What's It's All About: Thinking

When the Newtown massacre occurred I waited a couple of days until the horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach subsided over the loss of these innocent children.  Then I wrote a blog that suggested that meaningful restraints of the use of guns in our society were warranted.  I sent this blog to friend and foe alike on the premise that even those who apparently claim the second amendment as the holy grail of their existence might also recognize the concept behind the principled first amendment of our society; that free and open discussion of ideas and issues is an integral part of who and what we are.  I received many positive comments and thoughtful replies from the writing and dissemination of this particular blog, but there were several that surprised me given that I only send my work to those who have given me some kind of indication in the past that they are receptive to exchanging thoughts about various issues.  To be specific, I received three requests to perform a specific bodily act, the nicest of which was ‘go screw’ myself.

These responses scared me, but allowed me to clarify my own thinking as to the real damage to our country and it’s Bill of Rights that this maniacal and slavish devotion to guns is causing.  Let me mention the simple handshake.  In the middle ages, the handshake was adopted as a custom to set aside one’s weapon and engage in meaningful discourse without the threat of a weapon overpowering the experience.  The hand was symbolically extended to demonstrate a show of good faith to another that meaningful conversation could occur without the threat of violent reaction.  In short, the extended hand set aside ’screw you’ thinking  and allowed for rational discussions.  Coming back the present, the NRA-types don’t get this concept.  They want to be able to walk into bars, churches, schools and other events which generically are evidence of civilized behavior and, rather than a handshake, convey an impression that the use of violent force is their substitute expression of an ability to think.  Their standing behind the 2^nd amendment is indeed the adult equivalent of a young child’s standing behind a woman’s skirts.  What they are saying is “I am incapable of an intelligent dialogue, we need more guns not less” approach to human interaction. 

Just saying . . .

The Dope About Dopes

I was reading through a few articles of interest this morning when it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard, read or written the word “dope” in the past couple of years.  Most recently, the word was used as a slang expression to depict marijuana, as in “Are you smoking dope?”  Dope is also used in the context of describing the reality behind a given situation as in “Let me give you the real dope on what is going on.”  There is a third way the word can be used.  It can describe someone who is not doing something particularly bright, or restated, doing something stupid.  The word ‘dope’ in the latter context came to my mind this morning when I read about the following:  Last year the Texas G.O.P. condemned efforts to teach “critical thinking skills,” because, it said, such efforts “have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.”  What a bunch of dopes. Republicans in the Virginia State Legislature have specifically prohibited the use of the words “sea-level rise” even though cities in that state are considered to be among the most vulnerable to flooding as a result of global warming.  Another bunch of dopes.  House Republicans tried to suppress a Congressional Research Service report casting doubt on claims about the growth effects of tax cuts for the wealthy.  This is really ‘dopey.’  In the 1990s conservative politicians, acting on behalf of the National Rifle Association, ceased just about all research into the issue of the relationship between guns and violence.  Are these dopes that stupid, or is there an agenda in attempting to keep Americans from the real truth of the matter?

So there you are, I have given you the dope about dopes.  Just saying . . .

Austerity Measures

Prof. Krugman, the Nobel prize winning journalist/economist wrote this morning about world-wide examples of the  failure of austerity measures in various countries as a means of dealing with recessions and massive levels of unemployment.  In response to Krugman's article, one commenter described various considerations that must be dealt with in the United States, including massive infrastructure investments.  In reply to that comment, I wrote as follows:

• Tom Bleakley
• Bradenton, Florida

Another major factor to be considered are the various individual states who are imposing austerity programs on such important components of our society as public education. Michigan is a prime example in which emergency managers are appointed by the Republican governor to run 50% of the under-financed block of black school districts in the state. The various 'solutions' among these districts is to increase classroom size to 61 students, fire experienced teachers and hire first year teachers at half the cost, not to mention give-aways to wealthy friends by privatizing partial or whole school districts. To paraphrase your final comment, Mr. McMahon, we also cannot leave to our children a country of individuals whose life opportunities are compromised by inadequate educations. Our kids , all of our kids, deserve quality educations.

Just saying . . .

The American Dream

The American dream — a good life in exchange for hard work — is slowly dying.  Take, for example, poor Phil Mickelson.  He won a couple of million dollars last year playing golf and also received well more than sixty million dollars in endorsements.  For those of you who are unsure of who he is, watch some of the golf tournaments on TV and he is always the one who is complaining about something at the end of the tournament as to why he didn’t win.  Johnny Miller, the acerbic TV announcer, described Mickelson once as being lucky he had a short game because otherwise ‘he’d be selling insurance.’  Now Mickelson is complaining about something else; he claims that his take home pay is now less than thirty million dollars a year and it seems that figure is hardly enough to live on, even though he has been raking in that kind of money for the past ten to fifteen years.  He complains that his taxes are now 62% of his income, a figure that sounds both boastful and exaggerated to make people feel sorry for him, along with his arthritis (how much income does he get for his TV ads for an arthritis drug?).  Phil lives in California and says he may have to move because of the high tax rates.  California collects a state income tax at a maximum marginal tax rate of 10.30%, spread across seven tax brackets. Like the Federal Income Tax, California's income tax allows couples filing jointly to pay a lower overall rate on their combined income with wider tax brackets for joint filers. Inasmuch as the maximum tax rate federally is 39%, the true amount of Mickelson’s taxes is at most 49% of his income, meaning that his after tax take home income is certainly greater than 30 million dollars each year.  Investment income is taxed at the rate of 15% and if Mickelson is paying 62% of his income in taxes, he should get himself another accountant.  If Mickelson has managed to save any of the millions upon millions of dollars he has earned, his net worth probably approaches a half a billion dollars or greater. He likes gambling, and from reliable reports he apparently gambles amounts of money greater each year than 99% of the population makes.  I have advice for you, Phil.  Your incessant whining about taxes is tiresome.  A typical male worker’s income in 2011 ($32,986) was lower than it was in 1968 ($33,880), about 800 times less than what you take home, and he does pay taxes too.  Suck it up.  Be grateful for what you have and stop complaining about it.  You want more money for your family?  Stop gambling.   

Just saying . . .

The Detroit Public Schools in Exile

My blog today consists simply of posting the writing of a person far more qualified than I am to comment on the ongoing state of affairs in what was formally known as the Detroit Public Schools.  Elena Herrada is an elected member  of the current Detroit School Board and over the past year, I have developed a high opinion of this remarkable person for her relentless efforts on behalf of Detroit schoolchildren and the citizens of Detroit.

The Educational Achievement Authority is a violation of Brown v Kansas. Will we stand idly by?

by Elena Herrada on Thursday, December 27, 2012 at 10:41pm ·

Dear friends;
I was copied on correspondence tonight between the Michigan Dept of Education director Mike Flannigan and Marianne Maguire, outgoing elected state board of education member. I am one of 11 elected board members of the Detroit Public Schools. The Emergency Manager in Detroit is appointed by the governor, who also set up a parallel district called the "Educational Achievement Authority," which mirrors the "Recovery District" in New Orleans. In every way. Detroit is to Michigan what the 9th Ward is to New Orleans. We did not have a hurricane, so the narrative of failure was created. We have been under state control for 8 of the last ten years and the state has bankruptred our District and then taken us over because we are in financial crisis. The same was recently done to the City Council, which is separate from the Detroit School district. There was a hard push on the part of the philanthropic community and non profits, not the least of which were Southwest Solutions and New Detroit, Inc. which would have profited directly if they succeeded in putting the schools under "mayoral control," which is code for corporate control. That failed because the People stopped "mayoral control." Next, the corporate forces took over the city. School board members remain in place, having been elected by the People. However, the State Attorney General, with our own tax dollars, filed a lawsuit against us for being elected. I am not kidding; no judge wants to take this case, so it has been postponed one time after the next. The judges actually say things like " the law may change, so we need to wait and see what happens." ( Judges Murphy, Gillis and next Berry have postponed hearings while waiting .... )
Although the People of Michigan repealed the Emergency Manager law, the EM has remained in place. The governor simply ignored the will of the voters and instead created another Emergency Manager bill that cannot be repealed.
But the important matter here is the long term consequences of this takeover. A new and separate school district which is state wide but with only Detroit in it so far, is a very inferior school district which many students have no choice but to attend. The students have to attend this failing district because of where they live-- in the areas designated for failure. The students are concerned about their future and some have created a "Social Justice League." They intend to be future plaintiffs and not future prisoners, despite the plans being made for them by people like Governor Snyder and Mike Flannigan, who is said to have assured the white districts that their children would not have to attend the Educational Achievement Authority schools; only students in the Black (and Latino) districts will attend the privatized EAA. No union, no standardized tests, Teach for America in droves, for the poorest and most vulnerable students.
If you believe this is a violation of Brown v Kansas, please contact us to add your voice to this important issue. Thank you for reading this, and please feel free to contact our research task force, full of informed and militant supporters of justice for students in Detroit, Benton Harbor, Flint, Muskegon Heights, Highland Park, and wherever students are being pushed into the School to EAA pipeline.
In faith and solidarity,
Elena Herrada
Detroit Public Schools District 2
In Exile

Aha, I’ve Got It!

Shortly after I woke up this morning, I started thinking that the last year was a major win for me.  Over the past year, scientific evidence revealed that two major habits of mine, coffee and dark chocolate, were no longer vices to be avoided but are, in fact, healthy; a win-win situation if there ever was one.  But this morning, I hit the trifecta.  As reported in the New York Times, a “study by Katherine M. Flegal and her associates at the C.D.C. and the National Institutes of Health, found that all adults categorized as overweight and most of those categorized as obese have a lower mortality risk than so-called normal-weight individuals. If the government were to redefine normal weight as one that doesn’t increase the risk of death, then about 130 million of the 165 million American adults currently categorized as overweight and obese would be re-categorized as normal weight instead.  To put some flesh on these statistical bones, the study found a 6 percent decrease in mortality risk among people classified as overweight and a 5 percent decrease in people classified as Grade 1 obese, the lowest level (most of the obese fall in this category). This means that average-height women — 5 feet 4 inches — who weigh between 108 and 145 pounds have a higher mortality risk than average-height women who weigh between 146 and 203 pounds. For average-height men — 5 feet 10 inches — those who weigh between 129 and 174 pounds have a higher mortality risk than those who weigh between 175 and 243 pounds.”

Wow.  As I read these words, I stand up from my computer and strut to the closest mirror where I proudly examine the girth of my abdomen while I take my first complete breath in years without a conscious attempt to hold my stomach in.  My substance, my soul, my essence is changed overnight from a sniveling, struggling, overweight, old (putting aside the baldness for a moment) guy to a higher level.  Will my body shape now become the new standard for all those skinny types around me to worship?  Am I destined for Hollywood where millions of theater-goers will flock to the silver screen to admire and scream as my portliness (forgetting still the baldness) as I create a new standard for action figures, i.e. walking rather than running?

Such good news, this trifecta.  I pause in my reverie of the moment to briefly reflect what caused our society to make such a big deal about weight in the first place.  Paul Campos, a professor of law at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in an editorial in this mornings NYTimes writes  “categorizing at least 130 million Americans — and hundreds of millions in the rest of the world — as people in need of “treatment” for their  [overweight] “condition” serves the economic interests of, among others, the multibillion-dollar weight-loss industry and large pharmaceutical companies, which have invested a great deal of money in winning the good will of those who will determine the regulatory fate of the next generation of diet drugs.”

Gee,  there others who also realize that big Pharma, in feeding the beast of corporate profits, will say and do just about anything to sell stuff to “treat” conditions that we didn’t even know need treating; e.g., Viagra and Cialis (ED) and Rogaine and Propecia (baldness).

Just saying.

Stand Up Americans

Men, we all need to grow up and realize how a small group of money men is using us, via the vehicle of the NRA, to make money and more money by creating and selling an emotional climate that all of us should be ‘packing.’ There's a need here for strong womens' voices to tell us that “Guns are America’s insanity.  And it is getting worse, not better.”  There’s a need for strong men to listen to these voices. 

Let’s take a brief look at three examples of my contention of insanity which all occurred after yesterday morning’s tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  The Michigan House of Representatives recently passed and sent to the governor a bill that makes it easy for people to carry concealed weapons in schools. After the massacre, a spokesman for the Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger, said that it might have meant “the difference between life and death for many innocent bystanders.” implying that the school teachers and school administrators should have been armed. Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, blamed Friday’s shooting on gun control advocates: “Gun control supporters have the blood of little children on their hands. Federal and state laws combined to ensure that no teacher, no administrator, no adult had a gun at the Newtown school where the children were murdered. This tragedy underscores the urgency of getting rid of gun bans in school zones.”  Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee reacted to the tragedy by asking that since prayer is banned from public schools, "should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?" Apparently Huckabee is not familiar with the separation of church and state embodied in our constitution, but that's another story.


“We need to look at what drives a crazy person to do these kind of actions,” said Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, one of the highest-ranking Republicans in the House.  I respond by saying that these people do these things because they can.  And one of the major factors that they ‘can’ is the easy accessibility of weapons of mass destruction like assault weapons with no conceivable purpose for existence other than taking the lives of other human beings.  Surely, no hunter would use an assault weapon, nor police officer, nor target shooter.  It was an assault weapon that was used to commit yesterday's murders.  It was assault weapons that were used in Aurora, Colorado and in Portland, Oregon.  

Women and men of America; we all need to stand up and do the right thing, the responsible thing, the thing that is most consistent with the spiritual values of our country.  Love your neighbor.  Don’t look for an excuse to shoot him.  Don’t contribute to a emotional climate that says, "Shoot first and ask questions later.”  We need to start somewhere.  Contact your state and national elected officials.  Let them know you want a permanent ban on assault weapons.  Tell them to put politics aside.

Just saying . . .