Thinking

The following is an essay I slammed together after reading The Mind and the Brain by Jeffrey Schwartz. The reason for posting it here is to (hopefully) lay a foundation for future discussions of what is wrong with civil discourse in the US. Please bear in mind that any errors in the text are mine, not those of Dr. Schwartz.

All humans think. We are all, with the exception of the rare individuals with congenital brain disorders, equipped by millions of years of evolution with the ability to think coherently and rationally. This ability to think consciously is the major difference between the way humans think and the way every other animal on Earth thinks.

Many non-human animals can think. Squirrels can figure out how to get to the seeds in the bird feeder despite what humans do to make it difficult, for example. Cats and dogs develop a series of signals, both vocal and body language, to communicate their desires to each other and to humans. These are all signs of thinking. How is human thought different from that of non-human animals?

For one thing, humans are consciously aware of their thinking. This could be a disadvantage, from an evolutionary standpoint. If a Paleolithic human hunter-gatherers were constantly getting distracted by ideas and random thoughts, the species would have quickly vanished- from starvation or by getting devoured by the undistracted wildlife. Most humans have learned to ignore the storm of ideas and random thoughts that occur during every waking moment, and have trained themselves to focus their concentration on thoughts and ideas related to the current situation. This ability to concentrate thought when necessary became a major survival tool for our distant ancestors, as did the ability to allow the unfocused mind to offer new ideas. Concentrating attention and brainpower on the immediate threat/problem and the ability to develop oblique or non-linear solutions when necessary are the cornerstones of the human thought process. They are what make human thought so qualitatively different from that of non-human animals.

The brain of the non-human animal is designed to think in terms of sense-imagery. When the animal is hungry, it thinks about food. When the animal is cold, it thinks about getting warm. When the animal is hurt, it thinks about stopping the pain. Non-human animal thinking seems to stop there, however. Non-human animals seldom- if ever- display the ability to think about thinking about sense-imagery. Food is food is food. If there is no food readily available, the animal must seek it out when it gets hungry. When it gets cold, the animal seeks a place where it can be warm.

Only humans seem to be able to think about food (and other things) as a general class of items. Apples are food and fish are food and corn is food … to a non-human animal. To humans, all of these items come under a general category of things to eat. Water can be drunk, as can milk, beer, juice, etc. These are all grouped into a category of things to drink. These general categories can be combined and mixed ad infinitum. Apples and strawberries both belong in the general category of things to eat, and also in the general category of things that are red. The ability to make these generalizations also spawns a whole series of other generalizations: things that are not.

This thing is red. It belongs to a general class of things that are red. That thing is not red. It does not belong in the category of things that are red, it belongs in a larger category of things that are not red. That thing is a bicycle. It belongs in a general category of things to ride upon, and things that have wheels, and things that are man-made. It also belongs to the categories of things that are not wood, things that are not good to eat, things that are not flammable. This endless categorization seems simplistic, because it is so basic to our thought processes. It is basic, however … so basic that we often aren’t aware of the process while it is going on.

The best teacher is a poor student. A poor student requires the teacher to break down the concepts to be learned into more and more basic concepts. Eventually, the poor student forces the instructor to reach the most basic categories in order to give the poor student the underlying facts upon which the lesson is based. This process rarely goes very far into the basics with human students, because most human students are already aware (perhaps not consciously aware, but aware at some level) of the basic categories of most common items.

This awareness of basic facts is the biggest hurdle for the researchers trying to develop artificial intelligence. One group of computer scientists in Texas have spent more than a decade teaching their artificial intelligence project computer the most basic facts. Water is wet. Rocks are hard. Rocks are not edible. Fire is hot. Computers do not know these things. Almost any two-year- old human child knows these things, almost unconsciously. But it has taken more than ten years to try to teach a computer these facts, and the computer still can’t make the obvious inferences which pre-adolescent humans make from those facts without conscious thought.

Memory plays a role in animal thought as well. Many animals have prodigious memories. That old saw about elephants never forgetting has recently been demonstrated by experiment to be based in fact. Without memory, it would be difficult or impossible to train animals, and many animals would die because they couldn’t recognize a dangerous item or situation when they encountered it again.

Evolution has equipped most animals (almost all of the vertebrates have effective memory centers) with brains capable of storing and recovering sensory data. The animals without this ability doubtless kept encountering dangerous animals or situations without remembering the threats, and so eventually died out. Nature favored animals with effective memory centers. A larger, stronger rival may injure an animal trying to mate. When the animal tries again, it will remember that a larger animal is dangerous, and will not risk a confrontation with a larger rival; or perhaps will break off the confrontation soon enough to avoid injury. This ability to learn from remembered experience is common to both human and non-human animals.

A talent unique to humans is the ability to equate dissimilar experiences to entirely new situations. A non-human animal might not recognize a trap because it does not look, sound, or smell like previous traps. Only humans seem to be able to make the connection between previous experience and novel situations. Scientists and other researchers have yet to learn why humans can think this way, but paleoanthropolgists postulate that this talent might have given our ancestors an evolutionary edge over animals without the ability. Recognizing similarities to previous experience in a new situation allows humans to use the memory of the previous situation to help resolve the new one. That ability undoubtedly saved many lives as humans were evolving. Humans with more of this ability would survive more often than humans with less, and would pass on the genetic differences that granted this ability more often.

Another difference between human and non-human animal thought comes from the ability to recognize and translate symbols. Rock paintings are the earliest examples we have of human use of symbols. A mountain lion would not recognize the scratches on a rock face as an antelope, but almost any human instantly identifies those same scratches for what they represent:  a Paleolithic artist’s conception of an antelope. Symbols such as rock paintings or writing are simply areas of light or darkness to a non-human animal. Some animals might recognize that there was a pattern to the light or dark areas, but the meaning of the patterns (or even the existence of a meaning to the patterns) would not be understood.

Some researchers have managed to teach apes to recognize symbols, and work is underway to teach dolphins, dogs, and other mammals to recognize certain symbols. Several chimpanzees can recognize drawings as having a relationship to word-sounds. This monumental achievement is the result of decades of hard work, similar to the intensive effort to teach basic facts to a computer in Texas. Human children begin recognizing symbols as young as one year of age, and many learn to read by the time they are three or four years old- something no non-human animal of any age has yet accomplished.

Human use of symbols (language, writing, art, mathematics, etc.) is another cornerstone of the human thinking process.  Language came first. Many non-human animals have a language of sorts. Basic concepts such as warnings, mating calls, etc., are used by many species. Few of these ‘languages’ are capable of transmitting more than the most basic of messages, however. Human language is capable of communicating detailed information. Where an antelope might give a warning call meaning “danger”, a human could give a call of the same duration that might mean, “there’s a lion in the bushes to your left!” referring to the same threat.

The density and complexity of information transmission is another reason humans think so differently from non-human animals. Humans can be warned to react differently to different threats. Climbing a tree might protect you from a stampeding Aurochs, but would only get you killed if you tried it to get away from a leopard. A non-human animal would only get a danger message, where a human could get the danger message, as well as specific information for the specific threat.

This adaptability is another evolutionary advantage. Language-using human groups (language is a group activity) would survive more often than non-language-using ones. Groups capable of sharing complex information would tend to survive more than those only capable of simpler messages. Groups incapable of adapting their language to changing circumstances would suffer more deaths and injuries more often than groups capable of adapting quickly. Language became an evolutionary advantage for groups and societies, where it was not necessarily so for individuals.

The concept of using symbols to represent sounds or ideas is uniquely human, and is the basic building block of modern civilization. Humanity’s long journey to the current level of achievement is divided roughly into two areas: history, and pre-history. This can be better described as the time before record keeping and the time after record keeping. Once humans learned to record what they knew and learned, it became easier for the children and grandchildren to learn the same things. It became easier to avoid making the same mistakes generation after generation, and more and more humans would survive because of this. Writing became the shared memory of humanity in effect, if not in fact. This shared memory made simpler the process of building on the works of those who had gone before.

Pattern-recognition and symbol use are also uniquely human abilities. A large portion of the human brain is dedicated to recognizing patterns, such as the facial features of friends and family. This ability is innate; all undamaged human brains are capable of this. Training can increase the brain’s ability to accomplish this task, but the ability is encoded into the genetic makeup of all humans.

That brings us to modern man. In industrial societies, the evolutionary risks are significantly reduced, so most urban humans aren’t required to use these life-saving mental abilities much. This is not to say that modern life does not have dangers, but the chances of being devoured by a leopard or trampled by a herd of buffalo are pretty much non-existent. Many of the thinking processes used for basic survival by our cave man ancestors can be adapted to the dangers of modern life, but the evolutionary pressure to think consciously and creatively is dramatically reduced.

Thinking is like any other function of the body. Without frequent use, the mental “muscles” get flabby. Early training plays a role as well. If the young humans do not learn how to learn, the part of the brain that controls learning does not work as efficiently as it should. Learning becomes difficult, which in turn means that particular “mental muscle” gets even less use. Unless the individual makes concentrated efforts at exercising this ability, the vicious circle continues and the individual will always have trouble learning. Since thinking coherently and creatively is “hard work” for this type of person, their mental processes get less and less exercise. After all, modern civilization makes it possible for such a person to live to a ripe old age (by historical standards) without having to flex his or her mental muscles much. Many people can (and frequently do) ask themselves, “Why bother?”

Reading, which is an excellent way to fine-tune the brain’s symbol-recognizing skills, is also a fundamental building block of modern civilization. The acts of reading and writing (both of which involve symbol recognition) help stimulate the left hemisphere of the brain, which researchers associate with rational thought, logic, mathematics, and science. However, reading is losing favor as a pastime among many people in the United States. Children in particular are reading less in this country, to the point of possible deleterious effects on the learning centers. Furthermore, reading the works of others helps the reader learn proper grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure. Readers are often learning while they read, which in turn helps develop the brain’s ability to learn.

This widespread disinterest in learning and the steadfast refusal by many people in industrial countries to exercise their brains continues because there are few penalties exacted for these actions. During the evolution of our species, an individual’s refusal to learn frequently meant that individual was more likely to be killed. Modern life has removed many of those hazards. The most common hazards in industrial societies are social, not physical. People in industrial nations are rarely forced to think clearly or die.

Even the few actively dangerous tasks common to most people in industrialized countries (such as driving) often fail to force people to engage their mental muscles. Driving is dangerous, even in a well-policed and relatively civilized country like the United States. Drivers should actively concentrate their mental energies on the dangerous tasks involved in driving a car. All too often, however, drivers essentially “shut off” their concentration while attempting the dangerous task of driving to and from work. Many people arrive at work or at home and have no memory of the intervening road trip. The fact that they survived the trip in such a semi-conscious state is a tribute to the skills of the drivers around them, trained reflexes, and blind luck. If our Paleolithic ancestors had tried this suicidal trick while hunting cave bears, it might have been humans and not cave bears that became extinct.

Modern humans rarely need to think creatively or critically. Technological and social progress over the last twenty millennia have permitted many humans to survive being utter fools. The end result is a profusion of fuzzy thinking, a decline in interest in learning, and a general distrust of intellectual pursuits such as reading. Poor thinking skills are rarely considered social liabilities. In fact, creative or critical thinking themselves are often considered social liabilities. People who question common wisdom, display curiosity about the world around them, or even appear to be smarter than their friends and neighbors are frequently dismissed as “nerds”, “geeks”, or “bookworms”- all of which have negative social connotations.

This disinterest in learning and thinking is all the more surprising because everyone thinks critically every day. The process is so nearly automatic that many people do not recognize it as such. This thinking process is by nature a personal one. Different people will make different choices, depending on personal inclination and background. There is a commonality to the process that bears examining, however. The thought process is normally either automatic or nearly so. The person doing the thinking is often unaware of the sequence of thoughts and memories that make up the decisions in everyday life.

For example, on approaching several co-workers at the water cooler at work and hearing them gossiping about the boss, some people would identify the hazards (the gossip might get back to the boss, the boss might see a group chatting around the water cooler and get upset, etc), asses the dangers of the situation (if the boss hears the gossip, he might/might not get angry. If the boss gets angry, he might/might not take the anger out on the gossipers, etc), decide not to get involved due to the risk of repercussions, and make haste to get a drink and get away from the water cooler to avoid being dragged into a no-win situation. Other people might decide that the fun of talking down the boss is worth the risks and stay to gossip, while still others might completely ignore the potential hazards due to a misunderstanding of the situation.

The people in the example are all thinking about the situation. Their decisions (to gossip or not) are based on a nearly unconscious assessment of the situation and its potential hazards. It is the fact that the person making the decision is not consciously aware of the decision-making process that contributes most to the negative connotations associated with intellectual pursuits. Even when people are shown the facts about everyday use of critical thinking, the most common response is to downplay the significance of the act. This suspicion of the thinking process is one of the primary reasons that many people do not think well when they do think.

At birth, the vast majority of humans are equipped with the requisite mental capacity for creative and coherent thought. Their family and school life (along with social pressures from peers) will serve to amplify or reduce these native abilities during their formative years, which often have profound effects on later life. Some people are equipped by temperament or background to break themselves free of the template of their early learning experiences, but most lack the will to make such profound efforts to effect change in their mental life. Those whose home life and school life served to amplify their learning and thinking abilities often find themselves cut off from the bulk of humanity by their mental abilities, because people who lack the inclination to think well frequently resent those who do think clearly and creatively. Attempts to bridge the gap often fail due to frustration by both groups.

Thinking creatively and critically is the birthright of every human. The ability to think consciously, to focus concentration on thoughts or ideas is a skill which must be learned and constantly practiced to be effective. Allowing the mental “muscles” to atrophy is a fool’s easy way out. The ability to think clearly and creatively has been a survival trait throughout the evolution of humanity. This has not changed with the advent of advanced technology and specialization. Even in the technological wonderland in which we live, humans are at risk of someday living or dying solely on the ability to make the right decisions.

Current status: Concerned

Current music: Fields of Fire by Big Country

The War At Home

Allow me to say this in the most eloquent way possible: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU IMBECILES THINKING?

The imbeciles to whom I refer are, of course, the duly elected members of the US Senate, led by Carl Levin and John McCain, who passed the abortion known as the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The bill passed the Senate 93-7, which ought to give anyone with the vaguest shreds of intelligence the galloping heebie-jeebies. Whenever something makes it through any branch of Congress with near-unanimity, we (the People) can count on a thorough ass-raping, sans lubricant.

This particular assault on our collective sphincters is nominally about funding the US military. McCain and Levin tossed in an amendment which would basically give the President- any President- unlimited authority to use military force against anyone “who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” That sounds dangerously vague. Someone please define “substantially supported” for the rest of the class, because it seems our elected representatives in the Senate didn’t bother with such picayune details. How about “associated forces“? Anyone? Buehler?

I’m reasonably certain that this bullshit is unConstitutional on its face, but I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t play one on TV. Oh, and this lovely abomination is not subject to any such minor distinctions such as duration or national boundaries. For all time and everywhere on Earth (and, presumably, to the ends of the Universe), the President of the United States can identify any group or individual as “substantially supporting an associated force“, and that person (such as you or I) or group (such as, for example, the Boy Scouts or the Elks Lodge) could be snapped up by the Marines or Navy SEALs and deposited in Gitmo without benefit of habeus corpus hearing or any other pesky legal proceedings. How can you get a lawyer to plead your case when you are being held in a military detention facility in another country? Under this bill, anyone suspected of substantially supporting al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces would not have any due process or civil rights otherwise guaranteed by the Constitution- you won’t get a phone call, you won’t get to speak to an attorney, and there will be no speedy trial. You can be deprived of life or liberty at any time, anywhere in the world, on the say-so of whoever happens to be occupying the White House.

Didn’t we have a Revolution a couple of hundred years ago over far less vexatious abuses? Let’s take a look at the Declaration of Independence, shall we? I’ll just sample a few of the perfidies laid at the feet of the British monarch to see how they shape up today.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

George the Turd doesn’t come off as that bad a guy compared to our own Senators. I wonder how that worked out for him?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Oh, yeah. That. I believe we may owe our British cousins a bit of an apology.

There were ninety-three (93) Senators who voted for this vile bit of legislative filth. Unless your Senators are on this list [Coburn - (R-OK), Harkin - (D-IA), Lee - (R-UT), Merkley - (D-OR), Paul - (R-KY), Sanders - (I-VT), Wyden - (D-OR)], they have failed to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Every other Senator has betrayed the public trust and has voted to turn our Republic into a military despotism, and they have thereby forfeited their right to continue in their present positions. Every last one of the Senators not listed above should be recalled, immediately, and turned out of office. If they are very lucky, that would be their only punishment for such a betrayal of the American people and Constitution. Lifetime imprisonment would be far more just, but might be legally unjustifiable under the Constitution. Of course, if this pernicious bill becomes law, the President could simply declare all of them de facto enemies of the state and lock them all up in some foreign hell-hole for infinity plus ninety years. That would be justice for their attempted raping of American liberties and ideals.

Here’s an idea: has anyone besides me noted that Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul are on the same side of this issue? Those two are cultural and political opposites. If they can agree that this bill is anathema to everything America supposedly represents, how could ninety three other Senators have voted in favor of this contemptible legislation? What are they afraid of?

The War at Home is coming here, by legislative decree. America has been declared a battleground in the halls of Congress. Now and forever, war without end.

Cry, “Havoc!”

Current status: Shaking with rage

Current music: Whip It by Devo

Is Anyone Paying Attention?

I realize that thinking about our politicians and their manifold stupidities tends to cause projectile vomiting and blinding headaches, but it would behoove all of you who enjoy the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution to start. For those of you for whom thinking of any sort is actively painful, allow me to clarify that- everyone in the United States should start paying attention to the shenanigans going on in the halls of government.

It seems that a few Senators with an “R” in parentheses after their names have managed to sound out all the big words in Orwell’s 1984, and decided that they liked some of the ideas presented. They liked it so much that they proposed a bill to basically make the “War on Terror” more or less permanent and give the US military authority to detain and indefinitely imprison any American citizen on suspicion of being engaged in terrorism. By the way, for those of you who aren’t in shock after reading that, this includes American citizens within the continental United States. Put more simply, YOU could be arrested by the US Marines in your back yard if someone with a grudge called the local office of the Department of Homey Scrutiny and said you were building bombs for Al Qaeda. You could be hauled away in cuffs and tossed into a cell for the duration of the “War on Terror”- which would now be essentially endless.

There are those in this country who might be okay with this- provided it happened to people they dislike or merely disagree with. Those people are fools. Worse than fools, they are willing to sell themselves and their children into servitude in the vain hope that doing so will make sure those uppity moose limbs, ay-rabs, messicans, and hippies won’t be able to sully their precious American landscape with their differences. Without meaning to, these imbeciles are building the walls of their own future prison cells, because they don’t realize that THEY are a trouble-maker with different ideas to someone else.

This sort of Byzantine use of power is becoming ever more widespread, and is by no means exclusive to the Federal government. The Feds are merely the level of government least responsive to citizen anger. Witness the tale of Timothy Siaki, an American citizen who happens to be deaf. When police were called to a disturbance, they found Timothy and his fiance engaged in a loud argument- because both of them were deaf, they were arguing in Ameslan (American Sign Language), but they were so agitated that they were vocalizing as well. The police naturally arrested Timothy because he wouldn’t respond to their commands. This is easy to understand, since Timothy can neither read lips nor read or write English. His fiance tried to tell the police that she was in no danger, but they ignored her, because she also could not speak properly, and none of the cops bothered to get an Ameslan translator. This failure to get someone who understood Ameslan involved lasted for 25 days, during which time Timothy was almost deported by Immigration. He was almost deported despite the fact that Immigration agents knew he was an American citizen. I hope the lawsuit Timothy filed after his release leaves the police department and Immigration in bankruptcy.

Now let us look at abuse of power at the State level. It seems a High School class in Kansas were taken to the capitol and chanced to hear a speech by the governor. One of the students went on Twitter and said a few unkind things about the governor, then described her feeling that the governor did not represent her interests or her political views. Someone on the governor’s staff read the comments, and then contacted the girl’s school administrators to punish her for her temerity in saying unpleasant things about the governor. I realize that Kansas is not the most important state in the union, but surely even the governor of Kansas has better things to do than harass high school students who exercise their 1st Amendment rights to voice their opinions.

Since we’re discussing schools, it seems that a Catholic school somewhere in this country has decided that certain books are forbidden for their students- including a large number of classics such as Milton’s Paradise Lost. One student has decided to bring those books to school anyway, and has even gone so far as to start lending the books to her fellow students. For those of you old enough to remember the Soviet Union, this sort of thing used to happen all the time in the USSR. Then, books were banned for political reasons. In the “Land of the Free”, it largely happens for religious reasons. Granted that a religious school might not want to carry “controversial” books in their school library, but there ‘s no reason why students should be forbidden from reading the books on their own. Haven’t these idiots ever heard of the Streissand Effect? How about the best way to lead a pig? Taking the trouble to ban a book and publicly punish those who defy the ban merely guarantees that more students will read the works in question.

What do all of these incidents have in common? Bureaucrats and administrators who are insulated from public displeasure. Senators can count on their idiocies being forgotten by the time their six-year terms are up, so they don’t bother even pretending they are working in the country’s best interest anymore. Immigration officials hold secret proceedings out of the public eye for deciding on deportation- even for American citizens. State governors theoretically should be more susceptible to the peoples’ will, but the antics of the current crop of governors with an R after their names seem bent on acting like tin-plated despots in their own little fiefdom (This does not exonerate those with a D after their names, by the way. The most overt examples of corruption, cronyism, and abuse of power just happen to be from republicans recently, but democratic governors have their own traditions of the same crimes). School administrators who are so well insulated from the public they allegedly serve that they can impose censorship and generally rule their domains with an iron fist.

So what can we, the People, do about all this? First and foremost, pay attention. These abuses and excesses happen because those committing them correctly assume that the fickle public won’t remember anything past the next TV season. Once you start paying attention to the antics of these blights on the body politic, you’ll start to realize that we (the People) are paying these drooling jackasses to violate our civil liberties and build a police state against our will. They work for us. If they fail to perform their jobs to our satisfaction, fire them.

Elected officials- especially at the Federal level- should only be concerned with ensuring the most effective means of guaranteeing the things written into the Preamble to the Constitution:

We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish the Constitution for the United States of America.

To accomplish all of these things, our elected oafish-als are supposed to be bound by the rules set forth in the body of the Constitution and the various Amendments thereto. By my reckoning, every last one of the abuses and excesses listed above violate that last italicized item in the Preamble. They also violate the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, and/or 7th Amendments to the Constitution. Why are we (the People) paying these imbeciles to trample our civil rights underfoot?

Because none but a loudmouthed few seem to be paying attention, and fewer still seem to care.

Current status- Disgusted

Current music: Banditos by the Refreshments

Feline Overlord

A little over six months ago, the last Feline Overlord at Chateau d’Archvillain died without an heir to the throne. I’ve been an acknowledged catsoftie since before I could walk, and this is the longest I’ve been without a furry little despot to boss me around. It’s a bit surreal, actually. When we had cats in residence, we were always having strays turn up and try to move in. Now that we are de-catted against our will, we can’t attract a new one to save our lives.

FSM knows we’ve tried. The Archvillainess has continued her usual practice of feeding a variety of furry freeloaders with high-quality, home-made gooshy foods. There’s always at least a half-dozen cats lining up for mealtimes at Chez Archvillain, tapping their feet, drumming their little paws impatiently, and frequently checking their Hello Kitty watches and wondering why the wait staff is so incompetent. One would think that some of these cats might be willing to move in and become the new Rulers of the Archvillain domicile, but one would be wrong. Not one of the smug bastards will even let us get within three feet of them without running away.

The Archvillainess and I have looked into adopting a cat or two from the local shelters, but they all charge a hundred dollars plus for the privilege- per pet. Paying for a pet has always seemed unnatural to me, especially when there are so many abandoned, stray, and feral cats roaming around. When we were stationed overseas, cats were coming out of the woodwork all around us. It took us weeks to find new homes for them all before we transferred back to the World. We checked with our local vet, and thought we might have a winner.

It seems some ass-hat had skipped out on the last month’s rent and left the family cats behind. They were discovered by the homeowner three weeks later. The homeowner wants to sell the house, but can’t because there are still four cats roaming around the place. The vet’s office said that the homeowner wanted to find homes for all four cats, but would have them all put to sleep if it came down to it. Rather than have these cats destroyed through no fault of their own, we decided we might take a couple- maybe even all four.

So I called the woman who was listed as the point of contact for these abandoned cats and told her we’d be interested in taking a couple of the cats, if they were still available. I gave her the phone number to Chateau d’Archvillain, then called the Archvillainess and let her know the lady may be calling about the cats. Sounds like a fairy-tale ending, doesn’t it?

It turns out the fairy-tale was more like a bad southern gothic novel. The lady I’d spoken to turns out to be the homeowner in question- the one who threatened to have the cats killed if she couldn’t find homes for them. Ironically, she says she wants to visit our house to make sure we’d be fit caretakers for the cats. She’s keeping these animals in cages in their old house after they were abandoned, she’s threatening to kill them if she can’t find homes for them, and yet she has the nerve to imply that we might not be an acceptable household for the cats.

I said I’ve had cats since before I could walk. Over the past four decades, I’ve been owned by almost thirty cats at one time or another. Every last one of those cats was well-fed, loved, cared-for, and given whatever medical care they needed whether or not we could really afford it- and I have the vet bills to prove it. We bought our house with cats in mind- we’re on a quiet street that runs only four blocks and doesn’t intersect any major thoroughfares. The nearest street with lines on the road is eight blocks away. As soon as we closed on the house, we had a fence put in to give our cats a safe haven and room to play and hunt. We kept a back window open year-round so the cats could come and go as they wished, and cheerfully paid the higher electric and gas bills as a result. We are cat people. To have this woman imply that we are possibly unfit to be minions to Feline Overlords is an incredible insult.

So we’re going to get a new Ruler or two somewhere else. There are a couple of kittens at the vet’s office who need homes. Maybe we’ll take those. Maybe we’ll wait until the shelter has a free adoption special. What we won’t do is allow some alleged human to get away with blackmail. Publish and be damned, you disgusting harpy! I don’t negotiate with terrorists, and threatening to kill four innocent animals because their presence is inconvenient unless you are allowed to pry into my life and home qualifies as terrorism in my book. It may not rate up there with the big leaguers in Al Qaeda or FARC, but it’s still terrorism to me. I like most animals more than I like most humans, and this woman rates somewhere lower than politicians on my scale of lower life-forms.

Current status: Pissed off

Current music: Young Blood by Naked and Famous

What’s in a Name?

How about … bullshit?

The doddering old geeps who currently infest the halls of government in the Logic-Free Zone (who are collectively unlikely to understand email, let alone anything complicated like the internet), have decided that we cannot be trusted with free and unfettered access to data online and are trying to pass a law called- ironically- the PROTECT IP Act. This name is ironic, because the actual wording of the legislation- as currently written- protects nothing more than the unearned income of the RIAA, MPAA, and similar parasitic organizations.

Remember the First Amendment to the US Constitution- the one preventing Congress from passing any laws abridging free speech? It seems that our bought-and-paid-for Congresstoadies have decided that it would be a better idea to legislatively turn that power over to a couple of corporations and bypass that pesky 1st Amendment thing. Under this law as written, any website can be held criminally and civilly liable for any copyright infringements committed by any user of the website. In short, corporations can censor and shut down any web site accused of copyright infringement. Note that I said, “accused”. Not convicted- merely accused. As currently written, an employee of RIAA (for example) could accuse me of using this blog to infringe on copyrighted materials. Without benefit of trial or even presenting a warrant, RIAA would be able to shut me down based solely on the say-so of any random stranger. Think about that for a moment and realize why I referred to the 1st Amendment in the past tense. RIAA and MPAA don’t have a history of malicious litigation against totally innocent people, after all. We can trust them, right?

In a pig’s eye. We, the People, don’t trust our elected representatives with this sort of power. Why should we trust another entity without even the tenuous level of control we currently hold over Congress?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Bill of Rights and the protections it guarantees for individual liberties, let me put this another way. As written, Youtube, FaceBook, Twitter, and every news aggregator site in existence would be forced to shut down. That’s just for openers. Any site with user-generated content would be hostage to the tender mercies of whatever rapacious corporate entity was unhappy with their content.

Aside from giving faceless corporate drones total control over online content (and thereby destroying the internet) in the interest of nearly microscopic profit increases for their corporate masters, why would our trusted and honorable elected flunkies corporate whores representatives want to do such a thing? Why would those in power feel threatened by free and unfettered communications and information?

Perhaps the worthless cretins in our gummint have been paying attention to the so-called “Arab Spring”. Without exception, the uprisings and revolutions occurring throughout the middle east were fueled and organized by ordinary people with Twitter and FaceBook and YouTube accounts. By an odd coincidence, those are the very communication tools this bill seems to have been written to control or destroy. Whodathunkit?

Methinks it is time and past  time to remind our elected representatives who they are supposed to be working for. Any congressmoron who votes for this bill (and this has “broad, bi-partisan support”, so neither political party should escape our righteous wrath) should be drummed out of office- preferably immediately. These vermin-in-office are “public servants”, and we are the fucking public. The sponsors and co-sponsors of this bill should probably be indicted for treason, and- if convicted- shot.

Perhaps the “distinguished” members of the House and Senate haven’t thought their cunning plan all the way through. If this bill passes as written (or even in any vaguely similar form), the US Government will effectively- and immediately- piss off almost everyone in the country at the same time. Many businesses would be crippled by this bill, and millions of voters would be mightily wroth at the loss of their social media and porn. The only “people” (I include corporate drones and executives as an unearned courtesy) who will like this law are those who make their living shitting on the American people as a matter of habit. Revolutions have been started for less.

You “honorable” members of the House and Senate may wish to read the Declaration of Independence sometime. It’s obvious you incompetent shills have never done so before. Read the bits listing the sins of King George, and realize that those exact same crimes can be laid at your collective feet. Your current actions are in direct contravention of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights- which you paid buffoons swore an oath to protect and defend. If Congress cannot or will not uphold their oaths to the Constitution, they will have abrogated any authority they may currently hold and removed any possible justification for their continued pay and privileges. Congress serves the People of the United States, not various wealthy corporations at the expense of the People.

Let us go back to Ed Howdershelt’s Four Boxes: “There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury and ammo. Please use in that order.”

We can use the First Box right now. Send an email, tweet, postcard, or phone call to your congresscritter and senator and make sure they know you oppose this malicious legislation. If they fail to listen to their constituents, we open that Second Box and vote the motherfuckers out of office. ALL OF THEM. If this fails to correct the problem, take the bastards to court. This sort of assault on our basic liberties should be easy to fight in court- assuming the federal courts are even remotely as independent as their documented status under the Constitution. If the courts uphold this law, we’d be forced to open that last box, and that would be the end of the United States. For those of you not certain about it, this would be a BAD THING. Every rational person in this country should do their utmost to avoid getting to that point. Evidently rational people are somewhat scarce on Capitol Hill. Who knew?

There are already peaceful mass protests going on in most of our major cities. These protests have largely been marginalized by the government and media- despite their numbers and endurance. Add in a populace growing increasingly frantic financially and feeling betrayed by those in power, and season with sweeping legislation from Congress which demonstrates in no uncertain terms that our government has become the legislative arm of the extremely wealthy. Cook quickly by- effectively-  shutting down the internet, and voila! Revolution.

The really sad bit is that the scenario I’m painting here is easily avoidable. All it would take to avoid this whole mess is for our politicians to realize that blatantly fucking over 300 million armed and increasingly desperate people is incomprehensibly stupid. We, the People, have been very forgiving of Congressional misdeeds so long as the basic social contract between governed and government is maintained, but our patience and tolerance has limits. Brazenly and openly treating the People like serfs will neither be forgiven nor forgotten. Under those circumstances, those who see themselves as our rulers would be considered fortunate to only get turned out of office.

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. -Mark Twain

Current status: Enraged

Current music: Touch of Grey by the Grateful Dead

Got Change?

There used to be a BBC radio program called, “My Word“. This was a panel game about words, featuring a regular panel of people who made a living with words, but was really more of a vehicle for Frank Muir and Dennis Norden to display their wit to a large audience. The show is still available- in reruns, of course- on NPR in some markets. Due to the timing of the re-broadcasts (at noon on Saturdays here in the Shallow South), I have managed to hear most of the shows while the wife and I do our weekly shopping.

Many BBC programs get stolen and modified for the American market (The Office is a recent example, and Sanford and Son is a more antiquated one), but I doubt anyone would ever try to adapt My Word. Without exception, the panelists on the show were extremely knowledgeable on the subject, and this alone dramatically decreases the likelihood of a successful adaptation. While it may be possible to find American writers and thinkers who are equally adept with language, vocabulary, and etymology, I find it hard to believe that any American academics who qualify would have the ability to demonstrate it with the easy humor of Frank Muir and Dennis Norden. Then, too, there is the real possibility that any putative literary wit would be completely unable to make the average American audience laugh, given the generally dismal level of American education.

This depressing thought brought me to a realization about the enormous cultural divides so visible in the US today. Among the many artificial divisions in American society (black vs white, north vs south, east vs west, coke vs pepsi, etc), a far more subtle division is growing: tolerance of change.

The US has long been a major source of what are frequently world-shaking changes, so it seems odd that so many in this country now want the changes to stop. America is built on change, and our scientists, inventors, engineers, and salesmen have mass-produced that change and sold it to the whole world. Our current leadership position in many scientific fields is based upon anticipating and exploiting change. We owe our extravagant lifestyle and standard of living to embracing change, but now there is an increasingly vocal minority in this country who are demanding an end to change. Worse, they are deliberately trying to roll back many of the changes that make their standards of living possible.

Some of this resistance to change is coming- as usual- from religious extremists. Religion in general basically says that certain things are beyond human ken, and people should spend all their time and energy preparing for some sort of afterlife in lieu of improving conditions here and now. Despite the available evidence, the religious extremists refuse to admit that their holy texts might be wrong, because to admit the possibility of error opens the door for questions the religiously deluded are incapable of answering. “God said it. I believe it. That settles it” does not allow for differences of opinion (or evidence to the contrary), so the religious types can almost be counted upon to be intolerant of change.

Another group intolerant of change are those who aren’t willing to expend the energy required to learn how to cope with- and profit from- the rapid pace of change. Granted that many of these could also be religiously deluded, this is not universally the case. Part of the problem is the fact that the stupefying complexity of our universe can only be properly described using purely mathematical terms, and the bulk of these change-resistant people think that algebra is some sort of magic trick designed to make them look stupid. The upper-level maths needed to properly describe the universe and how it works might as well be Egyptian hieroglyphs, as far as the people I’m describing are concerned. User-friendly scientists like Carl Sagan and Neil DeGrasse Tyson are very helpful in trying to explain the nature of reality in everyday language, but only if the target audience is willing to listen. Too many are not willing to listen, and they end up resentful of those who are increasing the amount and pace of change. They also end up increasingly resentful of anyone who- unlike them- is comfortable with change.

So we end up with another artificial division, this time between those who are willing to adapt to change and those who are not. Those who are unwilling to adapt clamor foolishly for a return to a golden age which never actually existed, and decry the “decadence” of those who embrace changing times. The change-intolerant, with their rose-tinted 20/20 hindsight, never seem to realize that the “good old days” never really were all that good, and the “golden age” they pine for is nothing more than 24-carat gold-plated wishful thinking and selective memories.

Every new set of changes also changes us- how we see ourselves and the universe. For centuries, the Catholic church was philosophically wedded to the idea that Earth (and humanity) was the center of the universe. Church rituals and dogma were all derived from this “fact”, as was the stratified social order the church tried to implement. Small wonder that the leaders of the early Renaissance church were so adamantly opposed to the new evidence that not everything revolved around Earth, humanity, or even the church. Those who had a vested interest in the social order saw these new facts reducing them from the heavenly-annointed center of the universe to just another rock hurtling around a not-particularly-impressive sun in a distant corner of a medium-sized galaxy in an ever-expanding universe. The political ramifications of that one discovery resonate to this day, and the church has been forced to grudgingly admit that they were wrong … eventually. Galileo wasn’t forgiven by the church until almost four hundred years after his death.

A similar firestorm still rages about evolution by natural selection. Despite the mountains of evidence supporting the theory of evolution, millions of people absolutely refuse to accept it. Like all discoveries, this one changes how we see ourselves. It turns out that we are not divinely created in our current forms, but are rather the result of millions of years of natural selection, whose DNA is nearly identical with that of chimpanzees. Instead of being the lords of creation, we’re just a weird, bipedal mammal with a minor genetic quirk that makes our brains work differently. Some people just cannot accept these repeatedly demonstrated facts, because it means they’d have to see themselves as just a hairless plains ape with a damaged gene sequence.

This particular cultural gap is nothing new, of course. Every generation has its radicals and reactionaries. The bulk of the population, as always, will grumble a bit about the pace of change and then get over it. Those who embrace change and try to push it along will chafe at the reins of what they see as indifference by the public at large and continue to push the boundaries of what we know. Those who are unwilling or unable to adapt to change will eventually die out, because the one constant in the human universe is change.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Current status: Sick and tired

Current music: If You Only Knew by Shinedown

Exceptional

One can only rest on one’s laurels for so long. Sooner or later, you will have to remind everyone why you earned the laurels in the first place. Put up or shut up. We are long past that point, in my opinion. Despite the shrill rhetoric in this country supposedly to demonstrate the patriotism of one or another group of yammerheads, none of those doing the yammering seems capable of identifying exactly why they think America is number one. What have we done lately to earn the adoration and envy of the rest of the world we seem to crave so desperately?

A bit of history is in order. The US has been a major world player since before the First World War, based largely upon our manufacturing capacity and the military capabilities afforded by that manufacturing. We exported manufactured goods and foodstuffs all over the world, and had a first-rate Navy to keep that trade flowing. It wasn’t until the aftermath of the Second World War that the so-called “American Century” began in earnest. For a brief period starting in the late 1940s through the early 1960s, the US was an economic juggernaut. These are the so-called “golden years” so fondly recalled by the strident reactionaries in America’s political climate today. Contrary to popular belief, however, this was not because of some uniquely American trait, but the result of the US being the only industrialized country which still had any industry to speak of. Most of the rest of the industrialized world was still trying to dig themselves out from under the piles of rubble where their cities and factories had been.

Because total war had not raged across North America in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the US was just about the only functioning economy left on Earth. We took advantage of this to do some good things, such as helping rebuild both allies and enemies, but we also developed a wholly unwarranted sense of superiority which persists to this day. What is so special about us that we think everyone else should kiss our ring? Nukes? Bah- there are over a dozen nuclear powers in the world at the moment, both acknowledged and secret. Don’t even begin to speak about the US economy- if we’re not fully in recession, we’re still teetering on the ragged edge of it, despite the optimistic pronouncements from the government. Liberty and freedom? Sorry, Charlie. Parts of this country might as well be Banana republics for all the actual freedom enjoyed by the citizens. Health and longevity? I’m not sure the US even makes it into the top ten. Technology? Not so much, anymore. Most of our technology is developed and built by scientists and engineers from other countries, and almost all of the raw materials for that technology comes from foreign sources outside US control. Education? Not even close. American universities still enjoy a stellar reputation worldwide, but this is the lone bright spot in an otherwise dismal showing by US students from pre-school through graduation from high school. A large percentage of adults in this country would be unable to correctly identify the US on a map if it weren’t properly labeled, and US schoolchildren lag significantly behind most of the world in math and sciences. Standard of living, perhaps? Hmmm. That one does have some merit.

Even poor people in the US enjoy a standard of living which would have been classified as high living in most of the world throughout much of history. America is so wealthy that modest cities such as the one where I reside make schedules so those needing food or other assistance can take advantage of all the largess available. To be poor in much of the world even today often means you are one bad day away from death by starvation. To be “poor” in the US all too often means you don’t have high-definition on your color television. The average standard of living in this country is staggeringly high by historical standards.

Okay. The US has a high standard of living. Other countries are nearly as well off, however, so we’re back to searching for something we have that no one else has.

What about our military? In this arena, the US is supreme. No one else even comes close. We can go anywhere on Earth, kick ass and take names, then drop in someplace else on the other side of the planet to do it all over again. In this, the US really is exceptional. Now, what do we do with this exceptional capability?

Sadly, what we’ve done with our military for the last couple of decades is throw our weight around. Without a serious military rival to act as a counterbalance, Washington has been swaggering across the world stage with an arrogant sneer and giving anyone who looks at us crossways the back of our hand. In the absence of an enemy, we seem to have been going out of our way to turn ourselves int the enemy for everyone else. We are acting less like the world’s policeman and more like the world’s neighborhood bully.

Granted, American military power has a lot of little-noticed benefits for the rest of the world. Our Navy keeps trade flowing freely on the world’s oceans. We have sometimes stepped in to put a stop to unspeakable atrocities- although this could easily be said to be both too much and not enough. US military units respond to disasters around the world to provide food, shelter, and medical care quickly when the devastated area is often completely unable to provide any of these services. The mere fact that US warplanes and troops can show up on a troublemaker’s doorstep with no warning has a chilling effect on a lot of would-be conquerors- military adventures are a lot less useful or profitable when they might anger the biggest kid on the block.

Despite these often-unacknowledged global benefits from US military supremacy, most countries are not enthusiastic about our peerless might. No one is comfortable when the biggest, toughest kid on the block has a drinking problem and poor impulse control, and this is a pretty good description of US policy over the last couple of decades.

If we overlook our military prowess, the US doesn’t rate too highly as a nation. Our politics are a shambles, our economy not much better, and the few things we do really well are getting cut out of the budget by penny-wise and pound-foolish government officials in the service of their respective ideologies. The one thing we are absolutely the best at (killing people and destroying things) is a skill unlikely to endear us to other nations. Assuming we want other nations to like us, perhaps we should cut back on the killing-people-and-destroying-things bit and start acting like just another country. That’s what we are, after all.

Current status: Incensed

Current music: Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger

Missed Opportunities

The past ten years have been a litany of botched opportunities and profoundly stupid mistakes. For one brief moment, a large part of the world was united in purpose. Such moments are more precious than diamonds, pearls of such rarity that they stand out like beacons in history books amid the clutter of dates and place names. For an instant, we had the chance to change the world and make it better for everyone. Instead, we tossed away the opportunity in favor of short-term political and economic gain for a privileged few.

Under similar circumstances in the past, governments have mobilized their people to face an existential threat posed by power-hungry madmen ruling other countries. We face no such external threat to the very existence of our country and way of life today. Those who attacked us ten years ago were not particularly interested in the United States per se, but rather wanted to decrease our influence with their real target- the House of Saud. For all the hype about our enemies’ hatred of our liberties, the US was (and is) a side issue for our enemies. Our enemies wish to rule Mecca and Medina, and thereby gain control of all of Islam. The US government is closely tied to the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, and this influence was an obstacle to our enemies’ primary goal. In order to remove that obstacle, our enemies struck at what they saw as the heart of US power in the hope of provoking a general war between the west and Islam. In the ensuing chaos, our enemies could topple the House of Saud and become masters of “a billion muslims” already at war with the west.

When you buy into the media and political hype about remembering 9/11, think well on the facts listed above. The worst attack on US soil in history was basically a tactical sideshow in a larger strategic drama in which we were only bit players.

In response, we have endured a decade of increasing loss of essential liberties and a profound sense of dislocation between the general population and the US military. There used to be a sign posted in a Marine barracks which said, “America is not at war. The Marines are at war. America is at the mall.” If the US was truly facing a threat to our very existence as a nation, why were we not called upon to make sacrifices as was the case when previously threatened with destruction? Unless one was a member of the uniformed services or a relative of a service member, most of the US acted as if nothing had happened. The only sacrifices we (the People) were called upon to make were in our individual liberties. Under the fallacious guise of keeping Americans safe, ever-more intrusive government agents routinely violated the civil rights of millions of Americans to fight the “war on terror”. Legislation passed by our elected representatives to make this task easier was almost never used to arrest and convict terrorism suspects, but was used extensively to convict thousands of marijuana growers and users.

Aided and abetted by Congress, the administration at the time kept the costs of all this activity separate from the actual budget. Trillions of dollars and thousands of US servicemen were expended in the “war on terror” to what end? It’s been ten years- has terror been defeated yet?

Let us examine this “war on terror”. Terror is a tactic, a tool used to force one’s political adversaries into certain courses of action favorable to the terrorists. There is a way to fight terrorism, and that is the Russian method of demonstrating to the terrorists that the costs of using such tactics is too high. We, as a culture, are unwilling to employ the methods necessary to win such a war. I’m still naive enough to think that is a good thing, but where does that leave us? We are unwilling to become terrorists ourselves to dissuade others from committing terrorism, but we are in a war against terrorism. Can we win this “war on terror” without becoming what we fight against? I’m not sure we can.

Our military can handily defeat any number of enemies with guns, but classical use of military power is not what is needed here. A far better use of our overwhelmingly potent military force would be to isolate and destroy our enemies in detail (such as the methods used to drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002) and long-term political action to deny our enemies bases from which to strike. Another way would be to decide whether or not supporting the House of Saud is worth the odd terror attack and its attendant civilian casualties, and make our national security policy based upon a rational appraisal of that question.

The ruling family of Saudi Arabia gets its power and prestige from two main sources: the oil they sell to Japan, China, and Europe and their control of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. As a country, Saudi Arabia exhibits the very worst traits of a theocratic monarchy. As an economy, they demonstrate the worst traits of monopolistic capitalism. The combination of these traits results in a profoundly poor and uneducated population ruled harshly by a political and religious elite.  Since such conditions are normally ripe for revolution, the House of Saud deflects popular unrest from the ruling family to outside forces by means of their support for the Wahabbi sect of Islam. The royal family funds Wahabbist schools throughout their country, providing a means of identifying and re-targeting disaffected youths. Those identified and re-purposed are used as purity police throughout the country when possible, or exported to other countries to become someone else’s problem. Note that 17 of the 19 attackers on 9/11 were Saudis, and you might start to understand why US support for the Saudi royal family is a big part of the problem. I fail to understand how allowing the House of Saud to fall could be any worse for American interests than the current state of affairs.

Why do we put up with the Saudis? Contrary to popular belief, it is only partially about oil. The US gets very little of its oil from Saudi Arabia. Our interest in Saudi oil is primarily in keeping the fuel taps open for our allies and trading partners elsewhere in the world. A larger part of the American backing of the Saudis is as a counterweight for Iran. Why is this important to US interests? I have no idea.

In a rational world, the US should be closely tied to Iran in lieu of Saudi Arabia. Iran has less oil than the Saudis, but more than triple the population. Furthermore, Iran’s Shi’a sect is philosophically better suited to a partnership with America than the Wahabbist butchers in Riyadh. Why, then, is America courting the Saudis?

We’re back at missed opportunities. Iran had a democratically elected government once, back in the 1950s. For reasons which (presumably) seemed good at the time, the US decided to help overthrow this democratically-elected government and replace it with a dictator presumed to be more amenable to American interests. The resulting tyranny and autocratic excesses of the Shah led inexorably to the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the subsequent overthrow of the Shah. In lieu of welcoming the new rulers of Iran to the international community, the US government decided to cut them off from the Shah’s expatriated fortune and give weapons to Iran’s unpleasant neighbor- Iraq. Iran responded by taking a few dozen US citizens hostage and giving the US nose a very public tweaking for several years.

At some point during this time, it became US policy to dislike Iran. In order to “punish” Iran for giving us the finger back in the late 1970s, we gave Iraq the go-ahead to start a long and bloody war with Iran. After nearly ten years of increasingly bloody fighting, both sides were too exhausted to continue- particularly Iran, which relied heavily on “human wave” assaults. Iran lost a generation of young men in the war, which has created an enormous philosophical and cultural gap between the survivors of that war and the generations which followed. Iraq, by contrast, ended up with a moderately well-trained military increasingly under the thumb of the often unstable Saddam Hussein.

During all this time, Saudi Arabia was relatively stable, and was therefore increasingly seen as a useful tool to use against Iran. The US sucked up to the House of Saud to help “contain” Iran, when it should have been the other way around. Because the US was increasingly involved in helping maintain the theocratic rulers of Saudi Arabia, we became a target of those who wish to tear down the Saudi royal family and install themselves in their place. The end result of that was four hijacked airliners and more than three thousand dead US civilians.

So let us take this opportunity to take a long, hard look at exactly what US policy is and why. Short of becoming as ruthless as our enemies, there is little prospect of a military solution to the “war on terror”. The long-term solution would be to remove the root causes of the conflict, which is less about religion and more about the monopoly on power and economic might enjoyed by a handful of despots and their courtiers throughout the middle east. Let us concentrate on taking out the bad guys when we find them while working on loosening the bonds of the massive underclasses in north Africa and the middle east.

We’re Americans. We should start acting like it.

Elvis Has Left The Building

As promised- and even on schedule- I have returned to regale all and sundry with Our Adventures In Evacuation.

Background: Way back in the depths of time, we decided not to Bug Out when hurricane Isabel was bearing down on us. We were without power for the better part of five days, but we were fairly well prepared for the ordeal by virtue of possessing open minds and modest amounts of ingenuity. We jury-rigged a barbecue set-up out of an old gas-station display rack and a couple of cheap aluminum turkey pans, so we had hot water and some method of cooking the food in our freezer before it went bad. We pulled the car up close to the apartment we lived in at the time and used it to power our internet and TV; collected and chopped up fallen limbs to keep the fire fed; and relied upon oil lamps and lanterns for lighting after dark. Basically, while we were living in the 18th century, just about everyone around us was living in the 1st. Bear in mind that Isabel was only a Tropical Storm by the time she reached us here in the Shallow South.

As we watched Irene chugging toward us with evident malice aforethought, we decided that our trigger date was about 72 hours before she hit our area. This would give us plenty of time to change our minds if she weakened or changed course while still allowing us to avoid the bulk of the dain bramaged imbeciles infesting the area who cannot drive on calm, sunny days. This proved to be a good choice- traffic wise- because the mass exodus on Friday immediately clogged every available highway, interstate, street, and cattle trail leading out of the area. While the region’s Jethros were feverishly stampeding into massive traffic gridlock, we were already safely ensconced in a nice hotel suite in a modest metropolis in Hither Carolina which we had estimated would be at least fifty miles outside the hurricane’s widest possible reach. As a result, we got to watch the talking empty heads on TV gibber and panic and throw their feces about as the MOST HORRIBLE NATURAL DISASTER EVER™ rapidly consumed the nation’s airwaves. In other words, I caught up on some reading and watched a lot of Showtime on the hotel’s cable system.

The hotel had a pool and an exercise room, which turned out to be useful. Our suite had a small kitchen (complete with cookware and cutlery) and a 42in flat-screen TV. My only real hardship was the lack of internet access. We did some shopping, lounged about a lot, and generally had a good time wondering whether or not we’d have a house to return to.

Monday morning, we checked out and started driving home through what passes for civilization in Hither Carolina. Not long after we crossed the border into the Shallow South, we quickly found ourselves driving through a post-apocalyptic, dystopian wasteland populated by extras from Road Warrior- but with fewer teeth. Whenever we stopped to scrounge up some fuel, I could swear I heard banjos playing faintly in the distance. This was all the encouragement we needed to keep moving.

To our considerable surprise, the roads heading homeward were all unobstructed by downed trees, a significant departure from the swath of devastation caused by Isabel a few years earlier. There were lots of downed trees visible, mind you, but the DOT crews had apparently been working non-stop to keep the roads open. We saw huge piles of downed trees which had been cut into manageable segments and hauled off the roadway throughout the last hundred miles or so of our trip. The power company crews had also been doing yeoman’s work. Most of the towns and villages and squalid encampments we passed still had electricity, and several dozen work crews were seen laboring to restore power to the remaining areas. This was also a stark contrast from our experience with Isabel, where DOT and the power company had been basically overwhelmed by the scope of the damage. Apparently, even bureaucracies can learn from their past mistakes.

Arriving home Monday afternoon- less than 36 hours after Irene had buzz-sawed through the region- we were overjoyed to discover that the house was still standing. We hadn’t even lost any shingles, which stunned me. Our pecan tree out back had lost a few branches- as well as every single pecan it was growing- but they hadn’t injured anything more than the grass. Our porch lights were still on, and so was the AC. It’s hard to describe our emotions- a strange mixture of happiness and let-down. Tropical Storm Isabel had been vastly more damaging than Hurricane Irene. Aside from the roughly 30mph wind-speed difference, the only other major variable was the fact that we had decided to evacuate this time in lieu of riding it out. I’ve been telling the neighbors that our absence is the reason Irene did so little damage in our area. If we had stayed, the hurricane would have doubtless plowed through the region like a 400-mile-wide bulldozer. I probably ought to think about charging a fee to bug out in the event of natural disasters. Our absence is obviously the major deciding factor in how much damage the area suffers.

Lessons learned: We’re still gonna bug out when a storm predicted to be Cat III or larger gets within 72 hours of us. The few items we had neglected to take with us this time have been added to our Bug-Out Kit (basically a large Tupperware tub with a lid and wheels crammed full of survival necessities), and we’ll use the same destination in Hither Carolina. We enjoyed our little sojourn away from the Jethros so much, we may do it again when non-natural disasters loom on the horizon- such as Congress going back into session.

Current status: Relieved

Current music: I Hate California by Jonathan Coulton

Quick and Dirty

Hurricane Irene is forecast to hit this area dead-on, so we’re bugging out tonight. I’ll be off-line until Tuesday- possibly longer.

Assuming the house is still standing when I get back, I’ll post an update.