The loss of a friend

Last night I got a strange email from a tennis friend, simply saying to meet him at the club that that I had quit a year ago. He said it was important and gave no details.  I quit the club for many reasons, but one of them was because of a man who had a part time job there.  He was about my age, vintage 1940, who became an unlikely friend.  

Jon was a devout Catholic, Opus Dei variety which means condemning the debasement of tradition such as the modernization of the mass. His politics matched his faith, ultra conservative, meaning a staunch supporter of those such as Joe McCarthy, Pat Buchanan and William F. Buckley. 

I am a left leaning secular Jew, yet we connected on many levels. You can tell a lot about someone when you play tennis with them.  Jon was always kind, not only to me but my wife who is not a strong player.  We used to have evening get togethers and he always made her feel welcome, even though she may have made more unforced errors than most.

And then we talked politics. He expanding my thinking, and there was a certain cordiality in interacting this this man, a throwback who didn't have a television, and actually read books.  He was born into an Irish household, and he told me how his father, a wealthy gambler, fell apart when his wife, Jon's mother, died at an early age. With less money they struggled to get by.

He once brought in a cassette tape from the station in L.A. where he was the D.J. of a Spanish Language program.  He was part of the tennis gambling crowd of the 50s and 60s, lead by Bobby Riggs, whom he would play on a regular basis, "always losing no matter how many games he spotted him" he said with a wry smile.

Jon downfall began out of an act of kindness.  A man who regularly visited an orphanage in Mexico asked him if there were any old clothes in the lost and found box.  Jon just grabbed the whole box and gave it to him.  A few days latter when it was discovered that he had included some clothing that was being asked about, and he admitted what he did; there was a clash of wills.  One person in accounting demanded that Jon apologize, but just hunkered down, and told her to "buzz off."  This escalated, and always a bit of a drinker, he became more antagonistic.

I was there the Saturday he came in pretty loaded, and boldly said that he wasn't going to be pushed around by anyone.  He said that he was going to quit, "the fucking job, and cursed out the owner whom he had known for decades, and who had kept him on even after such conflicts as this.  But this time he had gone to far.  I sat with him for a couple hours while he sobered up before I let him get into his car and drive home.

A few of us tried to keep in touch with him, having dinner at a pizza place once together.  But a new polite person was hired to take his place.  I quit and only dropped in occasionally as a guest, but I missed him, and the opportunity to just drop in when I had nothing to do and have a talk about religion, or politics, or history. 

The letter had just arrived a few days before:

I'm sad to say that Jon K___ took his life on the afternoon on November 19th 2010.  Jon came to stay a few days at our home, found a pistol that I kept in my bedroom and committed suicide.


It turns out that Jon had come into the club a few weeks prior asking for his old job back.  I knew what that job meant to Jon, as it was reflected in the pleasure that he got out of our companionship.  We both enjoyed each other, and when he was gone something was missing for me; but I had other options, other activities and other friends.  He was now indigent,  his pride and self respect being damaged beyond repair.

Life is amazingly fragile.  For Jon, the good life was being part of a tennis club, where he worked for probably less than minimum wage, but was in the center of things.  He made appointments, handled court allocation, and then filled in when we need a forth for doubles.  And he had his integrity, his belief in God and those who fought the scourge of liberalism in this great country.

I don't believe in a soul; but I do believe in a certain spark of humanity that has the quality of transcending all that divides us.  Jon never had any need to convince me of anything, nor did I of him.  When we discussed issues, there was an intimacy inherent in sharing such divergent views, disguised so no one but we could really discern what was happening. 

If he were around I would challenge him on one tenet of his church's teaching, that committing suicide is a mortal sin that deprives one of a heavenly after life.  I would argue that no God worthy of reverence would ever be so cruel as to punish someone for escaping unremitting suffering.  I don't think I would have convinced him, even though I know that I'm right.  






Darwin v. Intelligent Design:  you won't guess who wins

Many years ago I devised this way of explaining, actually demonstrating, the difference between an atheist and an agnostic.  First the atheist: in a strong firm voice I pronounce, "There is no God."  Now to describe an agnostic, I lower my voice, get closer to the listener and softly intone, "There is no God."

I don't buy the traditional distinction being one of degree of certainty. If one doesn't know, then they are denying the validity of His holy word, which is an act of rejection.  I would say the difference is in emphasis, how strongly one feels offended, or threatened by those who believe in God.  I have had no problem describing myself as an atheist, and expressing this in public, in a loud clear voice.

 One manifestation of my atheism is my opposition to to teaching the controversy over "Intelligent design" in public schools.  So, I was encouraged by the Dover decision  rejecting this in 2005.  In this case and other discussions of this issue, Intelligent Design was always contrasted with Darwinism, the principles defined in his 1859 book, "Origin of the Species"

Let me back up a bit.  Several months ago, at the time that I was reading a fascinating book, Life Ascending" on current research in molecular bio chemistry, with a focus on evolution, I read an announcement of an open house at the nearby "Creation Museum."  I cleared the day, and decided to attend.  This is a museum dedicated to advancing "young earth creationism" based on the conviction that the universe is no more than 7000 years old and created in seven 24 hour days.

After the first lecture by a biologist who presented a factual taxonomy of the pathogens, antigens, viruses and antibodies of the secondary immune system, I asked him a question.  I forget what it was, but it was respectful of his religious belief since I felt that he showed humility in saying he was one of four that he knows who share it in the entire field. (This describes my response to the two lectures)  As I was leaving I was approached by the man who had introduced the program, whom I learned was the sponsor of the museum, Tom Cantor. Those interested my interactions with this fascinating man may want to view this video blog that I created on a visit that we made to his antibody facility just south of the border in Tacate Mexico.

We live in a world of spin, predators and con artists.  The most egregious scams are perpetrated by those of the same ethnic background as their marks, as they feel they are among family and make the mistake of trusting. And Tom and I are both from the same Jewish background.  But if Tom is trying to scam me, it sure is overkill, as his financial success is no illusion. 

I'm convinced that this man is only guilty of sincerely attempting to prevent my having a fate that will cause me eternal suffering. I'm also aware that his desire to bring me into the fold is also a confirmation of his faith, that although he expresses absolute certainty, must be subject to a degree of doubt.

With all of my hyper rational rejection of the supernatural, my decades of inculcation in religion being the opium of the masses, all of my identification with others of my perspective; the absolute sincerity of this man is having an effect on me.

The immediate effect is that I am no longer an ATHEIST, but am now an atheist.  Yeah, there is a difference.  The one concrete change that exemplifies this is my attitude toward "Intelligent Design. or I.D. "  I did not read the full Dover decision, but I suspect that I.D. is not being presented by its advocates in the correct manner.  Just as Charles Darwin first enunciated the principles of Evolution by Natural Selection, it appears that concurrent with this, he articulated the principles of what was to be known as Intelligent Design. 

I now feel that I.D. should be taught in public schools, separated from science, based on the principles of
"Nonoverlapping Magisteria" as articulated by the late biologist Stephen Jay Gould.  Here's where Charles Darwin defined this principle in the chapter "modes of transition" in "Origins of the Species":

It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye with a telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be presumptuous?

Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man? If we must compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with spaces filled with fluid, and with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of this layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances from each other, and with the surfaces of each layer slowly changing in form.

Further we must suppose that there is a power, represented by natural selection or the survival of the fittest, always intently watching each slight alteration in the transparent layers; and carefully preserving each which, under varied circumstances, in any way or in any degree, tends to produce a distincter image. We must suppose each new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the million; each to be preserved until a better one is produced, and then the old ones to be all destroyed.

In living bodies, variation will cause the slight alterations, generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with unerring skill each improvement. Let this process go on for millions of years; and during each year on millions of individuals of many kinds; and may we not believe that a living optical instrument might thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as the works of the Creator are to those of man?


This set the principle, that all that is discovered by science may, if one chooses, be viewed as the design of the Creator, with no impediment to understanding the processes of the natural process.  This is now the explicit teaching of the Catholic church, with only the requirement in the belief that God, at some point intervened in merging a soul with the corporeal mantle.

This is not faithful enough for Tom, and it will be too much for many here, as it was for me before my recent experiences.  But now I accept the teaching of Intelligent Design in public schools, not as fact, but as a belief of many people that is consistent with scientific discovery. If it is taught it should not be as a refutation of science, but as something completely different, that neither adds or detracts from the scientific process of discovery. 

I've undergone more changes.  I now have a broader view of religion that includes both the benefits of traditional ones, along with the dangers of those secular institutions that inadvertently take on aspects of religions, the very worst aspects. It has even resulted in my conceptualization of the recent Health Care Law as promoting, and worse, establishment of a religion, as sketched out in this recent blog.

And in a way, I have gained an understanding why Tom, rare among those of his educational, ethnic and economic background, had embraced this particular strand of fundamentalist Christianity. Ironically, if he were of a more fitting progressive denomination he would have no need to expend the emotional effort to save me, and by doing so divulge so much of his own life.

Tom Cantor, having achieved a unique success of not only founding, but then managing a complex multinational science based enterprise, could be a member in high standing of the elite of our society.  Yet, he chooses rather to expend his efforts, and a good deal of his wealth into what is a fringe, and ridiculed, interpretation of literal Christianity.

He is an aberration, a throwback, a mutation, but like the mutations that have formed all humans they have the nature of being Pleiotropic, meaning having multiple effects, some beneficial and others harmful. (Clue: it's the reason we all age and die.) This has narrowed his focus; he rejects not only the consensus of modern evolutionary science, but also the norm that one's success is defined by material wealth.  He seems to have no secrets, as his openness to me were not the actions of one who calculates the risk-value of every interaction.

So, I can't think about this man, or even fundamentalist Christians in the same way I did before I met him.  In fact I am holding back on some of the criticisms I have about his activities, mainly because he has heard them all before, and secondly I want to understand him better. And then there's the the story told by Woody Allen that explains how I get a certain deep pleasure out of Tom's effort to save me from eternal damnation.  You've probably heard it:

The man goes to the shrink and say he's at his wits end, that his wife thinks she's a chicken, all the time, "Cluck, cluck, cluck"  And the scratching, the clucking, it's driving me nuts.  The doc say, why don't you just explain to her that she's a human, without wings or feathers, and certainly not a chicken.  The man thinks for a minute and then confides, "I would, but we need the eggs."



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Two approaches to scientific creationism

After attending an open house at the Creation and Earth History Museum in Santee California, I wrote the following letters to the two lecturers.  They describe the substance of their presentation, and my reaction to how each represent a different approach to reconciling literal Christian beliefs with the secular consensus.   
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Joseph W. Francis Ph.D
Joe,

It was a pleasure attending your two lectures yesterday and speaking to you afterward.  I just read your article, Peering into Darwin's Black Box cell division processes required for bacterial life, actually reading isn't the word, since the level of analysis was far beyond my ability to critically comprehend.  What I did notice is that while you pointed out some of the defects in evolutionary assumptions you did not define an alternative explanation. 

There was another speaker at the open house yesterday, John Baumgardner, also possessing a doctorate in a scientific disciple.   It is worthwhile to contrast your differing  approaches, (his described here) how each of you reconcile a personal belief in the literal Genesis "young earth" with mainstream explanations of evolution.  This is vitally important, especially in this country, where such beliefs, while dismissed by the scientific community, are widely shared by the general public.  In a democracy, the people ultimately trump expert knowledge, which in this case has severe consequences for the long term viability of our country.

Having recently renewed my exploration of microbiology, I was taken by the rigor of your presentation of the incredible complexity of life forms, of cells, bacteria, viruses and their amazing interactions. The explosion of knowledge of this organized chaos is far beyond our ability to comprehend, much less to systematize   You choose to approach this by organizing it as a purposeful manifestation of a higher being, of  the work of God as articulated in the bible.  But unlike the approach exemplified by Dr. Baumgardner, there was nothing in your presentation or in your article that required a belief in this biblical explanation.   You did not take the Bible as evidence that refuted current beliefs, but rather argued that the accepted approach to understanding the earliest manifestations of life were far from proven.

As someone who often finds himself outside of the mainstream, I support your willingness to maintain a position that is at variance with your academic peers.   I also congratulate your excluding from your professional endeavors those positions that would require refuting legitimate understanding of your complex field of research. 

Although I personally reject the dogma of organized religion, I do understand the function it serves in those who embrace it.  It is a difficult path that you walk, that you do rather well.  The unappreciated value of your position is a promotion of a deep skepticism of accepted scientific paradigms, eliciting a fluidity of thinking that leads to future breakthroughs that we can't even imagine. 

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John Baumgardner. Ph.D.
Dr. Baumgardner

I was in the audience for your first presentation on the "Mechanism behind the Genesis Flood"  at the Santee Creation Museum yesterday. (rejecting carbon dating and concluding that billions of years of major tectonic shifts occurred during the 40 days of the Genesis flood)

This morning I did some research on your work, and I am impressed.  As an atheist, I pride myself on my beliefs being based on reason.   Your work goes a long way as depicting some of the accepted principles of paleo-geology and evolution as being a bit short on this. It seems that your opposition is mostly against those who do not rigorously define the degree of evidence for their science.  Much theory in the above fields is acknowledged as hypothetical, tentative explanations that require further research.  Let me quote from your statement in the Los Alamos Debate on origins of life on your web site.

Is there anything in the laws of physics that suggests how such structures (first replicating life forms) might arise in a spontaneous fashion? The honest answer is simple. What we presently understand from thermodynamics and information theory argues persuasively they do not and cannot!

I am with you until the last two words, "and cannot." and would emphasis your words, "what we presently understand."  If you had been writing a few centuries ago there would have been a myriad of research tools, material and intellectual, that you, and everyone else,  would have said were inconceivable; which are now everyday tools of scientific discovery. 

Here is my central objection to your work:   While you rightly demand a rigorous level of proof for the assumptions of mainstream evolution science, you demand no such rigor for your alternative, a literal belief in the Bible.  If the invention of life through random molecular interactions is, as you say, unlikely even to 10 to the minus 100 power, then do you not have some obligation to present a mechanism that would allow a super intelligence to have done this job?   And when you have defined such a mechanism, to then evaluate whether it is of a higher likelihood than the exceedingly low probability of random molecular interaction now posited.

You do write of your personal reasons for becoming a Christian, yet this has no bearing on advancing a scientific theory. This is an explanation for a personal philosophy, a private solution to deep imperatives of human existence, that requires no evidence or even public affirmation.  Your questioning the limits of understanding origins, along with the truisms that have been promulgated and accepted by the public, is both legitimate and valuable.  However, replacing this limited product of the scientific ethos, an ethos that you have embraced in many ways, with a Chirst-Jehova belief is unsupportable.

You make the assumption that the lacunae of science-based explanation is an argument for the Biblical alternative. To this extent, although you gain credibility from your scientific academic credentials, you abandon the principles inherent in such certification in your promotion of your alternative explanation. 

I look forward to an articulated hypothesis for your assertion that a supernatural entity created the world as adumbrated in a historic document called "the Bible."  It should be based on at least the degree of verifiability and evidence that now exists for the accepted premises of evolution and paleo-geolgy,   Since you quote the late biologist Steven J. Gould in your work, perhaps it would be preferable that you accept his explanation of religion and science being "non overlapping magisteria" so that your religious beliefs, which I respect, and your science do not result in a cross contamination of both.

It is most unfortunate that your effort, your use of science to advance a premise that has no scientific support, has the unintended effect on children such as those in the yesterday's audience.  To the degree it is accepted, it hinders their  participation in the great adventure of our age, the scientific quest for understanding the most profound questions of our human existence.

Regards

Homosexualty to Gay-A social revolution

Now located on Academic Civility Blog  with further editing


Psychosexual development is something that has been the province of those who investigated its cultural and biological correlates for decades.  Before it became the grist for a political movement, Sigmund Freud, in his earliest work understood the imperative of this inborn impulse, and tried to tease out some of the dynamics of the polymorphous perversity that he understood was our genetic heritage.  Freud explored this with the realization that such intrapsychic conflicts were not only ubiquitous, but inevitable, as were so much of human conflict, as sketched out in "Civilization and its discontents."

The process of politicization is a transformation of language from that which informs to that which energizes.  "Homosexual" or gay" is neutral, while "queer" or "fagot" is confrontational, fighting words.  Homophobe is the is the linguistic weapon of choice to categorize those who oppose gay equality, as it imputes a motivation that is other than rational, rather protecting the individual from his or her own impulses.   Ironically, it's use is an epithet that defines an individual by one dimension,  the very essence of what progressives so disdain in other contexts.  

Freud came to maturity during the apogee of the Austrian German intellectual Renascence,  when normalcy became understood as the acceptance of cultural norms, which were ways of a given society to cope with its stresses at a given moment in time.  Freud, and those who followed his ethos, if not his system, had no illusions that any society could be perfected to banish injustice or personal suffering.  The principle was that understanding, being open to why we act as we do could provide some barrier to the worst excesses of any culture.  Here is Freud's 1935 letter on this subject to a mother that began by pointing out great men who had been homosexual, that it is nothing to be ashamed of and continued:
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By asking me if I can help [your son], you mean, I suppose, if I can abolish homosexuality and make normal heterosexuality take its place. The answer is, in a general way we cannot promise to achieve it. In a certain number of cases we succeed in developing the blighted germs of heterosexual tendencies, which are present in every homosexual; in the majority of cases it is no more possible. It is a question of the quality and the age of the individual. The result of treatment cannot be predicted.

What analysis can do for your son runs in a different line. If he is unhappy, neurotic, torn by conflicts, inhibited in his social life, analysis may bring him harmony, peace of mind, full efficiency, whether he remains homosexual or gets changed.
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In the course of a few generations, this final paragraph of the founder of the intrapsychic understanding of human behavior, if spoken today would be castigated as hostile to homosexuals.   It is almost exactly what was expressed by Dr. Robert Spitizer that subjected him to such vocal criticism that he retracted this conclusion.......actually that is not what he did.   He apologized for the effect of a study supporting this that was flawed, while never retracting his conclusion that some people could have sexual orientation changed by therapy.  Neither Freud nor Spitzer were advocates of reparation psychotherapy, which has a completely different ethos and perspective from that of any form of therapy based on the loosest values of Freud and his followers.  By the time Spitzer did his research, the quest for understanding of homosexuality had gone the way of understanding racial differences, banished from academic discourse.  Spitzer used this religious based treatment only because it was all that was available to explore the effect of intervention on this personality attribute.  In the two professional generations between the writing of Freud's letter and the research by Spitizer, Homosexuality was transformed into the Gay movement, no longer a topic for anthropologists and biologists, but an issue for civil rights theorists and political operatives.

This is best illustrated in this excerpt from the American Psychological Association 3000 word paper, Sexual orientation and homosexuality:  What about therapy intended to change sexual orientation from gay to straight?
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All major national mental health organizations have officially expressed concerns about therapies promoted to modify sexual orientation. To date, there has been no scientifically adequate research to show that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation (sometimes called reparative or conversion therapy) is safe or effective. Furthermore, it seems likely that the promotion of change therapies reinforces stereotypes and contributes to a negative climate for lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons. This appears to be especially likely for lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals who grow up in more conservative religious settings.

Notice that although the broad subject is Sexual Orientation,  while dispelling the image of homosexuality being opprobrious, the guidance for therapists encountering those who seek help for psychosexual  conflicts only provides one choice, which is that conflict over sexual orientation should be resolved by accepting the non biologically congruent choice.  It closes the section with:

Helpful responses of a therapist treating an individual who is troubled about her or his same-sex attractions include helping that person actively cope with social prejudices against homosexuality, successfully resolve issues associated with and resulting from internal conflicts, and actively lead a happy and satisfying life.

There is no acknowledgement that ambiguity, that mixed sexual attractions can be dealt with other than by, in effect,  accepting that such impulses should be embraced.  This concluding paragraph is a pastiche of political correctness that ultimately says nothing substantive

Mental health professional organizations call on their members to respect a person’s (client’s) right to self-determination; be sensitive to the client’s race, culture, ethnicity, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, socioeconomic status, language, and disability status when working with that client; and eliminate biases based on these factors.
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Out of this verbiage (it's carelessness of thought reflected in it's grammatical inconsistency) anything can be construed, yet the clear words as expressed by Freud,    "If he is unhappy, neurotic, torn by conflicts, inhibited in his social life, (therapy)  may bring him or her harmony, peace of mind, full efficiency, whether he remains homosexual or gets changed" is conspicuously and blatantly not included as an option for this helping profession in the 21st century. How is a therapist to be "sensitive to a distressed person's sexual orientation" when that is the presenting conflict to be explored.   The only interpretation is that "sensitive to" is to be construed as not suggesting the shared journey of exploring  impulses, the conflicts and the options available to the individual.   "Sensitive to" in the context of politicization of homosexuality means  embracing the now common perception of homosexuality as being of the essence of the individual and forming a mindset that this is the inevitable identity based on other than the mutual exploration of the individual's best interests.

 When Robert Spitzer was instrumental in changing homosexuality from a personality disorder in the Psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual III of 1980, his goal was to specifically validate treatment for the conflicted individual suffering that Freud described, whatever the outcome of post therapy sexual orientation.  In this document by the American Psychological Association, the only therapy that is mentioned that could result in the change that Freud described is religious based reparitive therapy.  The tone of this paper is clear,  dealing with homosexual impulses inherently means condemning such impulses.  There is no acknowledgement of the roots of Freud's conclusion, that homosexuality may be part of complex maladaptive adjustments that go beyond the political.

Freud would be appalled by this as am I, and in the next sections I will explain why.



   











Court Confrontation

Actually this is about a Tennis Court Confrontation, one that came close to becoming a physical altercation.  It's worth sharing with those who were there, and those who know me personally, and even some on this site, (Dailykos) who just know me from my user name, ARODB.

Although it could be seen as a trivial argument among two people, it illustrated some rather important issues that have consumed our country, those of race, class and the ongoing effort to forge a society where in spite of our inherent conflicts, we manage to muddle through.  It began on a public tennis court on a beautiful Sunday morning in a small Southern California city.
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"Stentorian." For those interested in the fine points of this word, meaning "loud voice" here's the list of synonyms from Merriam Webster. I have such a voice, one that I use frequently while playing tennis.  So, I start this tale with an admission of guilt, but quickly follow by a general defense, which is the game requires such a voice at times.

When a ball is served and it is "out" it must be called so immediately in sufficient volume that the server knows that it is a "fault."  And there are other such out calls, along with the score to be called loudly enough to be heard clearly seventy feet away, in many cases over considerable background noise.  But there are other shouts that are not in the rule book, such as after a highly competitive exchange of strokes, with increasingly acrobatic parries and returns, and then your partner chases down a ball that he manages to hit with a running stroke that lands right over the net on the opponents side on the line to win the point, and in exultation, and relief, I shout, "Fantastic shot!"

While he and I give each other high fives and catch our breaths, and all four of us on the court have lost the count of the game during the exchange, the noise of the mutually expressed pleasure happens to be traveling beyond the courts.  Sunday it was heard by a man (call him Richard) who had heard these sounds before, many times before, pretty early in the morning for him since he had been up with a sick relative, and felt that the noise that he had been hearing went beyond what was necessary, and finally he had taken enough.

He walked out of his house, across the street, into the play area ignoring the ongoing games, to one person, the source of the disturbance, explaining the effect of the noise on him personally, and accusing this individual of being the sole source of this disturbance, reinforced by his avowal that he had heard his own friends on the courts telling him to be quiet.  It was I whom he was addressing through the chain link fence, with his twelve year old son at his side.

Although I admit I am loud, I knew that the person who had been really loud over the last few weeks, to the point that many players did ask him to be quiet, wasn't there at the time, as I tried to explain to Richard.  But, he didn't accept my explanation, and continued to accuse me of personally being the cause of his family's disturbance, and asserting that it was only his reasonableness that deterred his calling the police on me.  Finally I told him enough is enough, that I got his message; and started move away to resume play.

But this was not acceptable to him, so he started to walk around the fence to approach me, and as he did I picked up my tennis racket and told him not to come forward, that I would not be threatened and would use this to defend myself.

Now to take a step back to give a larger picture.  This took place in a suburb of Coastal San Diego County in a public school facility used by the community.  This small city happens to be mostly White, as were all of the players on the court, and the neighbor, Richard, happened to be part of a demographic of less than a single percent of the population, African American.

As he walked around the fence to approach me, one man blocked his way, and others repeated my statement that I had not be the person that he claimed to have heard repeatedly.  But there was no vigorous defense, except for one man, an older guy, (I'll call him Jeff) who came of age far before Political Correctness was in anyone's vocabulary.  Others were somewhat stunned by what was unfolding, and while a few tried to correct the premises of his anger only Jeff was forceful enough to point out the obvious, that now it was Richard who was "disturbing the peace."

Finally with a few harsh words in my direction, Richard walked away past the gate and on to the street.  I attempted to to resume playing, but I was too shaken, so I picked up my tennis case and walked after him.  Seeing him a distance away, I called out to him, "Hey, stop, lets talk about this."  Realizing that I had brandished my racket previously as a weapon, I put my case down.  He looked back and walked back toward me.

Now it was face to face, no audience, just two guys talking. The first thing I said is that I was sorry if I disturbed him, and then I described how I once lived near an elementary school, and became amazed at the volume of a few hundred children during recess.  As he softened I told him how when I met a family with a child in the school I told the kid in mock seriousness that he should ask all the other kids to be quiet during recess.

His anger was quickly dissipated, as I shared other times when I had been in situations like his and felt the same anger. During his initial rant at me on the courts he pointed out how he paid taxes for these facilities, but didn't begrudge it because he valued public recreation, pointing to his son who was on his middle school tennis team.

With that, I pointed out that I also valued public courts, that the very courts that his son uses had been slated to be privatized when I found out about the plan.  I told him that he can look up a couple of OpEds in two local papers that I had written that first opposed the privatization,  and described my speaking at City Council to have successfully helped keep the courts open and free-so far. 

As the conversation continued, it would be hard for anyone who had passed by to believe that fifteen minutes before,  these two men had come close to a physical altercation.  As we were wrapping up, after acknowledging that he played tennis himself, I invited him to join us.  I can still savor the smile on his face from this invitation.
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This experience has elicited a cascade of thoughts and feeling for me.  Well into our conversation after telling him my own experiences with noise annoyances, Richard said with a smile, "you and I are more alike than you realize" That's true on many levels.

Only two weeks before around ten on a Saturday night, from a more rural area behind my yard my wife and I  heard the sharp sound of speakers at what I would guess was originally in the 130 decibel level, blasting a particular genre of music, obscene rap, which is not to my taste.  It was a clear night and the sound probably could have been heard for miles.  I called 911, first telling them it was not an emergency to get the general number.  After finally reaching an operator I explained the situation, telling the operator that although I don't have the exact location, "tell the deputy to open his window, and he won't miss it."

As the time went on, and noise continued unabated, I was considering getting in my car finding the house and going inside with the very same anger that I had been the recipient of Sunday, remarking to my wife, "If I do this, it will become a 911 emergency."  I didn't care that it was a party with dozens of people, who in party mode were oblivious, if not contemptuous, of those whom they were annoying.  I was just angry.  Luckily I didn't have to test this out, as before long the noise ended abruptly, as I assume the police, having no trouble locating the source resolved the situation.

Yeah. Richard and I had many things in common, but also differences. We still live in a segregated society even after the half century of the civil rights revolution of the 1960s.  I can go weeks without interacting with an African American, and when I do, that is the salient quality, at least initially,  that I'm aware of.  Far from the ideal of a color blind society, we still have a society that in all ways except among certain professions,  are separate and far from equal.
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While this is an aside, I have to include this somewhere in this essay.  Richard was convinced that it had been I  who had been the sole voice of disturbance for many weeks.  He recognized my voice, and I probably was the loudest person there that morning, but as confirmed by several people, including K. the organizer, it was the other person whom people had told to be quiet.  It was a case of mistaken identity.  In this situation it culminated in my bruised feeling, and an aborted  physical confrontation.  But such faulty identifications, especially across races often have more dire effects, such as convictions of felony charges based on just the certainty that Richard had of my "guilt."  Strong emotions affect these perceptions, and the person, in this case usually a white person identifying a black, are as certain in their identification, as Richard was in his.  

Perhaps it is awareness of this, along with a myriad of other injustices that are still built into our society that cause those other players mostly to be mute, not to come to the defense of this white man against a black man, since whatever the circumstances in this case, even in this conservative area, there were enough other things for Richard to be angry about that were best left unaddressed. 
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Recreational tennis can be a cruel experience, or more accurately,  reflect the inherent injustice of life, as in some people being endowed with attributes that others have less of, in this case athletic ability.  Tennis is also a painful reminder of the cruel realities of aging, as even the best players lose their speed and reflexes, and then something rather terrible happens, they are no longer desired as players.  There are ways that that this is conveyed;  the call to join a game that never comes, or noticing that a new set has just started and somehow you were excluded.

Every player is vulnerable to this rejection, which among many is simply accepted as the person moves down a notch to others of comparable skill. It is this vulnerability that was sensitized when Richard, rather than a general complaint about noise from the courts, accused me of personally being the source of the disturbance, of being inconsiderate to the point of causing not only his discomfort, but that of his family, some of whom were ill, in his home.  His accusation, only slightly refuted by some in the courts,  since all play had stopped during the argument, could have been construed as a zoning issue of allowing  private homes fifty feet from a playground.  But there were other, more primal emotions, in the fore at that time. 

When I walked after Richard it was not so much anger at him, but disgust with my fellow players.  They knew that it wasn't me who had been the persistent cause of his anger, although I was one of many who had made noise.  In fact our system of round robin play requires all four people on court one to shout "Time" when their game is over, to be heard by everyone in the complex.  Perhaps seeing Richard's anger most in the group felt  a certain relief that there was to be no collective responsibility, but Al was going to take the hit, justified by "he is kinda loud after all." 

Only Jeff, with his lack of concern that he be seen as racist, spoke sternly to Richard, saying that his confrontational attitude was not appropriate.  Ironically, it was Jeff's support that allowed me to reach out to Richard, as it lessened the sense of ostracism that I was starting to feel among the group that after a year I had started to consider friends. It was Jeff, the "racist" who was able to go beyond race, and to speak his mind to a black man who later tacitly admitted was overreacting and misdirecting his anger.

I do hope that Richard shows up next week and joins us. I also hope that he is up to our level, but not too much above it, as we have limited court capacity;  and I'm just a middling player myself who is fighting off the ravages of decades flying by.  And I also hope that when I make a rare great point, that he lifts his voice in appreciation, spreading the joy and pleasure of the game that, at it's best transcends gender, age, race and everything else, in the simple fun of winning a set of this game that, at least for a moment, provides surcease from all existential pain. 

 

Facial Features of Dangerous Criminals- Barbara Roberts

A little before 1 PM today I got home from the grocery store after playing tennis in the morning.  When I checked my email I was struck by this listing of events:

SPECIAL EVENTS—from newsletter of Encinitas Library

Facial Features of Dangerous Criminals

Saturday, June 5
2-4pm

Each facial feature has a corresponding psychological interpretation that will reveal a person’s true inner nature.  Learn about specific visual features that will help you protect your family, date safely on the internet, and gain more of an understanding of news and politics. Barbara Roberts will teach you the patterns in body-mind psychological assessment that she’s seen on 6,000 people’s faces in her 20 years of practice.  More information at FaceReading1.com

Having spent three years doing graduate work in Social Psychology, while I never did my dissertation, I did learn quite a bit about human behavior, enough to know that there are no distinctive facial features of Dangerous Criminals, other than perhaps a tattoo of a gang insignia.

This was an offering of the public library of my city, one that I have participated as a citizen in it's governance and had a degree of involvement with.  The clock was running, as I was a ten minute drive from the library, and needed to change and shower from tennis.  First thing is I went on the speakers web site, and it got worse.   Here's a video sample of her "science," applied to O.J. Simpson.

I was running out of time, as I was thinking of how I would respond, whether I would confront her as she was speaking, or try to be more reserved, I wrote the following letter that I decided to give to the highest level person on duty at the library:

There is a point when good old fashion hokum crosses a line and become a danger to society, to the people who believe in the nonsense being spouted.  This appears to be the case for Barbara Roberts, who has gone from claiming that she has a system to read faces to allow for financial and romantic success to something much more serious.

She was featured at a municipal library, Encinitas California with the headline: Facial Features of Dangerous Criminals.  She also alludes to vague psychological and medical credentials, such as a phi beta kappa in Social Psychology.  She may have a Phi Beta Kapa, but it is not IN social psychology.  She seems to have achieved a BA in these areas with no advanced training at all.

Her Internet site describes her system as “science” yet the essential element of science is verifiability, that the conclusions are subject to objective critical review.  There is no evidence at all that her “facial reading” is even in this tradition, much less accepted.  Actually it is too silly to even be called “pseudo science”

The greatest danger is that those who actually believe that they are gaining scientific expertise are the same people who could end up on juries, deciding the fate of those accused of crimes.  Such people could use these tools to help them decide guilt or innocence, without knowing that they are absolutely without any scientific support.  Innocent people will be jailed or worse, because of Ms. Roberts nonsense.

One would have to question the ethics of someone who would perpetrate such a false sense of being able to understand the criminal tendencies of an individual.  Based on her  claims it is meant to assure a parent that the person they entrust their child with is safe, or a women that an Internet dating  connection is not a danger.  If taken seriously this person could cause serious harm, and more so, since it seems that she has been validated by an official at the city of Encinitas.

P.T. Barnum was right about a sucker being born every minute.   But this person who is taking advantage of this truism, could be causing more harm than she imagines.


I got to the library exactly as the talk was beginning, gave my letter to the librarian and entered the auditorium.   The first part of the presentation was innocuous enough, a variation of palm reading, tarot cards or astrological charting.  She brought a few women to the front,( only two others of the thirty three in attendance were men,) and gave the standard personality evaluations for these venues such as, "You often feel disappointed in life, but you manage to keep on trying"  or "sometimes you have difficulty making decisions and after you do often regret it."  In other words every variation of "face reading" were the universal qualities of human nature, give in a way that seems like personal insight.

As she said herself, her career began with advising women in areas of "Love, Sex, and Money”  Only later did she expand into something of much greater seriousness, and where her exaggeration of her credentials and absurd "teachings" can have life altering effects.

I had to make sure that my concern about these people who now feel that the shape of an ear, or the whites of the eye can be the signal of a dangerous criminal with "95% accuracy" was valid.  So, gently, when she asked for questions I broached the issue.  Taking careful notes, here's the gist of the conversation:

AR (arodb):  This would seem to be useful if somebody were on a jury with a really tough case and you hear stuff from both sides and if you have these cues I guess that could help a jury decide......

..... people who have internalized and learned your material, they could be better jurors.

BR:  They could be better jurors or better jury selectors (a profession that advises lawyers on selecting jurors).

AR:  No, jurors, I'm talking about people who are jurors.

BR:  Could be.  Well, I think the bottom line of face reading is whether you're a juror or you're working with your teenager or working to rear a child or you're dating or you're trying to get along with your boss, it helps you to see people clearly, know where they're coming from and know what they're capable of.  So it would be great for a juror.

AR:  It would be.  They would have a better idea.  You know sometimes the evidence is unclear.  So they would be able to tell.

BR:  Sure.  Absolutely. (spoken with a strong voice)

AR:  Thank you very much.


At the end of the second part, on Criminology, where she went into excruciating details of the facial characteristics that betray criminal minds.  Mustaches were important.  Anyone who had a little mustache like Hitler is a bad man.  And rapists tend to have mustaches that are a quarter inch below the top of the upper lip.  An oddly shaped ear is another giveaway.  These were all accompanied by a picture book that she was selling, including one of Jesus Christ illustrating features representing pure goodness.

This would all be easy to dismiss as beyond absurdity, yet the books that Ms. Roberts has written on this subject have been quite popular, and her audience is amplified far beyond little gatherings such as this, being a frequent guest on local and national television.  Actually, the experience was frightening, not for my personal safety, but it was chilling to be surrounded by seemingly intelligent individuals who actually bought into this inanity.

Since I was there, I felt the least I could do was connect with Ms. Roberts on a personal level.  So, as the program was wrapping up and she asked for questions or comments, with a calm respectful voice, I started off by saying that I admire her, that she has followed the American Dream of finding her niche and creating a career.  Then I told her my concerns, in these words:

Most of what you do is in areas of love, money and relationships. What disturbs me very much is that in our county everyone here is a potential juror. Everyone here could be looking at a person on the dock to try to find out whether he is someone who deserves to go to jail for a long time or even be executed.  You are claiming, erroneously, that you have tools that will aid these people. This is not the place to go into a debate on the details, but unfortunately I don't know whether you are even aware of the potential damage you could be doing.


She listened intently, without any attempt to refute my comments.  I continued, after responding to some members of the audience, who were surprised and interested in my words

You mentioned that one sign of a character defect is that the left eye shifts outward.  When I was 12 years old, and you can still look at my eye and I can make it shift out, but my mother, bless her soul, took me to a specialist who helped me control it.  Whatever my personality flaws I can attest that controlling this problem, amblyopia, has absolutely no effect on my character.   


As I walked out I checked with the librarian whom I gave my letter, who assured me that it will be passed up the chain to the person who made this booking.  She read it and understood my point clearly. She told me that Roberts had given two earlier talks on the "fun" aspects of face reading, and that this topic may have slipped by.  I'll be looking for a response from whomever did the booking.

And that was it.  It was 3:45 and I was on my way home. 

There are many problems in this world, a few that I feel I have some insight into, but no way to make a difference about them.  But this time, by acting on my instincts, it's just possible that this particular woman will always wonder whether there will be another person like me in the audience, or watching her TV appearance, who will point out the absurdity and the danger of what she is promulgating.

Let her stick to her fun specialty, giving her followers some sense of control over “Love, Sex, and Money” and stay away from identifying "dangerous criminals" and I would wish her all the luck in the world.
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Addendum: A few days latter I got a call from the local branch assistant librarian who dismissed my letter with, "You didn't have to attend the event." I went further connecting to the main office of the library, and recieved this considerate letter:

Mr. Rodbell,

Thanks for your letter and please accept my apology for being so late in responding to your concern: I've been off for some days.

I can see your point regarding the appearance of a scientific approach in a program that is clearly not based on science. While I have not attended this particular program myself, and people do seem to enjoy it, the library has a responsibility to present facts accurately while providing materials and programs that express many points of view. Of course there are no doubt many materials in the library that are unscientific, and we do many programs simply for entertainment, but your concern brings up an issue with this particular event I would like to look into further.

Thanks again for bringing this to my attention.

--Ruth

Ruth Ketchum

So, perhaps there will be less pseudo science in the library, which was certainly worth the effort.





 

End of Life Care in America

(This essay appeared in Dailykos blog with multiple comments for those interrested)

This is a review, more of a strong recommendation for reading a long article in New Yorker Magazine "Letting Go, What should medicine do when it can’t save your life?" by Atul Gawand on end of life medical care.   It is well researched, written by a physician who follows several individuals facing death from terminal cancer.  While this depressing subject is systematically ignored, for many reasons it must not continue to be so.  I am writing this because I learned important information that is contrary to what I thought about the Hospice movement, and how it is handled under Medicare. 
This article does not focus on the fiscal effects of end of life care, as important as this is since the current system is far beyond this nation's financial ability to maintain.   Written by a physician, he writes with both a professional and a human sensitivity.  While there is a natural aversion for individuals to face their own, or loved one's, impending death,  one of the tragedies that has exacerbated the inherent difficulty of the subject is it's being distorted for partisan political purposes.  As a person who did considerable research resulting in serious objections to the recently passed Health Reform,  this article describes one laudable, and actually cost saving provision that encourages primary physicians to discuss this issue with their Medicare patients.   This became part of the attack by partisan opponents, decried by many as a foot in the door for  "Death Panels."
For those who don't read the long article, I will cover a few of the points that were most important. The writer introduces the subject with:
(pp 4) Like many people, I had believed that hospice care hastens death, because patients forgo hospital treatments and are allowed high-dose narcotics to combat pain. But studies suggest otherwise. In one, researchers followed 4,493 Medicare patients with either terminal cancer or congestive heart failure. They found no difference in survival time between hospice and non-hospice patients with breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer. Curiously, hospice care seemed to extend survival for some patients; those with pancreatic cancer gained an average of three weeks, those with lung cancer gained six weeks, and those with congestive heart failure gained three months. The lesson seems almost Zen: you live longer only when you stop trying to live longer. When Cox was transferred to hospice care, her doctors thought that she wouldn’t live much longer than a few weeks. With the supportive hospice therapy she received, she had already lived for a year.
Hospice has tried to offer a new ideal for how we die. Although not everyone has embraced its rituals, those who have are helping to negotiate an ars moriendi for our age. But doing so represents a struggle—not only against suffering but also against the seemingly unstoppable momentum of medical treatment.  
Dr. Gawand does not place himself above the pressures that militate for treatment beyond objective reason.  He describes his own experience, this time in his role as a surgeon.   It was with one the patient followed for the article, a women named, Sara Monopoli, in her thirties whose terminal cancer was discovered shortly before giving birth to her first child:
Ealier that summer, a PET scan had revealed that, in addition to her lung cancer, she also had thyroid cancer, which had spread to the lymph nodes of her neck, and I was called in to decide whether to operate. This second, unrelated cancer was in fact operable. But thyroid cancers take years to become lethal. Her lung cancer would almost certainly end her life long before her thyroid cancer caused any trouble. Given the extent of the surgery that would have been required, and the potential complications, the best course was to do nothing. But explaining my reasoning to Sara meant confronting the mortality of her lung cancer, something that I felt ill prepared to do.  (Eventually he said:) We could monitor the thyroid cancer and plan surgery in a few months.
I saw her every six weeks, and noted her physical decline from one visit to the next. Yet, even in a wheelchair, Sara would always arrive smiling, makeup on and bangs bobby-pinned out of her eyes. She’d find small things to laugh about, like the tubes that created strange protuberances under her dress. She was ready to try anything, and I found myself focusing on the news about experimental therapies for her lung cancer. After one of her chemotherapies seemed to shrink the thyroid cancer slightly, I even raised with her the possibility that an experimental therapy could work against both her cancers, which was sheer fantasy. Discussing a fantasy was easier—less emotional, less explosive, less prone to misunderstanding—than discussing what was happening before my eyes.

Under Medicare, to receive Hospice care one has to agree to forgo aggressive treatment.  In surveys this is appreciated by those in their final months,  and their families suffered less, including measurable indexes of depression.  Much of the article goes into the details of this type of treatment. The following experiment by a private insurer went further, with unexpected result that has serious implications on the the fiscal and individual level
(pp8) In late 2004, executives at Aetna, the insurance company, started an experiment. They knew that only a small percentage of the terminally ill ever halted efforts at curative treatment and enrolled in hospice, and that, when they did, it was usually not until the very end. So Aetna decided to let a group of policyholders with a life expectancy of less than a year receive hospice services without forgoing other treatments. A patient like Sara Monopoli could continue to try chemotherapy and radiation, and go to the hospital when she wished—but also have a hospice team at home focusing on what she needed for the best possible life now and for that morning when she might wake up unable to breathe. A two-year study of this “concurrent care” program found that enrolled patients were much more likely to use hospice: the figure leaped from twenty-six per cent to seventy per cent. That was no surprise, since they weren’t forced to give up anything. The surprising result was that they did give up things. They visited the emergency room almost half as often as the control patients did. Their use of hospitals and I.C.U.s dropped by more than two-thirds. Over-all costs fell by almost a quarter.
snip-
Among elderly patients, use of intensive-care units fell by more than eighty-five per cent. Satisfaction scores went way up. What was going on here? The program’s leaders had the impression that they had simply given patients someone experienced and knowledgeable to talk to about their daily needs. And somehow that was enough—just talking.
The marshaling of the most advanced technology for medical care creates issues that we as a society have managed to ignore.  We are a religious people, and too easily ascribe to a higher being the right to determine when life should end.   And that "higher being" is as often wearing a white coat with a stethoscope as he is a clerical robes.   This article gives some practical information on those facing these painful decisions for themselves or loved ones, and raises larger questions that we must answer as a society. 
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Addenda:
Here is a previous diary from Dailykos about an article by this author looking at the business side of medicine that shapes these excessive treatments.

During the HCR debate I wrote this essay, that gives some of the roots causing treatment for hopeless cases.  I paraphrased the conclusion of a White House Bio-ethics report that expresses the underlying thinking
Modern medical advances make death and debility seem no longer inevitable, and as such, even less bearable.  As we learn of both the reality and the myths of such advances, those who fear being denied them become terrified, and at times, enraged. The stakes are high, and getting higher as the previously mysterious causes of death and disease start to be understood, with the growing real prospect of intervention.

Introduction-12/2009

At this time, December 2009, I am focusing on two main issue, one local, the other national. 

The issue I have worked on extensively is the  Health Care Reform Legislation in Congress, presently being debated in the Senate.  The most important of my essays are on this personal blog, Healthcare Beyond Partisanship     I have an extensive analysis here of the non-partisan report by the Chief Actuary of CMS, the Medicare Agency, How to bury a warning to 45 million people, that explains why you have probably never heard about it.   And for my own personal expanding essay of the defects of the bill, including numerous references, there is this Heath Care Reform-Reality Ignored. V.3.0


I've written numerous essays on this subject recently (called diaries) on Dailykos.com under the user name ARODB, intermixed with essays on various sundry other subjects.   One that is meaningful, was this review of a  article on Health Care Reform by the oldest liberal publication in America, Harpers Magazine

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The one that is local, but with perhaps the most enduring importance, deals with the tension between religion and secularism in our national life.  It takes the form of a symbol on a mountain top in San Diego, known as the Soledad Cross.  My website on this subject is Soledad War Memorial.  A columnist for the metropolitan area newspaper, the San Diego Union Trbune, Logan Jenkins, wrote this column that described my position,  Get a war memorial we don’t have to fight over

He included part of a letter that I sent him about my hope, one that I would like to see mature into a proposal, and then , God willing, a movement that reaches fruition:
In urging a crusade for a replacement of the Mount Soledad cross, Rodbell asked me to imagine “a soaring work of art, abstract enough to represent the force of religion, the toll of war and the aspiration for peace. It would be a small example to the city, the country and perhaps even the world that there are ways to transcend the limits of a given political system. … The hardpan of congealed conflict has to be plowed, which will take many passes; and then perhaps, just perhaps, a symbol the entire city could be proud of could grace the highest point of ‘America’s Finest City.’ ”

Logan even provided this fragile movement with a name and a goal:
Support the Evolution of the Soledad Cross. Peace on Earth.

--------------.


And on a lighter note, I've been somewhat involved in the discussion about the management of the Poinsettia Tennis Courts in Carlsbad, which I discuss here.

Paul's Last Message

This is for the friends and family of Paul Newman.

I'm writing this as a memento of a man whom I knew only a short time, perhaps getting together a dozen times during the last six months of his life.  After he passed away, I came across a message of his that I had kept on my cell phone that I shared with Augusta, and wanted to make it available for those who knew and loved him.

Here are his words, with a background view overlooking Rancho Santa Fe.



It's kind of strange to say that I miss someone who I had known for such a short time. ,  He and I are pretty intense guys, and while he was overwhelming to many, to me he was engaging.   His passions were matched by the depth of grounding in his opinions, always open to new perspectives even if they were not his own.  We were both at Columbia University at about the same time.  He studying Law, and I Graduate Psychology, neither of us to finish our professional degrees.  That's a bond that only those who share it can fully understand.

My wife and I visited Paul's organic vegatable garden in Rancho Sante Fe, and since I never met his mother,  sister or brother in law, all I had to go on was my stereotypes.  And how we love to fill in the blanks.  And then I met Augusta, after Paul was gone, and I had an understanding where he got his vibrancy, and his ability to keep on going in the face of some pretty bad breaks.   I never could understand, nor would I ever ask him about how a man of his talents ended his days in dire financial straits. 

While it's easy to claim a lack of weath  is for refusing to "sell out"  In Paul's case although he never made the claim, I believe it to be a fair explanation.  He didn't merely argue principles, he seemed to live them.  It was always a pleasure debating politics with him, but unlike when he led the debating team, he didn't care about winning, rather savoring the challenging exchange of ideas.  How rare is that?

He and I are both open minded, and in this area of California I'm often considered the liberal of the crowd.  But, not compared to Paul, who challenged any criticisms I made of President Obama.  This explains his words on the message:

I hope you're understanding why I think we've managed to luck upon the best President we've ever had.

I can see his smile now, knowing that these were his last words to me.....never to be refuted.

Adios, good buddy.

Dailykos Uncensored

 NOTES

From Washington Monthly interview Jan. 2006
 Republicans, he believed, had a "noise machine,"--a coalition of coordinated advocacy and opinion media outlets that pressured the mainstream media into reporting, and repeating, GOP-friendly spin. "The simplest fact about American politics," he told me, "is that Republicans have a noise machine and we don't." Daily Kos, he decided, would become the Democratic noise machine, pressing the case against the Bush administration and the Iraq war in the strongest terms possible.

From CCC speech He answers a question with at 45 minutes:  End Roberts Rules of order, and hold meeting at picnics where people can enjoy themselves, and be casual, like blogs

"I don't think blue color people will ever be at dk, its people who switch from :DK to their spreadsheet at a professional job."   He also says that new media MUST be used to reach various demographics.   Blogs are just a slice, and other media...cell phones etc must be used.

He admits to emulating conservatives, in their universal indoctrination, a marketing procedure, that fits every segment of their base, they "create, market and close on election day" 

Al's note....too much emulation, ideology and reality are incompatable.

Blogging as, same or different, journalism was last question:
   doesn't like the word "blog" as it can mean many things.  Journalism site vs. blog.  Standards?  Forces people to think.   What I have going for me is my credibility.   Let others probe, I comments.  Thruthout is under attack because of false story.   Profession of Journalism is a cesspool of divided loyalties, conflicts of interests.  I don't have a lot of respect for traditional media, reporters are overworked, no time to research or fact checks, must accept press reports from political parties.

Asked if he had conservative friends and his answer for the first time was simple, "No"

----------------------------------
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Dailykos is a web site founded in 2002 by Markos Moulitsas that is well known by those who consider themselves progressive Democrats, with a current membership of over 300,000; "Web Site" doesn't convey the extent of this social, political cultural phenomenon.   The month that I joined, June 2006, was when this site was introduced to the wider public in this column by David Brooks of the New York Times.  Comparing Kos, (Moulitas' preferred name, which is the basis of the title Dailykos) of being the latest incarnation of the corrupt political power broker he ends his indictment with, "He has challenged his enemy and become it."

While Brooks may have captured an element of truth about Moulitas with his depiction as "The Keyboard Kingpin." It is similar to reducing any media figure to his most sordid aspect,  as if JFK were simply a womanizer, Walter Winchell a right wing propagandist, or  William Randolf Hearst as a ruthless war monger.  An exaggerated partial truth distorts the more accurate larger picture.

Dailykos'com is a chronicle of a particular period of time, the administration of George W. Bush, that history may yet define, and some historians are now speculating, may be the turning point, that marks the unstoppable decline of the United States of America.  This administration coincided with the growth of the internet, to a degree that it became the means of communication, and interaction for the vast majority of literate, politically active Americans. It was at this exact moment, that Kos initiated his web site,

has managed to attract a diverse, generally highly educated, articulate group of contributors, (and others less so, such as me, user ARODB .) Its core content is essays (called "diaries") that, rare among sites of this size, are not only written by regular members but featured prominently with an extensive introduction on a secondary page. This means that every diary is subjected to at least a cursory glance by most of those who are on the site at the time as it faces its fate on the "recent diary list" Usually they don't attract much attention, and with a  few comments sink to the bottom and then oblivion; occasionally, based on quality or timeliness, it is  promoted to the more limited Recommended diary list to be viewed by thousands;  and very rarely the group may find a diary so offensive that the writer is banned from the site.

The nature of this public venue where all essays, all opinions, "were" subjected to a group consensus resulted in some predictable dynamics. The past tense is used since at this writing Dailykos is in the process of a change in format from Version 3.0 to 4.0, to be implemented on February 13, 2011. Diaries, which had been limited to substantive essays of no more than one a day, are to lose these restrictions, thus generating a volume too great to be viewed by the users at large. The approach will be different; as there will be sub-blogs called groups that will provide a different type of selection, by a user administrator, rather than the body of Dailykos users.

Many users, including this writer, feel that this will result in Balkanizaiton, a fragmentation of what had been the core quality of the site, as essays, and the compendiums of values so derived can be nurtured in the sub blogs outside of the view of the larger group. This core quality, this consensus was not without a serious adverse consequence; the "group think" effect, also termed "preaching to the choir" or in it's extreme, a "virtual lynch mob."

At its most extreme manifestation, unsupportable beliefs were fostered, including refusing to believe the early reports of John Edwards infidelities, and the concerted rage at political figures such as Joe Lieberman, where no insult was off limits. But the best example of the extremes of this web site, also shows the strengths. It is this one, Will Bush walk away in 2009?
It does illustrate a frenzy that gripped the membership at the time, affectionately referred to as Kosacks, that President Bush, rather than allowing the constitutional secession, would engineer a coup to remain in power. Yet a careful reading of that diary shows that it described laws that had been passed in the reaction to 9-11, that could have laid the legal groundwork for such a coup. So, while this fit the mood of the membership, even this diary was mostly recieved as rank speculation, and treated by most with an appropriate skepticism.

Those who cherry pick diaries or comments could easily conclude, and then make the claim as Bill O'Reilly does, that it is a "hate site." It is an unabashed partisan venue, one that excludes a full exposition of the rationale for the opposing political viewpoint; but hate is only one occasional part of the vast mix of tones and content that makes up this vast enterprise. There have been those who have ventured into opposing the consensus, and with proper understanding of the audience, such essays are not only tolerated, but occasionally rewarded.

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How I changed the presidential oath of office.....maybe

I have to include this story.

Remember the Justice Robert's flub of the administering of the Presidential Oath of Office. Saying this will make me sound delusional, but there is a good chance that I, single handedly, had something to do with that. The connection is a dialogue with Mike Newdow, whose suit for an injunction of the words "so help me God, was prompted by an email I sent him. And as he responded when I asked if others had suggested this, "No Al, it was only you." I laid down the background of Newdow's suit in this diary: Newdow's Innauguration Suit...Why it Matters

Roberts was aware of this pending suit, and also that Newdow was correct, and previous administrations of the oath had been unconstitutional. In this affidavit submitted by Jeffrey P. Minear, Robert's counselor, this was resolved by describing phrase "So help me God" as being "after the conclusion of the constitutional oath" But if this oath to God was after the conclusion of the oath, how was this to be conveyed to the world?

My guess, is that Roberts decided to pose it in a different grammatical mode from the constitutionally prescribed oath, as a question in the second person. This change was never rehearsed between the President elect and the Chief Justice and it is reasonable that it was on Roberts mind that noon hour in January.

In a letter to Minear I asked for confirmation of my hypothesis. Of course he was not going to breach Lawyer-Client confidentiality, but he did respond that he read my email "with fascination" and that while he can't comment he hopes that I will continue to speculate on it. (I take that as CONFIRMATION!)

Kitty Werthmann-Right Wing Spokesperson Extraordinary

1938 Austria
America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don't Let Freedom Slip Away
By: Kitty Werthmann
What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or will ever read in history books.
I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide - 98% of the vote. I've never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force. In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates.
Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn't want to work; there simply weren't any jobs. My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people - about 30 daily.
The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna, Linz, and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.
We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany , where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn't have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group -- Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria . We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.
We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.
After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.
Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn't support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.
Hitler Targets Education - Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children:
Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler's picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn't pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang "Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles," and had physical education.
Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail. The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.
My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn't do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun - no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn't exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.
Equal Rights Hits Home:
In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn't work, you didn't get a ration card, and if you didn't have a card, you starved to death. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn't have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.
Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.
Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare:
When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.
Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls:
Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna . After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a. m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.
As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing. We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn't meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.
We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.
"Mercy Killing" Redefined:
In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps . The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.
As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.
The Final Steps - Gun Laws: Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.
No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up. Totalitarianism didn't come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria . Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.
After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria . Women were raped, preteen to elderly. The press never wrote about this either. When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process. They sawed down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn't destroy, they burned. We called it The Burned Earth. Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses. Women hid in their cellars for 6 weeks as the troops mobilized. Those who couldn't, paid the price. There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were massacred by the Russians. This is an eye witness account.
"It's true.. those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.
America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don't Let Freedom Slip Away
"After America , There is No Place to Go"
Here is the web site - I encourage you to go here to hear Kitty speak.  www. sdfamily.org/Kitty+Wetrthmann