not a union, then the legislature is, or should be, their protector. First, it should be noted that a marginal employer depending on rock-bottom wages to survive might conceivably be put out of business by paying a higher minimum wage, tho they have been claiming that, with little evidence, in Wisconsin since Aug. 1, 1919 when women & minors 17 years of age or over were first entitled to 22 cents an hour. But the trade would probably go to another employer, more likely than ever to afford the hike & hire new employees, picking up the slack. Thus, one employer could thrive where two were faltering. Where there is actual irreducible unemployment, society would have a true picture of the extent of the problem & would rely on the safety net & enable re-employment elsewhere, of course, thru training & education, while the employed would have more money to spread around & maintain the economy as a whole. All the above is, or should be, common knowledge. But critics who oppose any increase in a minimum wage, who see it as a temporary stage in a rise to more affluence overlook another important fact: Many of the recipients have been marginally employed or unemployed for so long that they are starting with large deficits. No doubt they have used whatever savings they might have had & borrowed where they could, falling behind on all sorts of payments -- rent, heat, balky autos, medical bills -- to the point where what looks like adequate pay for at least a short term doesn't begin to let a worker cope. Often overlooked is that it costs more to be poor -- I often wished I could take advantage of store sales on something I didn't need at that moment, or buy large, economy sizes or get the two-for-one deals. Today, I can pay a year in advance for the newspaper & get 3-year subs on magazines, & use a debit card for Internet sales -- often with free shipping. Maintenance -- whether for health concerns or car care -- saves in the long run, if you can afford it. And so it goes. As a temporary worker, for example -- mostly night shifts in binderies -- I had to travel to Brown Deer Rd. on the north & College Ave. on the south. I soon learned how much depended on keeping an ancient car running, & lost out on jobs simply because I couldn't manage the upkeep on the low wages. Of course, as a person competent or educated in several areas, I wouldn't look for such work until I became sure I had no better alternatives elsewhere, with my resumes circulating & applications in play & the chance that work thru the longshoremen's union would pick up. In the meantime, bills -- heating was always a killer in Wisconsin -- piled up as I worked down the list of possibilities. I knew the crushing routine at a bindery, such as Advo, Inc. -- where I stayed for 13 months while trying freelance writing until my 25-year-old Oldsmobile was rendered such a death trap that the garage refused to work on it any more -- made looking for other work at the same time a daunting task. Fortunately, I stayed healthy, tho my teeth were crumbling, since County General Hospital was shut down. A new program, GAMP, requiring advance payment of $70 a year -- regardless of whether it was used -- came on line, but after the first 6 mo. I took my chances, as would any fairly healthy person. Still, the temporary agencies would be on my mind, & I would find myself figuring that if I had to, at a minimum rate of $5.15/hr. or so, I could soon be earning over $200/wk., or more than $800/mo. Frankly, it seemed at times like a fortune was to be had. The reality was, after the desperate decision to take anything, there was always the time lag of finding an agency, taking tests, waiting for the calls -- & then often settling for a smaller number of hours than needed to survive. Assignments would vary in length, of course, & naturally as the better-paying jobs dried up in lean times, so did the temp jobs -- while competition increased. A one-day assignment cleaning an old lady's basement might be it for the week, or 3 days in a bindery. A few days on the docks could be wonderful (a 12 hr. day paid $221.20 in 1985) -- tho it might mean turning down a temp job & alienating an agency or at least getting dropped, necessitating reapplying -- but it hardly meant an escape from the morass of debt. Eventually I exercised my option of cashing in my pension early, after 21 years on the docks, for a lump sum. At age 52, I took a big hit in tax penalties -- but it kept me going, letting me pay back rent. Had I been evicted, I would have had nothing for a security payment, or storage fees. The details will differ, but that sort of existence is common in the underclass. So the minimum wage -- meager at best -- is not even the apparent tool of survival for many that it is meant to be, & we are begrudged even that. There is somewhat of a safety net, as mentioned, including Unemployment Compensation (UC), the goal of which is not just wage earners' protection but that of landlords, grocers, business owners & everybody who depends on the workers' wages, just as Food Stamps benefit the farmers who raise the food they buy & the merchants who redeem them. By its nature, UC depends on a certain amount of employment for the individual, whether long-term or some amount of short-term work. This sets the stage for little-noticed abuses of the same worker penalized by inadequate wages & a low minimum wage. To illustrate: During a winter layoff as a longshoreman -- which paid enough during the busy fall months to survive on & qualified me for UC for part of the winter -- I was registered with Olsten, a temporary agency, after my UC ran out. In previous years they had found me some office work, but I hadn't heard from them for months -- until a new season of UC benefits kicked in & the state notified them I would be collecting, based partly on previous employment there. Since spring & a new shipping season were near, I hadn't looked for work recently -- but suddenly my phone was ringing, & there was an Olsten person. My old application listed proofreading as one of my skills, so their first offer was as a bank proofer -- something to do with looking at checks -- which I safely turned down, as it was not the same thing. But the next offer was indeed as a proofreader, something I genuinely enjoyed -- my last stint had been as a legal proofreader at Whyte & Hirschboeck, Downtown -- but very hard to get, in my experience (I suspected age & sex discrimination; also, with word processing becoming commonplace & putting typesetters out of business, the machine operators doubled in that capacity, too). My dilemma was that my regular job was about to start, so to be honest I had to tell them I couldn't commit to a long period, tho I would like to. What, I asked, would the potential (unknown) employer think about that? I'm not likely to forget the female interviewer's words on the phone: "Let me run it by them & I'll see what they say. I'll get back to you on that." Not too long after that, my UC checks were cut off on the grounds that I had refused work -- a serious matter. Of course, I appealed & eventually had a hearing. There were 2 issues involved. The first was that as a longshoreman I got my work thru a hiring hall, so to a certain extent I controlled my hours -- taking off to rest if I had to, or hustling for every hour I could get. But during slow periods when I was collecting UC & I was notified there was work available -- as opposed to taking my chances in our version of the shape-up -- I was obligated to work if the orders got down to my number & I was posted. I could still collect benefits if I didn't earn above the permitted maximum for the week. Most important, if I did not perform all the work available to me -- & we were monitored by the state & the stevedoring companies (duties eventually taken over by my union) -- I was not eligible for UC for that week. But that was the extent of the loss. Now, the temporary agencies stress the fact that they -- not the company where you go to do some work -- are your employer, & everything from your pay to your hours to your complaints are handled thru them. And certainly there are no guarantees as to whether you'll work a day or 3 months. I reasoned that this is the same as working thru the union hiring hall, & if I refused work my loss should only be for that week, since I was still registered & available for work -- should it come along -- the next week. Remember, I also maintained I had not refused work -- I thought my situation was pending. At the hearing, the interviewer produced a file card which had brief notations of my contacts with Olsten over the years, except the last entry, which even the hearing examiner remarked was in a mysteriously different ink & handwriting & quite lengthy in comparison, detailing explicitly how I had turned down work when offered. No mention of "run it by them," of course, or getting back to me. But I was notified by mail that I had lost; I was penalized half of my remaining possible compensation (about $900 of $1,800) & barred from applying for any part of the remainder for a period of months, as specified in the statutes. I did try try complaining about the fraud to franchise owner, noted Fox Point art collector Anthony J. Petullo. He informed me he didn't believe his office manager -- who had testified against me -- would do such a thing. There is a higher appeal process, by mail to the commissioners in Madison, which I tried -- copying the relevant statutes, sending the Olsten employees' handbook, etc. -- but I lost again, with no reason given. I gave up at that point, tho I could have appealed to the circuit court. Out of this, I see the need for 2 reforms. First, the status of temporary workers should be clarified: If they are employees of the agency & haven't been working while waiting for an opportunity (& haven't walked off a job) why should a refusal of an indefinite term of employment count for more than the loss of 1 week? How does it differ from work obtained thru a hiring hall? (Ships may be in port for part of a day or a week or more). Second, any action which may result in such punishment as loss of benefits should be confirmed in writing, by a follow-up postcard or other method that would allow the worker at least to go on the record at the time as to the accuracy of the report. While I wouldn't want to place an undue paperwork burden on the agency, even a phone call of notification at that time allowing one to come in & make a statement for the record would help in a hearing months later. For example, while I don't know how common such disputes are, I recall a bindery, Wisconsin Cuneo Press, that objected months after some assignments there that they were opposing my UC claim on the grounds that I had missed a scheduled shift & never returned to work. In fact, I had been on my way to work second shift one blazing hot day when a wheel came off my car & rolled across Oakland Ave., but I dutifully called in from the nearby Sentry store & was informed I was not on the shift for that day. As work was scheduled day to day, I was not expected again until the agency (Cornwell, not Olsten) told me I was. Had a notification procedure been in place -- the agency would have been told I did not show up -- I would know by not hearing anything that there was no disqualifying absence. As it was, I told my story at the hearing & the opposing witness had no payroll or other information to document that I had missed work -- she said it was just policy to oppose all claims. This time I won, but even an appeal can eat up many unpaid weeks -- during which time you must keep filing if you hope to collect any remaining benefits if you prevail. Another time I waited about 8 months to win my appeal & collect 14 checks at one time. Even if you're an expert in UC law, as I came to be, it's no protection against employer fraud, & certainly shouldn't be a requirement for the average unemployed or minimum-wage worker, who has enough to contend with. Enjoy your Labor Day. |
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