John's Corner of the World

Yipes! Off the charts phenomenal.

2013-01-07T07:07:00.002-07:00

Okay. Okay. The first guy: Good. Really good. But . . . not all that amazing. I mean, I can see how someone could do that. (Percussion with his mouth. First minute and a half.)

Second guy, too. Fun. Real fun. (Vocal harmonica. Next minute and 45 seconds or so.) Well worth watching. Amazing! But, again, sorry . . . his show is highly imaginable.

Third guy (beginning about 3:20) . . . oh, my goodness! What a voice! And quite hilarious. (Human bass fiddle with a concluding number that ought to get you out of your seat. The rest of the vocal band provides a "full experience." Fancy footwork thrown in for fun. Ends at about 5:05.)

But then the show goes off the charts.

Fourth guy: the vocal DJ. Now I'm impressed. Blown away. "How does he do that?!?" (Ends at about 6:25.)

And for the grand finale?

Sorry. You've got to watch and listen to the human electric guitar.

Yowzie! (About 6:30 to 7:22.) I didn't know a guy--any guy--could make his voice go that high, much less while he's blowing the speakers. But you've got to listen to it. Jimmi Hendrix has been . . . superseded. (I was going to say pwned, but I get the sense that that's so . . . 2009.)

With thanks to my brother David.

Beyond beyond . . .

2013-01-05T09:33:00.002-07:00

Un. Be. Lievable!

Michael Grab must have a deep sense of balance.

First, a photo. Stone balance art by Gravity Glue:

But now, watch Grab make a design like this, from scratch, in three and a half minutes.

I have done rock piles where I am "simply" trying to stack rocks as solidly as possible. Grab seems to relish the challenge of piling rocks in such a way that each one touches the rock beneath on a single point or line:

--With thanks to Robert Krulwich of NPR's RadioLab.

New "Common Core Standards" for reading in education

2013-01-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

The Educrats have got to be insane. And those among us who let them rule the asylum are just as crazy.

From

Alexandra Petri of The Washington Post:

Forget “The Great Gatsby.”

New Common Core standards (which affect 46 states and the District of Columbia) will require that, by 2014, 70 percent of high school seniors' reading assignments be nonfiction. Some suggested texts include “FedViews” by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the EPA's “Recommended Levels of Insulation” and “Invasive Plant Inventory” by California's Invasive Plant Council.

Forget “Catcher in the Rye” (seems to encourage assassins), “The Great Gatsby” (too 1 percenty), “Huckleberry Finn” (anything written before 1970 must be racist) and “To Kill A Mockingbird” (probably a Suzanne Collins rip-off). Bring out the woodchipping manuals!

I like reading. I love reading. I always have. I read recreationally still. . . . And it's all because, as a child, my parents took the time to read me “Recommended Levels of Insulation.” . . . That was always my favorite, although “Invasive Plant Inventory” was a close second. (What phrases in literature or life will ever top the rich resonance of that “The Inventory categorizes plants as High, Moderate, or Limited, reflecting the level of each species’ negative ecological impact in California. Other factors, such as economic impact or difficulty of management, are not included in this assessment.” "And we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" has nothing on it!)

“It is important to note that even Limited species are invasive and should be of concern to land managers,” I frequently tell myself, in moments of crisis. “Although the impact of each plant varies regionally, its rating represents cumulative impacts statewide.” How true that is, even today. Those words have brought me through moments of joy and moments of sorrow. They are graven on my heart. I bound them as a seal on my hand.

My dog-eared, beaten copy of “Recommended Levels of Insulation” still sits on my desk. I even got it autographed. Their delay in making a movie of this classic astounds me. That was where I first learned the magic of literature.

“Insulation level are specified by R-Value. R-Value is a measure of insulation's ability to resist heat traveling through it.” What authority in that sentence! . . .

I remember curling up with [“Recommended Levels of Insulation”] and reading it over and over again. It was this that drove me to pursue writing as a career — the hope one day of crafting a sentence that sang the way “Drill holes in the sheathing and blow insulation into the empty wall cavity before installing the new siding and” sings.

But I doubt I will ever achieve this lambent perfection.

Look, I was an English major, so I may be biased. . . . [But l]ife is full of enough instruction manuals.

The best way to understand what words can do is to see them in their natural habitat, not constrained in the dull straitjackets of legalese and regulationish and manualect. . . . Words in regulations and manuals have been mangled and tortured and bent into unnatural positions, and the later you have to discover such cruelty, the better.

The people behind the core have sought to defend it, saying that this was not meant to supplant literature. This increased emphasis on nonfiction would not be a concern if the core worked the way it was supposed to, with teachers in other disciplines like math and science assigning the hard technical texts that went along with their subjects.

But teachers worry that this will not happen. Principals seem to be having trouble comprehending the requirement themselves. Besides, the other teachers are too busy, well, teaching their subjects to inflict technical manuals on their students too, and they may expect the English department to pick up the slack. And hence the great Purge of Literature . . .

All in all, . . . a great way to make the kids who like reading hate reading.

[But, hey, t]hat’s certainly one way of addressing the reading gap.

Read more here.

By the way: Is Petri overstating the case or misstating what the Educrats are really demanding?

I urge you to read the links in the article itself. The last one, in particular, makes clear: those who wrote the standards "didn't intend" them to be implemented in the manner Petri suggests. But who cares? It's how they are being implemented that matters.

Yes, the standards do require increasing amounts of nonfiction, [said David Coleman, who led the effort to write the standards with a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation]. But that refers to reading across all subjects, he said.

Teachers in social studies, science and math should require more reading, which would allow English teachers to continue to assign literature, he said.

The standards explicitly say that Shakespeare and classic American literature should be taught, Coleman said. “It does really concern me that these facts are not as clear as they should be.”

In practice, the burden of teaching the nonfiction texts is falling to English teachers, said Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University: “You have chemistry teachers, history teachers saying, ‘We’re not going to teach reading and writing, we have to teach our subject matter. That’s what you English teachers do.’ ”

Sheridan Blau, a professor at Teachers College at Columbia University, said teachers across the country have told him that their principals are insisting that English teachers make 70 percent of their readings nonfiction. “The effect of the new standards is to drive literature out of the English classroom,” he said.

2012-12-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

Perfect!

Merry Digital Christmas!

Moving on in faith . . . and in life -- Part 5

2012-12-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

This is a response to a question/objection raised by my brother Pete.

You can find this post--and the entire series--on my Forbidden Questions blog.

Don't wring your hands in despair; you CAN do something worthwhile (A different perspective on the killings in Connecticut)

2012-12-15T20:39:00.002-07:00

One of my friends has posted several rather sad comments about the Newtown, CT, shootings. She says she just doesn't know what to do that might really make a difference other than pray for the people who have been so hurt by this evil deed, and to post articles about how guns hurt people and we need better mental healthcare.

Then I just saw an article by another friend titled A different perspective on the killings.

Yowza! I encourage you to read it.

One key section:

You wanna talk about the world going to hell in a handbasket? Let’s talk about Lenin and Stalin. Let’s talk about Mao’s China and his “Great Leap Forward” and his “Cultural Revolution.”

Those guys, in their quest for power, didn’t kill 27 innocent people every now and then. They killed 27 innocent people EVERY 15 MINUTES. FOR SIXTY YEARS.

Sixty million total.

Now here’s the punchline:

How did they accomplish this?

They accomplished it by exploiting peoples’ existing despair over their existing circumstances, convincing everyone that all was hopeless — hopeless without a fearless all-powerful leader who would finally and ultimately purge the world of the ‘bad guys.’

They received their power because hundreds of millions of ordinary people, who were really no different than you and me, GAVE UP and CAPITULATED TO DESPAIR and gave their assent to the idea that the world really was going to hell in a handbasket.

Long before they had guns and armies, power was literally surrendered to these tyrants by the people who listened to their words.

The common people were seduced by the power of despair.

That is why – no matter what your opinion about guns or mental hospitals or how we might have rescued some killer’s dying inner child – you must not give an inch to this creeping sense of helplessness and victimhood.

My friend makes some practical recommendations. I encourage you to read the rest of his article.

Get On the Bus: The Freedom Riders of 1961

2012-12-14T12:10:00.001-07:00

Yow!

As I am looking for the best photos to go in my revision of Dr. Daniel Boorstin's The Landmark History of the American People, I came across an article that riveted me: Get On the Bus: The Freedom Riders of 1961 from NPR. Truly astonishing the things various brave people have done for the sake of justice.

I put myself, in my mind's eye, on that bus as it entered Anniston, Alabama, on Sunday, May 14, 1961:

Hank Thomas did not recall seeing anyone on the streets. He did remember the strange feeling that he and the other Riders experienced as the bus eased into the station parking lot just after 1:00 P.M.

The station was locked shut, and there was silence — and then suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a screaming mob led by Anniston Klan leader William Chappell rushed the bus. Thomas thought he heard Jones encourage the attackers with a sly greeting. "Well, boys, here they are," the driver reportedly said with a smirk. "I brought you some niggers and nigger-lovers." But it all happened so fast that no one was quite sure who was saying what to whom.

As the crowd of about fifty surrounded the bus, an eighteen-year-old Klansman and ex-convict named Roger Couch stretched out on the pavement in front of the bus to block any attempt to leave, while the rest — carrying metal pipes, clubs, and chains — milled around menacingly, some screaming, "Dirty Communists" and "Sieg heil!"

There was no sign of any police, even though Herman Glass, the manager of the Anniston Greyhound station, had warned local officials earlier in the day that a potentially violent mob had gathered around the station. After the driver opened the door, [two plain-clothes Alabama State Troopers (whose identities were unknown to the Freedom Riders] hurried to the front to prevent anyone from entering. Leaning on the door lever, the two unarmed investigators managed to close the door and seal the bus, but they could not stop several of the most frenzied attackers from smashing windows, denting the sides of the bus, and slashing tires.

"One man stood on the steps, yelling, and calling us cowards," [one of the Riders] noticed, but her attention soon turned to a second man who "walked by the side of the bus, slipped a pistol from his pocket and stared at me for some minutes." When she heard a loud noise and shattering glass, she yelled, "Duck, down everyone," thinking that a bullet had hit one of the windows. The projectile turned out to be a rock, but another assailant soon cracked the window above her seat with a fist full of brass knuckles. Joe Perkins's window later suffered a similar fate, as the siege continued for almost twenty minutes.

By the time the Anniston police arrived on the scene, the bus looked like it had been in a serious collision. Swaggering through the crowd with billy clubs in hand, the police officers examined the broken windows and slashed tires but showed no interest in arresting anyone. After a few minutes of friendly banter with members of the crowd, the officers suddenly cleared a path and motioned for the bus to exit the parking lot.

A police car escorted the battered Greyhound to the city limits but then turned back, once again leaving the bus to the mercy of the mob. A long line of cars and pickup trucks, plus one car carrying a news reporter and a photographer, had followed the police escort from the station and was ready to resume the assault.

Once the entourage reached an isolated stretch of Highway 202 east of Bynum, two of the cars (one of which was driven by Roger Couch's older brother Jerome) raced around the front of the bus and then slowed to a crawl, forcing the bus driver to slow down. Trailing behind were thirty or forty cars and trucks jammed with shrieking whites. Many, like Chappell and the Couches, were Klansmen, though none wore hoods or robes. Some, having just come from church, were dressed in their Sunday best — coats and ties and polished shoes — and a few even had children with them.

The whole scene was darkly surreal and became even more so when a pair of flat tires forced the bus driver to pull over to the side of the road in front of the Forsyth and Son grocery store six miles southwest of town, only a few hundred yards from the Anniston Army Depot. Flinging open the door, the driver, with Robinson trailing close behind, ran into the grocery store and began calling local garages in what turned out to be a futile effort to find replacement tires for the bus.

In the meantime, the passengers were left vulnerable to a swarm of onrushing vigilantes. Cowling[, one of the Alabama State Highway Patrolmen,] had just enough time to retrieve his revolver from the baggage compartment before the mob surrounded the bus. The first to reach the Greyhound was a teenage boy who smashed a crowbar through one of the side windows. While one group of men and boys rocked the bus in a vain attempt to turn the vehicle on its side, a second tried to enter through the front door.

With gun in hand, Cowling stood in the doorway to block the intruders, but he soon retreated, locking the door behind him. For the next twenty minutes Chappell and other Klansmen pounded on the bus demanding that the Freedom Riders come out to take what was coming to them, but they stayed in their seats, even after the arrival of two highway patrolmen. When neither patrolman made any effort to disperse the crowd, Cowling, Sims [the other Highway Patrolman onboard], and the Riders decided to stay put.

Eventually, however, two members of the mob, Roger Couch and Cecil "Goober" Lewallyn, decided that they had waited long enough. After returning to his car, which was parked a few yards behind the disabled Greyhound, Lewallyn suddenly ran toward the bus and tossed a flaming bundle of rags through a broken window. Within seconds the bundle exploded, sending dark gray smoke throughout the bus. . . .

The story continues. Not only about the Greyhound bus in Anniston, but about the fate of the Riders on a Trailways bus that wound up in Birmingham. (Horrifying.)

But I began this post with a comment about brave people seeking justice.

How's this for a 12-year-old girl in Anniston as she reached out with basic human kindness to the victims of the bus bombing? I haven't quoted the discussion of the choking smoke that filled the bus as the menacing mob seethed outside.

When one of the bus's gas tanks exploded, the people on board finally tumbled out.

I'm skipping more of the story, more gory details. But then there was this:

One little girl, twelve-year-old Janie Miller, supplied the choking victims with water, filling and refilling a five-gallon bucket while braving the insults and taunts of Klansmen. Later ostracized and threatened for this act of kindness, she and her family found it impossible to remain in Anniston in the aftermath of the bus bombing.

I am humbled. Would I exhibit that kind of bravery?

I urge you to read the rest of the article for yourself. Very powerful.

We're not in Kansas anymore: US National Debt and the Fiscal Cliff

2012-12-05T07:01:00.000-07:00

I saw this in my inbox this morning. Combined with Jeff Opdyke's commentary about the difference between a real social safety net and the Social Security system the United States (and virtually every other western country) has today, and Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns's The Clash of Generations, and I think my own views concerning the current so-called "debate" between Democrats and Republicans are coming into sharp focus.

I see so many of my Democratic friends touting the "compassion" and "love" being shown by their favorite politicians, and I think: "Really?"

It's all well and good to speak of compassion. But who can pay for this so-called compassion--much less who is willing to pay for it (with their own money)? Please don't talk to me about your great compassion when you are willing to saddle future (not-yet-able-to-vote and/or not-yet-aware-enough-to-vote) generations with massive debt that they will never be able to repay [that's the message I get from Kotlikoff and Burns; good summary of their book here]. And please don't talk about compassion when the supposed social safety net is being used, today (and for the foreseeable future--unless Congress decides to change the system) as a primary vehicle of retirement funding [the message I get from Jeff Opdyke's article].

The following, by Alexander Green of InvestmentU in last Friday's Investment U Plus newsletter, provides further perspective, I think:

Imagine that your 18-year-old son goes off to college for the first term of his freshman year. You are happy to pay for his education costs - room, board, tuition, books, etc. - but you also give him a credit card "in case of emergencies."

When he comes home for Christmas, you discover that he has run up $70,000 on his MasterCard. You hit the roof and demand an explanation.

"Now hold on, Dad," he says. "Before we start talking about how much less I might spend, let's talk about how much more money you [really ought to be giving] me."

Consider your response - and whether it would be printable in a family paper. Yet Congress makes our hypothetical spendthrift look like a piker.

Most reasonably well-informed Americans know that our $16.1-trillion federal budget deficit is now larger than the nation's GDP. But what most don't realize is this figure doesn't include the unfunded liabilities for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the Prescription Drug Benefit. That's another $121.6 trillion. [According to Kotlikoff and Burns, it's actually more than $200 trillion. But what is $80, $90, or $100 trillion between friends? --JAH] Combine the federal budget deficit with the unfunded liabilities for current entitlement programs (excluding ObamaCare) and it comes to a mindboggling $1.2 million per taxpayer.

Some will argue that this is exactly why we need to stick it to the ultra-rich, an approach that has clear populist appeal. But here's a bit of perspective. Less than a hundred years ago, the nation's richest man, John D. Rockefeller, could have written a personal check and paid off the entire national debt, every penny accumulated since 1776. Today the government could confiscate the entire net worth of the nation's wealthiest man, Bill Gates, and it wouldn't pay six weeks' interest [NOTE: That's interest! --JAH] on the national debt. . . .

Writing in The Wall Street Journal this week, former Congressional Committee Chairmen Chris Cox and Bill Archer note that even if the government confiscated the entire adjusted gross income of every individual and corporation in America, it still wouldn't cover U.S. entitlement obligations. Yet the first order of business according to President Obama, Senator Reid and Mr. Buffett is not to reform entitlements or rein in spending but to raise tax rates? You might as well try bailing out the Pacific Ocean with a teaspoon.

Congress has a world-class spending addiction, but then so do most other Western democracies, including Canada, Britain, Western Europe and Japan. In every case, politicians on both sides of the aisle have learned that promising lush government benefits paid for by "someone else" is a big winner at the polls.

As for the current fiscal cliff negotiations, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that raising the top marginal tax rate to 39.6% - as Obama proposes - would generate approximately $70 billion a year. That's not an inconsequential sum. But it won't come close to fixing this year's $1.1-trillion federal budget deficit. Where would we get the other $1.03 trillion?

And why did I title this post "We're not in Kansas anymore"?

Because I get the impression that the American empire has run its course. It can no longer maintain the illusion. Reality is beginning to set in. The U.S. cannot continue to inflate away its debt problems and expect its citizens not to feel the impact. We all--wealthy and poor--are going to experience the results of almost three decades of spending beyond our ability to pay.

Just in time for the Holidays! Best iPad sales presentation ever!

2012-11-22T05:23:00.000-07:00

It's in German. I'm afraid I would have to spend too much time watching and re-watching it to figure out what the guy is SAYING, but . . . you don't have to understand German to be absolutely THRILLED with the guy's [highest quality professional sleight-of-hand] "demonstration" of the iPad's amazing capabilities.

Enjoy! 5:24. No filler.

With thanks to my brother Ted for the link!

Moving on in faith . . . and in life -- Part 4

2012-11-18T06:56:00.000-07:00

Yep. One more in my series. I should probably do a better job of trying to "sell" you on what I've been thinking about. But I don't feel particularly motivated to push you.

Let me say, simply, that this series has to do with a radical rethinking of my beliefs about the Bible. I would say that is a fair summary.

You will find my latest post here.

Moving on in faith . . . and in life -- Part 3

2012-11-17T21:48:00.003-07:00

I encourage you to read my third post in the series I began several weeks ago.

Check it out on my Forbidden Questions blog.

Next in my series about "moving on" in faith and life

2012-11-09T09:41:00.003-07:00

My second (lengthy post) about my new faith paradigm. Or, perhaps more accurately, about how I have come to--or am coming to--a new faith paradigm.

Moving on in life . . . in thought . . . in faith

2012-10-18T20:11:00.001-06:00

I've been involved in what to me has been a most unpleasant project for the last 12 or 13 years. I am hoping, finally, that maybe it is coming to an end.

I blog about it here.

If you want to know about one of those once-in-a-decade (or less frequent) major changes in outlook that a guy like me might go through, you may want to take the time to look.

The "so-called" presidential debates

2012-10-18T06:42:00.001-06:00

I rather appreciate(d) Charles Goyette's comments on the--what he termed--"so-called" Presidential Debates yesterday:

Maybe Tuesday night’s presidential debate wasn’t a game-changer, but at least Republican nominee Mitt Romney didn’t get to debate Clint Eastwood’s empty chair.
President Barack Obama showed up this time instead.

And while two candidates in a debate are better than one, three candidates would be a big improvement. That way, someone could hold the Republicans and Democrats accountable for generations of vote-buying and deficit spending.

The last time that happened was in 1992 when Ross Perot was the third candidate in the debates. Perot responded to attacks on his experience by saying, “They’re right. I don’t have any experience running up a $4 trillion debt.”

“It’s not the Republicans’ fault,” said Perot of the incipient debt crisis. “And it’s not the Democrats’ fault. What I’m looking for is, who did it?”

This year’s second presidential debate was a tasty little treat for the media people, who love a good comeback story.

But for more serious people, those who understand America will be shaken to its core by economic calamity, the debates are like junk food meals of empty calories.

What About the Fed?

Once again, there was not a word about the Federal Reserve, and not a word about QE III.

This is a most-peculiar oversight.

It’s like Perot’s description of the crazy aunt kept down in the basement. “All the neighbors know she’s there, but nobody wants to talk about her.”

The country is mired in an economic malaise, and both candidates wish to be seen as holding the keys to our recovery. But neither candidate uttered a word about monetary conditions or the monetary authorities.

Since money is half of every commercial transaction, the failure to address the subject is more than a casual oversight. It means that there is a taboo against addressing 50% of the nation’s economic activity.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from this studious avoidance of monetary policy is that, regardless of the election’s outcome, the fundamental policies that boom and bust the economy will still be decided by the Federal Reserve on behalf of the banking cartel.

So-Called Debates Yield So-Called Solutions

I watched the debate remembering the words of Ron Paul this week, when he suggested that our future could hold results more-severe than what we’ve seen in the streets of Greece.

That’s why, Congressman Paul says, he gets so annoyed with “the so-called debates” that are going on now. . . .

“How often have you heard in the last couple of weeks or couple of months of the campaign about the seriousness of the debt and the debt crisis, the dollar crisis, the financial crisis?” [Paul asked.]

“We’re at the end of the line when it comes to debt. When the markets recognize this, we won’t be able to print money to get out of it.”

In the 1992 debates, Perot said that “giant sucking sound you hear” is jobs leaving this country. Today we have Depression-era levels of unemployment and our manufacturing base has been hollowed out.

Back then Perot was the only one of the candidates to address the nation’s growing debt seriously. “The facts are,” he said, “we have to fix it.”

Still Broke . . .

That was 20 years ago. Nothing has been fixed.

Twenty years ago, Perot concluded that, since the Republicans and Democrats were both shirking and disclaiming responsibility for the nation’s debt, it must all have been the doing of extra-terrestrials.

Must be. The debt has quadrupled since then and nobody else has been in charge except Republicans and Democrats.

Clearly, we need a third man in the debates again. I nominate Ron Paul.

I'll buy that.

"Do not look here."

2012-10-08T09:22:00.000-06:00

A friend of mine is going through radiation therapy for cancer. He told the following story. I thought it merited "passing along":

On the first day of treatment, I was lying on the radiation table. There’s not much to do there and I saw a sign above me. Since I didn’t have my reading glasses on, I couldn’t make out the words very clearly, but by dint of hard effort -- craning my neck and squinting my eyes -- I was finally able to make out the sign. It said, ‘Warning: Laser aperture. Do not look here.’ I think there’s some kind of lesson for us there although I’m not quite sure what it is!

Thanks for the laugh, Tim. And praying your therapy is successful.

What's wrong with Social Security?

2012-10-07T08:43:00.000-06:00

I have been aware since the early '80s of the idea that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme . . . and why. I have understood how the government has played games with the Social Security "fund"--counting the Social Security tax as a supposed "insurance premium" if (and only if) and when (and only when) it was convenient, but, yet, then, treating it as a general source of current government income if and when that was more convenient . . . and so the Social Security "fund" is really composed of government IOU's that future taxpayers will have to pay off if current recipients of Social Security payments are to receive what is their promised "due." . . .

I have understood that. And because I have understood that, I have realized that I ought never to figure I would receive a penny in benefits from Social Security. It is a forced Ponzi Scheme, a tax, and the government will do with those funds what it will, but it will, most likely, not be paying me whatever it pretends it is promising.

But this morning I saw a new perspective on Social Security that I had never seen or thought of before. And I thought it was worth sharing.

From Jeff Opdyke of the Sovereign Society:

I agree that society must deploy safety nets to catch the fallen. [My opposition to the idea that society, collectively, has a responsibility to provide a lifestyle to any particular individual or group of individuals] has nothing to do with people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves in need of society’s munificence. But the safety nets should not be so large that they encourage reliance among those who see falling as the easier path – which is precisely the effect our safety nets have today.

Worse, they’re ill-designed and over the decades have spawned among Americans a warped sense of entitlement. Social Security is, perhaps, the best example. In a recent note, reader Lee S. wrote to say that, because he and his wife have paid into Social Security for years, “we are entitled [his emphasis] to what was removed from our salaries.”

To which I say, no – absolutely not.

Government – under [Franklin D.] Roosevelt – originally designed the system as social insurance. And insurance in its purest form pays out only as a failsafe, when a monetary need arises. Homeowners and drivers do not expect their policies to provide a source of income just because they pay premiums. They expect a payout only when, in an emergency, the cost of replacing or repairing a house or car exceeds the policyholder’s financial capacity.

Social Security should follow an identical principle.

For those without a meaningful source of income to draw on in retirement because of factors beyond their control, Social Security should ensure a certain level of economic wellbeing. But to believe that everyone should access the system just because they paid into it is ludicrous; it’s the reason the program is structurally unsound today. It’s a question of fairness, ultimately. If my assets generate, in retirement, an annual income of $30,000 or more – roughly double the poverty line for a family of two – am I entitled to even more money from a government that must, through increased taxation, dispose of the estates of others?

Without question, no!

Before the entitlement mindset ran amok in this country, Americans once felt a sense of personal shame falling into a government safety net. In a personally responsible society, Americans would purposefully be more frugal – instead of purposefully more consumerist – to build up a nest egg over the years. The personally responsible would see reliance on Social Security as a personal failure and the pathway to a diminished lifestyle that they would want to avoid at all costs.

In that world, the liberty of the individual, as encouraged by the state, would supersede the desire of others to live a life unearned. As it stands now, though, it is an immoral system that requires government to take from the individual a penny more than is needed to provide a basic standard-of-living to those unable to provide for themselves. It is an immoral system when government taxes the individual to provide anything to those fully capable of providing for themselves.

Whoa!

I think he's hit something on the nose!

Clearly, Social Security is not (and never was) set up as an investment vehicle. It was not--and is not--set up to acquire and/or produce assets that can generate income. No. Almost from the very beginning it was (and is) an income redistribution plan--taking from current earners to make payments to people who used to earn. (Even as the earlier earners made payments into the "system" to cover payments made to even earlier participants.)

Insurance policies and plans don't work that way.

So where do we go from here?

And when will either the Democrats or the Republicans begin to "talk straight" about what it is we are up against?

A political parable from life . . .

2012-09-04T10:09:00.001-06:00

Saw the following story on Facebook. It was a bit more partisan than the slightly edited version I have reproduced here. I'd prefer to leave out the distracting political commentary so we can focus on the concepts or worldviews.

I recently asked my friends' little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President of the United States.

"If you were President, what would be the first thing you would do?" I asked.

She replied, "I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people."

"Wow! What a worthy goal," I told her. "But I have an idea. You don't have to wait until you're President. If you come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my driveway, I'll pay you $50 and take you over to the grocery store where a homeless guy hangs out. You can then give him the $50 so he can use it toward food and a new house."

She thought that over for a few seconds, then looked me straight in the eye. "Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work himself?" she asked. "Then you can pay him the $50."

Hmmmm.

This got me thinking: If I want "the government" to do something, is it because it is the legitimate province of government and/or something that only the government can (and should) do? Or is it because I think it is a "good idea" . . . just so long as it is "someone else" who (or someone else's money that) is doing it "in my behalf"?

Put another way: If I am free to do something and I am able (both morally and physically/mentally/spiritually) to do something but I am unwilling to make the sacrifices on a personal level to achieve that end [other than to call upon "the government" to do it in my behalf], then is my vote or political agitation really a morally right thing? Why or why not?

Meditation on apples and peaches with worms in them . . .

2012-08-26T15:01:00.000-06:00

We have enjoyed a bumper harvest, so far, of peaches and apples off of one of the peach and two of the apple trees in our yard. What astonished me--at first, anyway--was the number of fruits that had worms inside.

Here are a couple where the damage is more than obvious. In fact, before I took the shot, I "simply" sloughed off the wholly rotten portions of the apples by scooping/scraping it off with the top of my thumbnail. . . .

What strikes me about the whole experience: I haven't seen worms in apples in . . . years. Probably not since I was a young boy.

Why's that?

. . . More in a moment.
*******
So here's an apple that you know has been invaded by a worm. That's a wormhole up there at the 12:30 position (with respect to the stem).

Where did the worm go?

After cutting into a couple of apples, I formed a hypothesis that has proven almost infallible. I don't understand why, but it is true: the worms almost always head almost straight for the core. They don't generally cut "across" the apple or "across" the meat; they cut a path down and through the meat to the core:

There. You can see the "nest" in the core . . . and the "exit" from the borehole into the "nest."

Cut out the core and you see the hole. . . . And carefully chop a small chunk from the core out to and around the entrance hole and . . .

Oh, yeah! The entire pathway. Complete with worm droppings. . . .

Okay. A few more careful slices with a rinsed knife . . . and a quick rinse with water and you have one of the tastiest apples I have had in a long, long time.

. . . And that's when it hits me: I haven't seen worms because professional apple growers have learned that consumers will ALWAYS buy worm-free apples before apples that may--or, almost always, do--contain worms. Indeed, consumers will pay a premium for such pretty apples.

So the apple producers spray the apples with pesticides. And apples are now--and have been for years--right at the top of the list of the "Dirty Dozen" foods--foods most heavily laden with pesticides. For the last two years, they have been at the very top of the list: #1 most contaminated.

I am coming to the point where I would rather deal with the worms than eat the pesticides, "thank you very much."

Entitlement States of America

2012-08-23T21:36:00.000-06:00

There's plenty of blame to go around. We know the rich as well as the poor are leaching off the government . . . i.e., whoever is "stupid" enough actually to pay taxes.

I didn't realize it was quite this bad, however.

From the August 5 Sovereign Digest published by The Sovereign Society:

Maybe this is Just a Conspiracy Theory, But . . . Have you ever wondered whether the government – both Democrats and Republicans – secretly wants a nation addicted to welfare? Sure would make for a more-compliant bunch of voters when the bulk of Americans are dependent on Uncle Sam for their bread and tuna.

I tucked away a report earlier this year that tracks a dependency index, and among the latest findings it showed that those who take from the government (let’s call them Thy Brothers) received benefits of about $32,700 from the government in 2010. Those who earn money and pay taxes in America (let’s call them Thy Brothers’ Keepers) earned on average about $32,400.

Is it just me, or is there a terminal flaw in the system when Thy Brothers are living larger than Thy Brothers’ Keepers?

If you want to see the true impact of this addiction to dependency, look no further than the $1 trillion Farm Bill the House passed last month. A huge chunk of the spending has nothing to do with farms or farmers. It’s earmarked for food stamps.

We, Thy Brothers’ Keepers, now spend about $80 billion a year on food stamps.

In the 1970s, one in 50 Americans received food assistance from the government. Today, it’s a stunning one in 7. But to see just how broken the system really is, dig a bit deeper. Half of all the folks receiving food assistance have been on the program for more than eight years. That, dear reader, is a sign of dependency.

In all, more than 67 million Americans – about 22% of the country – depend on the government for their livelihood. That number will only grow as more Boomers fall into Social Security, as Obamacare lassos more Americans into a government health network, and as failed economic policies create more Americans who are (wink wink) permanently disabled.

Sooner or later, we reach a point where the Entitlement States of America runs out of other people’s money. Then what?

Seeds of success: An encouraging word from a noted neurosurgeon . . .

2012-08-21T10:51:00.000-06:00

Saw this in the latest World magazine. From an interview with Dr. Ben Carson (upon whose story the movie Gifted Hands, starring Cuba Gooding, was based). Carson was raised, from the third grade on, by a mom who was married at 13 and never went beyond third grade herself. And if you want additional strikes against him: he's black.

This is a brief, edited section from an hour-long interview available on YouTube. (See below.) This section, however, particularly struck me. I think those of us who are involved in educating the next generation(s) [which, I hope, is virtually all of us!], I think the message is vital.

(NOTE: The section below comes from 6:04 into the video and ends at 10:55.)

Were you really considered the dumbest kid in the class in the fifth grade? I was the safety net: No one had to worry about getting the lowest mark on a test as long as I was there. My nickname was Dummy. Once we were having an argument about who was the dumbest person in the school. It wasn't a big argument—everyone agreed it was me—but then someone tried to extend that argument to who was the dumbest person in the world. I said, "Wait a minute, there are billions of people in the world." They said, "Yeah, we know that, and you're the dumbest."

On that particular day, to make matters worse, we had a math quiz and you had to pass your paper to the person behind you. They would correct it and give it back to you. Teacher would call your name and you had to report your score out loud. Great if you got 100 or 95! Not so great if you got a zero and just had an argument about who's the dumbest person in the world.

I started scheming: "When teacher calls my name, I will mumble and maybe she'll think I said something and write it down." The quiz had 30 questions. When she called my name I said, "neimnmm." She said, "Nine! Benjamin you got nine right? Oh, this is wonderful, I knew you could do it if you just applied yourself. Kids, I want you to understand what a significant day this is. Benjamin got nine right. If he can get nine right anybody can."

Finally the girl behind me couldn't take it any longer. She stood up and said, "He said none!" The kids were rolling in the aisles. If I could have disappeared into thin air never to be heard from again in the history of the world, I would gladly have done so. But, I couldn't. I had to sit there and act like it didn't bother me—but it did. Not enough to make me study but it did bother me.

My mother saw all these failing grades. She didn't know what to do, but she prayed and asked God to give her wisdom to know what to do to get her young sons to understand the importance of intellectual development. She then let us watch only two to three TV programs each week. With all that spare time we had to read two books apiece from the Detroit Public Library and submit to her written book reports. She couldn't read them but we didn't know that—she would put little checkmarks and highlights and underlines.

I hated it in the beginning, but after a few weeks I began to enjoy it. We were desperately poor, but between the covers of those books I could go anywhere, be anybody, do anything. I began to imagine myself in the laboratory conducting experiments; discovering new galaxies, microcosms, knowing stuff that nobody else knew. Within a year and a half I went from the bottom of my class to the top, much to the consternation of all the students who used to call me dummy. The same ones who called me dummy in the fifth grade would come to me in the seventh grade, "Benny, Benny, Benny! How do you work this problem?"

. . . I had the same brain but a very, very different outlook. As I began to read about people of accomplishment, it dawned on me that the person who has the most to do with what happens to you in life is—you. It's not the environment. It's not somebody else. You can take control of your own life. I started having a very different philosophy than a lot of the people around me.

A lot of them called me nerd, Uncle Tom, all kinds of things. I would shut them up by saying, "Let's see what I'm doing in 20 years and let's see what you're doing in 20 years." They must have believed me because when I graduated from high school they all voted me most likely to succeed—which means they knew what was necessary to succeed, but were too lazy and trifling to do it themselves. That's what negative peer pressure is all about. The more young people we can get to understand that, the more people of accomplishment we will see.

You can watch the entire interview here:

"I'm just a bill" - traditional and modern versions

2012-08-20T09:28:00.002-06:00

I first saw "I'm just a bill" about a year ago.

I thought at the time: "Yeah. If only. That's not the way things work nowadays."

You get SOME idea of what I was thinking about if you see what I just wrote to Blaise Ingoglia, of Government Gone Wild!, whose videos Land of the Freebies, Home of the Enslaved and Special Interests...Exposed! I watched this morning:

Blaise:

I've enjoyed the videos I have seen. However, I would VERY MUCH appreciate seeing you handle the "other" form of welfare that various viewers have mentioned: the CORPORATE welfare so completely embedded in our federal government . . . from Monsanto's headlock on the USDA (http://bit.ly/NY6BGt; look for "revolving door"), to FDA's control by and doing the bidding of Big Pharma (http://bit.ly/QT7Sv4), to--of course--the (formerly unbelievable) bailouts of the "too-big-to-fail" banks and their bankster managers . . .

You've done a great job on the "little guys" who have been co-opted by Big Government. I appreciate your video about the growing number of government employees who make obscene amounts of money. But I'd like to see you do a similarly wonderful expose on the "big guys" who are (not being co-opted BY the government, but who are) co-opting the government.

WOW! If you were to make a similarly powerful video on THAT, I think all the liberals would have to acknowledge: "This guy is the real deal!"

Thanks.

Well . . . now I've found a catchy video that explains how at least SOME of the "new" government works. It's a modern version of I'm just a bill. . . . Please excuse the few relatively minor profanities. . . .

End of an era, 8 1/2 years later . . .

2012-06-14T06:04:00.000-06:00

Just came across this video. Kind of brings a tear to my eye, even though I never flew on the plane.

Were there any benefits to the Concorde aircraft? Should the planes have been grounded? What is the future of supersonic flight as a new era of energy abundance seems to be upon us?

There is much more in the world than what comes out to grab you

2012-06-11T10:18:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned, I've begun the 100-Day Challenge. Sunday evening, Blair sent me a link to a video, Celebrate What's Right with the World.

It's a gorgeous, 22-minute-long, vision-expanding presentation by Dewitt Jones, a 20-year veteran photographer from National Geographic. Well worth your time for anyone. But if you're a photographer, I think you will particularly enjoy it. Everyone else, especially if you think, "I don't have time for this!," check out two stories in particular: the one that begins at 14:17, about Jones' experience with Marion Campbell (ends at 17:30) and the one about Henry Gray that begins at 18:30 and ends at 21:00. Very moving.

For the photographers: beginning at about 12:25--"the difference between a good frame and a great frame is measured in millimeters, not miles."

Wow! . . . Concerning Rand Paul's endorsement of Mitt Romney

2012-06-10T12:23:00.001-06:00

Eloquent. Passionate. Thoughtful. Insightful. Historically reasoned.

Jack Hunter responds to my shock and dismay to hear Rand Paul--Ron Paul's son--endorse Mitt Romney. Hunter's response: Ron Paul is Becoming Something More Important than President.

Really?

Whoever this young guy, Jack Hunter, is, he has a big vision and pretty amazing insight. Great historical perspective as well.

So. Was it--will it be--a waste of all the effort, money and time that Paul supporters invested in "their" candidate? Not according to Hunter!

"We have elections every few years," says Hunter toward the end of his presentation. "We have very few revolutions during our lifetime."

"Ron Paul will not be president. He will instead go down in history . . . as the man who redefined what future presidents will be, what the [Republican] Party will be, what the country will be."

"It all started with Ron Paul, but it doesn't end with Ron Paul."

Here's his strategic perspective:

Here's his more direct commentary on Rand's endorsement, as well: "Why Rand was Right to Endorse Romney":

Great political wisdom. And principle. Clearly, I lack his understanding. But I'm willing to learn.

"There is no shame in compromising politically to advance principle. But we can never compromise our principles simply to advance politically."

Drive me nuts!

2012-06-10T07:54:00.000-06:00

My Pandora station has been running a bunch of anti-Romney ads recently: "Romney Economics: It didn't work in Massachusetts, and it won't work now":

Mitt Romney ran for governor claiming his corporate experience made him uniquely qualified to grow the economy and decrease debt.

Here’s what Massachusetts got instead:

Long-term debt: Increased more than $2.6 billion

Bigger government: State spending increased more than $6 billion

Slower job growth: 47th out of 50 states in job creation

Higher taxes and fees: Increased by $750 million per year

Powerful. Hard-hitting. And there are plenty more stories and statistics where those come from, complete with references--about Romney's dismal record of increased debt as governor of Massachusetts; his dismal "reform" record; his astonishing expansion of government in Massachusetts ("six times the rate of private sector jobs"); his retrograde tax policies . . . and so on and so forth.

Oh. And I have only touched on his government record. You may not want to look at his record at Bain Capital. That appalls me as well. Truly shocking. If you think the banksters' and large corporations' rip-off of taxpayers over the last four or five years was worthy of at least a few tsk-tsks (if not some hardcore lawsuits for fraud: How dare these men who drove their companies into the ground demand government aid to keep their companies going even as they pay themselves multi-million-dollar bonuses?!?) . . . --Maybe you want to look at Romney's record at Bain as well.

Oh, yes, there are only a "few" examples of open malfeasance and absolute destruction. But read the stories. They certainly give me pause.

And the Republicans want to offer this guy as an alternative to Obama?

What is particularly galling, however, is that this entire negative ad campaign and website isn't--and never was--sponsored by a Republican opponent of Romney. It's sponsored by the Obama campaign! Indeed, the Pandora ads end with Obama approving them.

Amazing! And he offers us something better than Romney? I don't think so! Do we have to go through the next five months of electioneering?