Where are the questions?

I was watching Bill Maher last night and Sean Penn made a great point; we can't divorce criticism from democracy. It shouldn't happen. Could it be that our priorities are out of whack as a nation? Much more to the point; why have we become a nation of non-critical thinkers?

That is to say, the nation seems less able to ask questions than it seems to look for answers without identifying the problem first.

How can I make this observation? Let me give you a simple example: I work in the computer industry. I work with IT people every day of the week. You know, the guys that keep computers running for big business world wide.

Now I'm going to give you, yes, give you the answer to the hard part of the SAT. Ok, maybe not the SAT but a hard question to answer in life.

Why do computers fail so often? They fail at home, they fail at work, they fail with legions of people that are experienced and there just to service them.

I can't tell you that this is the case in every single circumstance but I can tell you computers reflect the humans that use them as well as the humans that buy them and the humans that sell and design them. Go figure.

That's still not the answer to the $64,000 question. Computers or attempts at computer solutions typically fail because people in business don't ask the right business question to solve their problems. That's the answer. If you don't know the question, how in the world are you going to solve the problem?

I see it every day of the week in every variety of customer situation. People in general tend to say they don't need to write down the problem they're trying to solve or identify it, they all say to me "I do that in my head intuitively, I'm way smarter than that.". The point is that people tend to pick technology before they know the problem they're trying to solve.

You'd be suprised how many of these Einsteins have failing technology.

The lack of critical thinking is one that keeps the whole computer industry in business and keeps a ton of blogs churning out gripes about how bad companies suck and why their performance is lackluster. PS Everyone still buys computers from those same companies. Why?

Because it's easy to think everyone knows the answers and that there's no need to write down or critically think of the questions. When you ask a question, you define the scope of a problem. Not all questions are good one's but at least it's a beginning. When a question is asked, we can look at a variety of answers, not just the one's getting presented to us. We can identify problems and seperate them into solvable parts. Typically big problems can be complex thus they require answers that may not be as simple as "invade Iraq".

In The United States today, we are picking answers to problems before we know the questions.

Now let me jump to politics. You see, people like Karl Rove, Henry Kissinger and many others know the above. Framing a discussion and putting it in your own language or terminology puts you largely in control of it. If we abolish the question and critical thinking part, all that's left are someone else's answers. Isn't that easy? Well, no.

My Dad used to say you have to watch the Republican party because while one hand is doing one thing the other is picking the pockets of John Q Public. A framed debate about non-issues such as Roe V. Wade is exactly what Karl Rove lives for. Gay marriage is another such issue. Our country is inherently a place that tends to opt for equality over persecution. A few simple questions:

How can homosexuals get basic rights afforded to recognized married couples?
How can homosexuals get equal options for healthcare, insurance, estate rights and so on?
Should it be up to each state to determine?

I'll move from a question to my own statement: Thus gay marriage is only an issue for people that make it one, it's obvious to everyone else that a union between two people really shouldn't be open for questions by others and it should be recognized by everyone including the Federal Government. Gay marriage shouldn't be an issue. It is because it rallies old prejudices amongst an electorate and distracts people from the real issues.

I'll be going into greater detail on the distractions in another discussion.

Our founding fathers created a society of open thinking and reasoning. Unfortunately that leaves room for people like Karl Rove, Grover Norquist and others to manipulate thoughts and ideas into answers. I'm using the term "answer" loosely. Unfortunately these thoughts and ideas are distracting us from asking the right questions to frame our own debates. It's happened a long time and it isn't exclusive to Republicans. Democrats do it as well and so do Independents.

Here are some questions I have:

How can we have healthcare for every citizen in our country?

How can we make sure our elderly are taken care of in body and soul?
How can we treat our elderly like the knowledgable people they are and learn from them?

How can we make our schools better? How can we make our students better learners?

More importantly: how can we make sure schools are "safe places" for any child to go and learn?
How can we make sure everyone that wants to work can? How can we make sure they get a good wage?

How can we make housing affordable for anyone that wants it?

When will our streets be free from crime?

When will our foreign policy give more food to people and less ammunition?

I haven't started to scratch the surface of my questions. Perhaps some of you will post some questions and get the discussion started. Let me keep going here for a minute: "Talking Points" are pat answers to non-issues and non-questions. I know, I'm hacking up the English language a bit. Give me a little artistic license.

We're used to getting fed the answers, from Television and Radio to your favorite Blog, answers are easy to find. The questions part, now that's hard. While we're busy losing our minds over the silliness in Iraq, the question has never been answered as to why we are there. Not to anyone's satisfaction anyway. More importantly though, whilest we all dwell on the obvious and evident carnage that is taking place for no good reason, what other questions are not getting asked? Are we losing freedoms at the expense of security? Why does money have so much to do with our government officials? Why aren't we discussing things like campaign finance reform anymore?

Anyone else have some questions?

Marc

What Bush Has Wrought In Iraq

7:00 AM: The media is currently reporting on the study that finds great psychological damage being done to our troops in Iraq as a result of combat operations. Overly long tours and hasty redeployments are stressing out the troops. This is also resulting is a collapse of battlefield ethics, a nice way of saying that atrocities are being committed by our troops against innocent Iraqis.

I'm sure that the troops that fought in WWII were stressed too. The major difference that is not being highlighted in all of this that they KNEW they were fighting a just war. We had been attacked, Hitler was a monster, and the American people were 150 percent behind the war effort.

Iraq is not a just war, it is a war of choice. We were not attacked by Iraq. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had no connection to September 11. The American people were fed a false bill of goods, lied to about the need for the war, and they no longer support it. This has to have a terrible effect on the troops. If you could ask a serviceman or service woman fighting in Europe in 1944 why they were fighting, they could respond that they were fighting to preserve our way of life in the face of an evil enemy. Our troops in Iraq today overwhelmingly respond to this question by stating that the reason they are fighting is to protect their buddies. There is no lofty purpose or goal in the minds of our fighting men and women. No wonder the are stressed. We need to get our troops out of there immediately, before we destroy our military and create any more psychological walking wounded.

Photo: French Angelfish, St. Croix

I'm off the New York City today to enjoy an opera performance at the Metropolitan opera with my S.O.

Jim

National Priorities Project

If you haven't seen one of these tickers yet, I'd urge you to go take a look. At this point it seems like the debacle of the current war in Iraq is obvious. It's silly and we shouldn't be there. There's really no arguing it for a whole bunch of reasons.

But when you go check out this ticker, even if you are part of the monied elite that still somehow supports the Bush Administration, it changes your opinion.

See how many teachers or hot lunches could be bought and paid for with this money instead of policing the streets of a foreign country to protect someone else's profits. Come on folks, get on the horn to YOUR representative and let them know we don't support this war.

I support:
Police in our community
Fire and Rescue workers in our community
People that maintain our infrastructure
Teachers and educators in every community
Librarians
Every street cleaner and snow plow operator in our community

There are billions of dollars here that can't even be accounted for starting with the first Provisional Authority and continuing even now.

I bet you'd change your opinion of the war if you couldn't pull your car out of the driveway on a cold winter morning.

M

Your Garden Variety Conservative...

...is NOT compassionate.

6:30 AM: Just consider this for a moment: if conservatives have to specifically preface their description of themselves as "compassionate," isn't that an acknowledgement of the fact that ordinary conservatives are not compassionate? Junior Bush claimed to be a "compassionate conservative" when he was running for president. How hollow that description turned out to be. What has he done that is "compassionate?" He could could care less about the needy and the poor, for example.

The Republican news conference (debate): "Compassionate conservative" Tommy Thompson said it was OK for employers to fire gay people simply because they are gay. How nice.

All but one of the GOP presidential candidates are ready to end a woman's right to choose. These "compassionate conservatives" are ready to thrust women back into the days of illegal abortions and backroom butchers.

Some of the nuttier Republicans want to end progressive taxation all together with a flat tax, which is just about the most regressive form of taxation imaginable. Yeah, real compassionate.

Yes, it was a warm and fuzzy, feel good party for the Republican extreme right wing in St. Reagan's presidential library.

Photo: Fish friends in St. Criox

Jim

Black-Hearted Conservatism

9:00 AM: Charles Darwin's famous "Origin Of The Species" written in the mid-nineteenth century, posited the theory of evolution. As a part of his theory, Darwin noted that nature has a built in mechanism to insure the survival of a species. Only the strong survive, said Darwin, and the survival of the fittest guaranteed that a species would not die out. Darwin was talking about natural mechanisms as applied to animal species over tens of thousands of years, and not about the living conditions of current day living people.

However, it didn't take greedy, heartless nineteenth century rich and powerful types long to latch on to Darwin's work, twist it, and use it for their own purposes. How can so few amass such wealth in the face of the poverty of the many? It was simply a matter of survival of the fittest. Poor people are the weak of the species. Better that they die off. The species will be all the stronger for it. Thus, the theory of "Social Darwinism" came into being, to serve the wealthy and powerful as a defense of outrageous inequality, stifling poverty, tenements, child labor, horrible working conditions, disease, and the starvation of the poor.

While this hateful theory was roundly condemned by people of conscience, it has managed to raise its ugly head time and time again. Modern day conservatives, with their blame the victim mentality are nothing less than Social Darwinists. The poor are responsible for their own condition, they believe. That's why conservatives hate social programs like Welfare, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. That's why they want to cut or eliminate programs designed to address poverty. They have theirs, let the poor get their own or die off. That is the theoretical underpinning of conservatism and, once again, it's not pretty.

Photo: Trumpet Fish, St. Croix

Jim

Coming out as a liberal....

I'd like to thank Jim for having me on his wonderful blog. I do enjoy reading his prose, regardless of whether it has to do with trains or debunking the ugly underbelly of the right wing (as Rachel Maddow puts it on Air America).

I figured it was about time I stop wasting time listening to the gibberati and Right Wing Propaganda machine and put my money where my mouth is. I'm not semi-conservative or sort of conservative or any of that other crap. I didn't vote for Reagan, I didn't vote for G Bush I or G Bush II or any of the other king makers that masquerade as politicians.

Thus I am a die hard liberal. Sorry, no two ways about it. A little about me before I start the discussion on Jim's Blog:

I have a degree in Economics from a good New York University (and no, it isn't NYU).
I was born in Detroit in the 60's. Not outside Detroit, not near Detroit, in Detroit in the middle of the 60's.
I've been to the Middle East for prolonged periods of time including Israel, Egypt and Lebanon.
I have worked for some of the largest companies in the world and for some of the most successful people in the world in NYC.

With that said, I sound like an ideal Republican. I'm not. I think too much. I'm too interested in history and I have a bullshit sensor that goes off whenever I hear right wing bloviating. It usually is factually inaccurate, racked with inconsistency and incoherent grammar.

Oh yes, I am also a die hard train nuts (toy and the real thing).

If you want to see train stuff, Jim has a website with wonderful train related articles and pictures. For this site, I am going to stay focused on what has to be a trend of one of the most egregious abuses of our democracy since Watergate. The manipulation actually started well before Watergate. It isn't some lofty conspiracy (by the way), all of the articles, documentation and manipulation of opionion, voting and public policy has a paper trail two miles long and three miles wide.

It's probably the reason people like me and Jim Kelly have gravitated to the left. We tend to side with what the framers of our Constitution had in mind for our country and our future. If we are ever to evolve as a race of beings, history says that we have to get back on the track of reasoning, learning and teaching. But I'll save that for some of my articles.

What about Ann Coulter and Rush and Bill and Sean Hannity? How about Imus? Will I attack them? No. They are what I refer to "irritainment". They are mouthpieces. Nothing more. They are well paid hacks designed to appeal to a base. Their arguements and discussions gravitate to the 8th grade reading level and usually end in some kind of racial or personal attack. They are actually entertainment intended to indoctrinate. See them for what they are. I'll ask you this: has any one of them won a Pulitzer prize for literature? Has any one of them done anything that would be recognized by journalists as good work? I've already dedicated too much thought to this. I'll do my best to avoid discussing them in the future.

Thank you again Jim and Dan for the opportunity to write and more importantly to be heard.

Marc

Conservatism And A Condensed History Of The U.S.

In the United States, the early 20th century brought women the right to vote, and progressive taxation meant to address the inequalities of wealth that had developed with industrialization. In the 1930s, Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal" helped the country through the great depression. The Social Security program was initiated to safeguard the elderly. In the 1960's, landmark civil rights legislation was passed, a War On Poverty was launched, and our leaders envisioned a "Great Society" and the elimination of poverty. Medicare and Medicaid were initiated to provide healthcare to our elderly and poor. Most of these accomplishments took place under what we would today call "liberal" policymakers in charge of government. We were on a roll toward a more just society.

Then, in the 1980s, came along "conservative" saint Ronald Reagan and the ascent of "conservatism" and "conservative" policymakers in charge of government. Let's see how we've been doing under Reagan and the Bushies (I & II.) First, Reagan cut taxes on the wealthy and then he racheted up defense spending. A war on entitlements aimed at the nations poorest citizens, was launched. Welfare was ended, curiously, under Clinton, but who ever accused him of being progressive anyway. Bush Junior tried as hard as he could to eliminate Social Security, but couldn't. He did manage to pass yet another huge tax cut which benefited primarily the wealthiest citizens. Our nation's neediest citizens, our 37 million poor people, have been demonized by right wing conservative zealots Rush Limbaugh and the like, and our 50 million citizens without medical insurance are left to fend for themselves. And then there's Iraq.

Now, I ask you...are we better off since "conservatives" have come to power? Can we possibly stand any more of them? No wonder Junior's approval ratings are at 30 percent.

About the photograph: In my younger, wilder days I did a fair amount of scuba diving. I enjoyed underwater photography. This shot was taken about 20 years ago in St. Croix. Dan and I spent a week at a gay men's resort there. The site is a piling supporting a pier that was used to dock cruise ships. Depth: only about 20 feet. The pier was later destroyed by a storm.

3 PM: The good news is that the sun has returned to Fire Island just in time for Bradly (our dog) and I to take a walk down to the Sunken Forest, an ancient holly tree forest that is both beautiful and spooky at the same time. The bad news is that our computer here on the island has died. I tried replacing the power supply but I couldn't get it to come back to life. RIP. So I'm stuck with a 10 year old clunker and dialup access for the time being. Russ Feingold just sent out an email about a health care bill that he and another senator will be introducing. I'll have to read more about it, but if Russ is involved it must be good.

4:20 PM: I just read online that Don Imus has hired a high powered First Amendment attorney and plans to sue CBS Radio for $40 million dollars. He'll need a magician. This is not about free speech. It's about what is appropriate over the public airwaves.

Jim

Debunking Conservativism

Fire Island, NY, 6:30 AM: Today I'm going to start debunking conservatism, which has way too much legitimacy thanks to years and years of right wing talking heads, like Rush Limbaugh, fat cat right wing pundits like George Will, and crackpot conservative "icons," like Bill Buckley.

Actually, conservatism, with its extreme hatred of government, ought to be relegated to the dustbin of history. It is a philosophy that has been tried before, and doesn't work. One need only look at U.S. history, taking note of the horrible excesses of greed and criminality (robber barons, child labor, etc.) that took place in the nineteenth century and which gave rise to movements which demanded proactive government involvement in order to curb political, economic, and social injustices. In the 20Th century, government intervened most effectively during the great depression to help ameliorate the suffering of millions, and during the latter half of the century with civil rights legislation addressing racial discrimination.

Conservatives say that they favor small or limited government. Actually, they hate government. They would like to shrink or eliminate government, except, of course, when they need government to help them further their sometimes nutty agenda. The most recent prime example of this was the Terry Schiavo case, when conservatives wanted the federal government to intervene in a private family medical matter. Conservatives need government to help them interfere with a woman's right to make decisions about her own body, and they need government to help them prevent gay and lesbian couples from marrying and thereby obtaining the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexuals have. So, sometimes they need and may even like big government. They want it both ways.

The fact is, even though in recent decades we've seen the erosion of some of the socio-economic gains society has made under the onslaught of conservatives starting with Ronald Reagan, we are not going to roll back the clock to the mid-nineteenth century, and return to the excesses and injustices of those times. I believe that the tide may be turning. George Bush, with his melding of Christian conservatism and government, has actually removed the veil of legitimacy from conservatism. Everyone can now see what conservatives are really up to and it's not terribly popular, is it?

The photo dates from 1983 - Dan and Jim in Mexico (sorry about the image quality - it must have been a cheap camera!)

10:30 AM: Bradley (our dog) and I just got back from a 90 minute walk to the (Fire Island) Pines, the next town to the East. We walked down on the beach and back through the "meat rack." It's a beautiful day here on the island, although we may get some rain later. I picked up the replacement power supply for my non-functioning desktop computer earlier this morning. So now I'll try to install it and see if I can get the computer to work once more.

Jim

Welcome Aboard, Marc!

One of the great things about hobbies can be the people that you meet who share your hobby interests. It's doubly wonderful when you meet someone through your hobby who also shares some of your larger concerns about the world. So it is with great pleasure that I say "Welcome aboard!" HTP Blog to Marc Kuffler. Marc is a most knowledgeable collector of standard gauge trains who has maintained a most interesting blog focusing on our hobby for several years. I joined Marc's blog recently as a contributor, and I'm delighted that he is going to return the favor here on HTP.

The Bushies continue eating their own. Don't you just feel terrible for poor George Tenet. His new book in his own defense, which is due out today, accuses Bush/Cheney of not fully discussing the Iraq war before proceeding. But George Tenet, you told George Bush that Iraq would be a "slam-dunk." Come on George Tenet, you had to know that if you told clueless, dumb George Bush something like that then you'd be enabling him. There would be no further discussion needed. It would be slam-dunk! On 60 minutes last night, Tenet tried to say that he meant something else by "slam-dunk." Give me a break. You have to be of questionable character to take the job of CIA chief. I could never do it and I don't know anyone who could. The CIA is a necessary evil. But to take the job under Bush/Cheney, now that would require someone really special, wouldn't it?

Here's an update on the former Imus slot on MSNBC. This week they are simulcasting yet another local radio show talking head, one Stephanie Miller from somewhere out on the Left coast. Supposedly a "liberal," she claims she is too liberal for Republicans and right wingers, but too un-PC for those on the left. Where do they get these people?

Jim

Mammoth Productions At The Met

The best production of opera I've seen all year was the new Trittico at the Metropolitan Opera. A huge physical production, it features meticulously detailed sets for each of the three operas that comprise Puccini's extraordinary triptych. Not only a complete river barge materialized in Il Tabarro, the first opera, but also an overhead bridge that crossed the Seine. A cloister and 'stone' chapel set the stage for Suor Angelica, which accommodated deft sunlight and subsequent 'mystical' light effects in that powerful opera. Yet the last of the three operas, Gianni Schicchi, contained the biggest coup de theatre, when a large and ornate room in a Renaissance palace sunk into the stage, in seconds supplanted by a terrace overlooking Florence's glorious skyline. This is a photo of the cover of the original score.

The musical values of the three operas were strongly delineated by Maestro James Levine. And the Met cast all three works from strength, with such fine singing-actors as Barbara Frittoli, Stephanie Blythe, Maria Guleghina and Salvatore Licitra. Yet the size of the production, described by the Met as the largest in its repertory, started me thinking about the current peculiar double standards that exist in opera stagings in this country and in Europe.

Usually, realistic productions are decried by the New York press. Is there a single New York Times critic who admires Franco Zeffirelli? If so, I've yet to read such an opinion. Most critics praise minimalism (like Robert Wilson's) and the distortions of countless European regie directors. Wilson's staging is done solely with lighting effects and he forces his actors to stand still as statues for long periods of time. Such practices rarely add anything to Wagner's operas or the other pieces he directs. The other type of staging popular now in theater and opera is called "Regie," from the German word for 'direction.' This usually involves updating the story and tossing in clumsy symbolism. A current example at the Met is this season's new production of Richard Strauss' opera Die Agyptische Helena. English director David Fielding included such distractions and (by now cliches) as a group of warriors in suits who carry suitcases onstage and leave them spread about the floor to no discernible effect. This type of direction has been discourteously and quite accurately labeled "Eurotrash." Though such practices are just as often done now by American directors, as the New York City Opera's unfortunate production of Rossini's La Donna del Lago proves. Certainly it's not impossible to update an opera and make a powerful statement, as the Met's production of the Shostakovich opera The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District demonstrates.

But a double standard seems to exist, to read the reviews of the Met's new Il Trittico. The Times applauded the production, and rightly so. Yet if the same designs and realistic directing had been created by Zeffirelli the whole production would have been lambasted. It could be that realistic and 'traditional' versions of stage design and direction may be on the way out for good. If that happens, it will be a sad world for future audiences and the masterpieces such directors trash.

Dan