Category Archives: Random Blogging

Today’s Coffee House?

I’ve been reading a book called Abundance, which details the multiple breakthroughs that promise to eliminate poverty in the world–if we humans deploy them wisely. There’s a lot of interesting information, and stories of human ingenuity are encouraging.

An interesting observation was that the Enlightenment was a product of the coffee house. According to the author, the practice of gathering in coffee houses and exchanging points of view–debating, discussing, considering alternatives–sparked the development of new philosophies, new ways of engaging reality. That diversity of perspective is also what makes cities important generators of new ideas, new inventions–as the author points out, the density of urban life also requires that we encounter people with different ideas, backgrounds and points of view, and it is that “bubbling cauldron” that incubates progress.

Then, however, the author made a comparison that may be too optimistic. He sees the internet as an extension of the city–a vast coffee house where even the most rural or isolated individuals can encounter the diversity of ideas and opinions that characterize the human family. And theoretically, that’s true. Those who actually seek out new and different points of view can certainly find them on line, along with information (and disinformation) about virtually anything. But as Eli Pariser pointed out in The Filter Bubble, the internet is increasingly being used not to explore new ways of seeing, but to reinforce existing prejudices.

If we use our new, marvelous technologies to construct “bubbles”–comfortable realities within which we encounter only those who agree with us–we might just as well be back on the farm.

We live in a time when we have access to marvelous tools. The question is: will we use them to encounter and engage with each other, or to construct comfortable silos that wall off those who are different, those who make us uncomfortable?

Progress is rarely comfortable.

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See a Site, Drag Grandpa

There’s an old joke about the golfers who were on the 12th hole when one of their foursome suddenly died. One of the survivors was recounting the experience later to a friend who said sympathetically, “that must have been terrible.” “It was,” replied the golfer. “For the next six holes, it was awful–play a hole, drag Charlie, play a hole, drag Charlie…”

My husband and I are in Williamsburg, Virginia, with our two youngest grandchildren. We’re seeing the historical sites here, then going to Washington, D.C., where we’ll tour the White House and Capitol (thanks to Congressman Carson’s office!), and see still more history. Those of you who read this blog regularly will understand when I say that one of my goals is to ensure that my own grandchildren, at least, know there are three branches of government.

We aren’t as young as we used to be, however, and Grandpa has been limping. Hence the reference to Charlie and his foursome. We see a site, drag Grandpa…

Today, we took the grandkids to a short film about the days/events leading up to the American Revolution. I don’t know how much of the story line they really understood, but my ten-year-old grandson picked up on the slaves who were among the show’s background elements, and asked a question: How could people ever believe it was okay to own other people?

A pretty good question.

As I told him, sometimes we fail to see that things we take for granted are wrong. Sometimes, we’ve done something wrong for so long, we no longer question it. That’s why it is so important to think about the everyday things we do, to consider whether they are right or wrong.

When I get discouraged, I look at my grandchildren. Their friends are multi-colored and multi-cultural. Their friends’ parents are gay and straight, married and single. The children see people as nice or not nice–not as representatives of this or that (artificial) category of human.

And they can’t imagine thinking it was ever okay to own other people.

I think it’s been worth dragging Grandpa.

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Politics and Pathology

There is a spectrum we all recognize in political debate: first is fact—verifiable, objective reality. Then there is spin—a partisan interpretation of that reality. And then there’s propaganda—flat out lying.

All politicians engage in spin that sometimes crosses the line into propaganda. The Romney campaign, however, seems constantly to operate in “propaganda” mode.

What are the differences?

Under “spin,” we might list things like Romney’s constant complaint that Obama hasn’t negotiated a “single trade agreement.” The President has revived agreements with Colombia, South Korea and Panama that had been stalled in Congress, but these aren’t technically new agreements. Romney promises to see the Keystone XL Pipeline built and implies that its construction would mean more oil for America, although pipeline owners have been clear that the oil is meant for Asian markets. Accusing the President of “apologizing for America” requires taking a lot of words out of context, but even this stretch probably falls within the typical political spin cycle.

Other pronouncements, however, are categorically, demonstrably untrue.

Perhaps the most egregious lie is that Obama has been a big spender—that under his administration, spending is “out of control.” Actually, as Rex Nutting reported in MarketWatch (a web site affiliated with that known liberal outfit The Wall Street Journal), you’d have to go back to the Eisenhower Administration to find a rate of federal spending growth lower than that of the Obama Administration. That conclusion holds even if you include the stimulus, which was passed by Bush but spent during Obama’s first year in office.

Romney repeatedly says the President “promised to bring unemployment below 8%,” but reporters have been unable to find a single instance of Obama making such a statement. He insists that repealing Obamacare will reduce the deficit, in the face of widely accepted Congressional Budget Office calculations demonstrating that repeal would vastly increase the deficit. Romney’s claims about job creation at Bain were so outsized he has had to walk them back.

There’s Romney’s widely criticized campaign ad featuring a recording of President Obama’s voice making a boneheaded remark about the economic meltdown—a recording conveniently “clipped” to remove the lead-in phrase: “Mr. McCain even said….” When confronted with this clear distortion, Romney admitted the President was quoting McCain, and laughed it off; worse,  he has continued to run the blatantly misleading spot.

More recently, Romney “quoted” The Escape Artist, a book about the Obama Administration, for assertions the book never made—the author has been making the rounds of political television rebutting Romney’s “quotes” (and happily suggesting that people buy the book to see for themselves).

There are plenty of other examples of persistent mendacity; so many, in fact, that there are a couple of websites cataloguing them. But the lies that mystify me are not those obviously motivated by political ambition and/or a calculation that a weakened media won’t notice. What mystifies me are the unforced, totally gratuitous lies.

Remember when Romney said he’d been a hunter in his youth? And then had to walk that assertion back when reporters could find no record of the permit he claimed to have held? Or his insistence that his father, George Romney (whom I greatly admired) had marched with Dr. Martin Luther King? His “memory” of that event was only corrected when photos surfaced placing the elder Romney somewhere else on the date of the supposed march.

Romney’s habitual, almost compulsive make-believe is provoking considerable comment. Time Magazine recently ran a pop-psychology article titled “The Root of Mitt Romney’s Comfort with Lying.”

Lying of this magnitude, I submit, is not political. It’s pathological.

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News You Can Use

The Indianapolis Star has appointed a new editor, who is quoted in this morning’s edition promising “news you can use.” This catchphrase has come into increased use as newspaper readership has continued to decline–not just in Indianapolis, but nationally.

The problem is that no one completes the sentence. Those who toss off the phrase do not proceed to the important issue, which is: use for what?

In my opinion, the news citizens can use is information about their common institutions–including but not limited to government, and especially local government. Judging from what the newspapers are actually covering, however, they consider “news you can use” to be reviews of local restaurants, diet and home decorating tips, and sports. Not–as they used to say on Seinfeld–that there is anything wrong with that. At least, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that if these stories were being served as “dessert” rather than the main course.

The new editor also promises an emphasis on journalism’s time-honored watchdog role. I hope that isn’t just rhetoric, but I’m dubious. Genuine watchdog coverage requires resources–enough reporters with enough time to investigate and monitor a wide variety of important government agencies and functions. The Star has experienced wave after wave of layoffs that have left it with a skeletal reporting operation, leaving the paper’s capacity to provide genuine journalism an open question.

What residents of central Indiana could use is a real newspaper. I’m not holding my breath.

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