Category Archives: Random Blogging

You Could See This One Coming…..

Yesterday, there was an attempted robbery at a northwest side  Kroger Store; the perpetrator stuck “something” (evidently not a weapon, although reports weren’t clear on the point) in the back of a clerk and made her walk to the office where the money was kept. At that point, another Kroger employee pulled out a gun and killed the would-be robber.

Wuss that I am, I think I’d just have let him have the money.

The media was all over the story. My husband looked at me during one of the TV reports and said “Here we go again. It won’t be two days until the gun  lovers start insisting that everyone should be armed.”

He was wrong; it only took a day. One Mike Speedy, a member of the General Assembly, was quoted in this morning’s Star decrying Kroger’s policy against gun-toting employees, saying “This could have turned out a different way if that employee was not carrying. Kroger could have two dead employees. What value is their policy then?”

How do we elect these people?

I can see it now: Shoot-out in canned goods! Gunfire in the cereal aisle (those granola-eating liberals had it coming…they weren’t even packing heat!) So what if Kroger has to pay zillions of dollars to innocent shoppers who might inadvertently step into the line of fire? So what if a trigger-happy employee misconstrues a “situation” and starts shooting? So what if…well, let’s just say there are innumerable scenarios that would not end well.

I don’t know about Mr. (or Mrs.) Speedy, but knowing that the guy restocking the dairy case is carrying would certainly get me to shop–elsewhere.

Comments

Culture Matters

Eugene Robinson is one of the more thoughtful members of America’s “pundocracy.” This morning’s column is an example; in descriptive paragraphs that suggest our politicians are fiddling while America burns, he says

“The central issue is the prospect of decline. For much of the 20th century, the United States boasted the biggest, most vibrant economy in the world and its citizens enjoyed the best quality of life. The former is still obviously true; the latter, arguably still the case. But there is a sense that we’re fading — that tomorrow might not be as bright as today.

Our systems seem to have become sclerotic. The United States still has the finest colleges and universities in the world, but now ranks no higher than fifth among 36 industrialized countries in the percentage of working-age adults who have at least an associate degree, according to a 2011 report by the College Board. We have the most expensive medical care in the world yet rank 50th in life expectancy, behind such nations as Jordan and Greece, according to the CIA Factbook. Our society now features less economic mobility than is found in Canada and much of Europe, according to the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Our manufacturing sector is just a shadow of what it once was, and that’s not China’s fault. Because of automation and the globalization of the labor market, rich countries can only excel at high-endmanufacturing that requires more brains than brawn. Our future lies in knowledge and information. So let’s go there.”

Well and good–it’s difficult to disagree with him. Certainly, this college professor isn’t going to dispute the importance of education. So why can’t we seem to “go there,” as Robinson urges?

I certainly don’t have a dispositive diagnosis for what ails us right now, but I think I can identify one piece of the problem. We have developed a culture that sneers at intellect, that dismisses expertise and knowledge as “elitist,” and that elevates impulse and “gut” over rationality. The popular culture elevates belief over knowledge (the Founders were all “bible-believing” Christians; there’s no such thing as global warming, etc. etc.), and minimizes the Enlightenment virtues–empirical investigation, respect for evidence, belief in human dignity–that animated our origins.

I don’t know how we got here (although I have a couple of theories), and I don’t know how to turn things around, but I know where such a culture will take us if we cannot reverse course. Anyone who has ever raised children understands that they aspire to the goals and live by the values of their environments, primarily but not exclusively the values held by their families. “Do as I say and not as I do” rarely works. Children know what sorts of achievement are genuinely valued, what sorts of behavior will really be admired.

Right now, the message our culture is sending is not conducive to intellectual rigor–or to intellectual honesty, for that matter.

And that matters.

Comments

Conserving Our System

What passes for political discourse these days is so debased, so irrational, that we no longer even think about the real meanings of the words we throw around. So “socialist” is conflated with “Nazi” (and used without any obvious understanding of what the term describes) and “conservative” is used to describe positions that are anything but.

To be conservative is to “conserve”–to protect elements of the past.

E.J. Dionne makes the point that today’s self-described conservatives are really radicals bent upon a wholesale abandonment of settled aspects of our national life.  It’s an important column, and well worth reading in its entirety.

Now, there are times when wholesale change is necessary or advantageous. There are other times when dramatic, radical reinvention is profoundly harmful. In a democratic system, it is up to the voters to decide whether they want to replace what they have with something radically different. But in order to make that decision, voters need to understand what is really being proposed–and in an era where propaganda has displaced much of the news, where a pitiful minority know enough about America’s history or constitutional system to recognize the magnitude of the changes the current GOP field is advocating, the significance of the 2012 election is not obvious to many–perhaps most–voters.

What was that old Chinese curse? May you live in interesting times?

We’re there.

Comments

Apples and Trees

They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

In the wake of Judge Rosenberg’s ruling that Charlie White was ineligible when he ran for Secretary of State, his father posted a series of highly inflammatory, anti-Semitic rants on his Facebook page. Subsequently, he must have realized how damaging they were, and took them down.

Lesson One: in cyberspace, nothing is ever erased. (Just ask George Allen, he of the “Macaca moment.”)

Lesson Two: when people are angry, all too often their real nature emerges. In this case, it isn’t pretty.

Lesson Three: when you are really puzzled by an individual’s seemingly bizarre behavior, sometimes looking at nature and nurture will supply a hint.

I received a call from a reporter with the Indianapolis Star, inquiring about this sordid little rant. One of her questions was “As a former ACLU Executive Director, do you think he had the right to post such things?” The answer, of course, is an unequivocal yes. People have the right to be bigots and to utter hateful nonsense. And the rest of us have the right to criticize and judge them for it.

I’ve tried to copy the screenshot, below, so you can judge for yourselves.

Update: the Star is reporting Darrell White’s claim that his account was hacked. As ‘proof,’ he says he reported the matter to the local sheriff–a somewhat bizarre thing to do when no identity theft is involved. The Star quoted Mike Delph as saying he’d never known the Whites to be hateful. (Yes, that Mike Delph…) At this point, people can choose to believe he was the innocent victim of a Facebook hacking, or that he was the author of what certainly seem to be heartfelt, if revolting, posts.

Comments

“Those” People

Republicans in the House of Representatives send an “up yours” message to the middle class, while explaining that “job creators” must be protected.

Rick Santorum is quoted as saying that today’s massive inequality is a reflection of the fact that some people work harder than others.

These are just a couple of the the more recent expressions of a persistent sub-text in American life, a perversion of early Calvinism that leads people to justify privilege by diminishing the value of those who have less. The poor, they believe, are poor because they are somehow morally flawed. They don’t put it quite that way, of course–instead, there is talk of “work ethic” and “middle class values” that “those people” lack.

I am a believer in the market. If everyone is playing by the rules, some people will do better than others. Society will value the contribution of some people over others. When markets are properly regulated–when no one can game the system–we all benefit from the efforts of the guy who invents a better widget, the artist whose work adds beauty to our lives, even (she says through gritted teeth) the athlete whose prowess we admire.

When the system is broken, when rewards are distributed on the basis of cronyism and influence-peddling, when those rewards are wildly disproportionate to the social or other value of the work involved (to investment bankers who invent credit default swaps, for example), I suppose it is understandable that the recipients would want to justify their good fortune by claiming that they really have earned their millions. When that self-justification takes the form of dismissing the value of those who’ve been less fortunate, however, is when it becomes truly obscene.

I’ve been haunted by a segment that aired on 60 Minutes last Sunday. The report focused upon the foreclosure crisis, and in particular, on the 11+ million homeowners who–despite being “underwater” on their mortgages–stubbornly continue to make their payments. There were people who had lost jobs, people living paycheck to paycheck, who refused to walk away from mortgages on which they owed twice what their homes are currently worth. In one interview, a woman who was barely eking out a living was asked why she continued to pay when others were abandoning their properties. Her response? “I signed the contract.  I’m not the sort of person who fails to live up to my obligations.”

It may come as a shock to the bankers and assorted plutocrats whose gated communities and social circles protect them from interaction with the American middle and lower classes, but most people–including poor people–work forty or more hours a week.(That’s why we call them the working poor.) They try to pay their bills, help their neighbors, and educate their children. A thousand dollars doesn’t represent a really fancy meal; it makes an enormous difference in their lives.

It’s bad enough when elected officials pursue policies that protect their cronies and contributors at the expense of their constituents. It’s unforgivable when they dismiss those constituents as unworthy of their concern.

Comments