Month: February 2023

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With a Conservative majority in the Supreme Court, an upcoming case regarding Affirmative Action is expected to effectively end this program. The complaint about Affirmative Action is that race shouldn’t be a criteria for admission into college. Merit should be the only criteria and merit is a cold clinical calculation. Merit is based on grades, test scores, and extra-curricular activities. There is no question who the deserving students are if merit is the measurement. Since race has nothing to do with merit, it shouldn’t be factored into any decision for admission into schools. These opponents would have you believe that we live in a fair world.

We don’t. For example: Judy has wealthy parents who can pay for her to attend an expensive private school with a low student to teacher ratio while Johnny lives with his poor mother and has to attend an urban public school with a high teacher to student ratio — do they receive the same education when they compete for admission at colleges years later. They studied the same subjects for the same twelve years. They took the same ACT/SAT tests. All of these are verifiable facts so then merit is the only fair way to make these decisions.

But this isn’t the case. Some wealthy parents are paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $60,000 to give their children a leg up in their education. Of course the money advantage is greater than just better schools with better teachers. Wealthy parents can also afford tutors when their child needs extra help, several attempts at ACT/SAT until the child gets a better score, coaching on how to take ACT/SAT tests to insure better scores, their children’s extra curricular activities, and, most importantly, are comfortable paying the basic necessities of life for their children. The average American worker’s salary is $58, 260 so you can deduce from that not many parents can afford this particular advantage. Yet no one complains about this unfairness.

Well, you say, life is unfair. There is always going to be rich and poor. The rich will always have more money than the poor. There is nothing we can do about it.

Right. But then you are accepting wealth as an acceptable unfairness while railing against another unfairness — race. Having more money is no more merit than a person’s race. The wealthy child just was born into the right family. Doesn’t the extra money their parents spent on them diminish the achievements of those wealthy private school students? I mean, won’t they spend their whole lives wondering if they actually deserved their success or did their parents buy it for them? Poor things will never know the truth.

Merit is a meaningless concept when parents can spend $60,000 on their child’s education. Why bother spending that money if you can get the same education in an urban public school? That is a lot of money to spend for the same result. But, of course, wealthy parents spend this extra money because they know they are going to get a return on their investment. Their kids will get a much better education.

This better education gives them even more chances in life. Unsurprisingly many of the 70 schools on the list of the most expensive high schools are also known as feeder schools for Ivy League colleges. You know the Ivy League — the colleges of Presidents, Senators, Supreme Court Judges and CEO’s. These schools send between 10 % to 37% of their students to the Ivy League. Imagine that 70 feeder schools, almost all of them pricey private schools, supply the Ivy League with the students who then become the future leaders of the country. Well worth the $60,000 yearly price if you got it. There is nothing wrong with that. I get it, you want the best for your children.

On the other hand, it is more than a little disingenuous to complain about Affirmative Action when you have the money to get the best education while less financially endowed parents must live with public schools. Public schools, by the way, that wealthy people wouldn’t send their own children to. The present system of education is so unfair that nobody questions parents moving to richer school districts or sending their kids to private schools, yet little effort is made to improve the public school system. Which actually shows real interest in fairness.

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I was a little irritated with myself the other day that I investigated the death of Austin Majors, a young actor, who died last week. Even though I had never heard of the man, I clicked on the link because I noticed he died at 28. I was curious to know how he died. It was all morbid curiosity and, of course, I was richly rewarded. Youthful success, drug abuse and dying young. What more can you ask for when trying to satisfy your morbid curiosity?

The problem I am having is that it is all pointless. I have so many hours in a day and I spent a few minutes looking into the death of an actor I never heard of. It is junk food reading. It made me sad. I didn’t learn anything new about drug abuse or homelessness. The only thing I got out of it was a mild satisfaction that I dodged that particular bullet in my youth. The best that can be said about it was that it was a minor distraction from my life.

I am not saying that I should never have distractions but this one was pretty meaningless. I suspected from the moment I decided to read his story that it would be a sad one. Death at 28 is rarely a happy story. And I was right, so what did that get me.

I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent reading about people I don’t know and I don’t care about. Clicking one link after another learning about people who knew other people who knew other people. Hours could go by before I realize it. Getting lost in my diversions was a way to avoid working on what I claimed mattered to me — my writing.

In the past, I blamed working for my failure to write. I needed diversion from my boring, yet stress filled, life. I didn’t want to think. I wanted to relax, do nothing. Everything would be written and published if only I didn’t have to work.

Well, it turns out that diversions are still a problem for me even though I don’t work anymore. One of the best things about getting older is I now see my little tricks a bit clearer. I can’t blame work anymore so I now must work on my morbid curiosity.

Damn it.

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I have no problem with Biden shooting down Chinese balloons. Shoot them all down. If the Chinese are stupid enough to fly them over the USA, then damn them. Boom. Boom. Boom. I say. Blow those balloons out of the sky.

On the other hand, I find the idea of shooting down UFO’s a little more disturbing. If they are indeed UFO’s, then these interplanetary travelers come from a more technologically advanced civilization and probably can wipe us off the planet without much effort. It seems a little dangerous and foolhardy to do so. Suicidal even.

It is also a great start to a science fiction movie.

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The Missouri Legislature voted down a bill that would ban 15 year olds and younger from carrying guns in public places. Gun Rights groups apparently see no limits on who should be allowed to carry a gun. I guess an unsupervised kindergartner can walk down the street with a loaded gun. That kindergartner might have a very good reason for having a loaded gun. How do we know? Why should we prevent a law-abiding six year old from exercising their 2nd Amendment rights? Everyone from birth to old age should just carry a gun and the world would be a better place.

Should everyone carry a gun? Should chronically depressed people carry arms? People with quick tempers? Psychotic people? Aren’t these Missouri Legislators the same people who think adolescents aren’t mature enough to make a decision regarding gender changing operations? If a kid isn’t mature enough to make a decision that requires consultations with doctors, lawyers and parents over a period of time, how can he be mature enough to handle a weapon that requires split second decision making in a crisis situation. There is a disconnect here this is startling.

Young people face all kinds of restrictions because there is an assumption that many underage people are immature for some adult responsibilities. A person has to be 21 years old, for example, to buy alcohol. If a 15 year old walked down the street, holding a bottle of gin, the police could arrest that child for breaking the law. Now there may be a perfectly good reason for that 15 year old to have a bottle of gin. He could be bringing it back to Mom and Dad. But because the state legislature of Missouri have decided that some people under the age of 21 aren’t mature enough to handle alcohol, all people under that age are banned. It is arbitrary. It is unfair to the under 21 who can handle alcohol reasonably. But for the safety of those under 21 and for the general public who might be adversely affected by drunk adolescents, an age barrier to alcohol purchases was made.

Everyone accepts these restrictions with nary a complaint. There may be disputes about where the line should be drawn (aged 21 or 18) but there isn’t much debate that no line should be drawn at all. Right now age, as seen by the majority of citizens in Missouri, is seen as a reasonable marker for this maturity. The same can be said for driving a car. Why then are 15 year olds who’s maturity to drink alcohol and to drive are suspect being allowed to walk the streets unsupervised by an adult with a loaded gun?

The Missouri Legislature’s action on this bill is depressing. If any restriction on gun ownership is seen as an attack on gun rights, then it is hopeless to think there is any meaningful middle ground out there. They are saying that people who are deemed insufficiently mature enough to make decisions regarding alcohol consumption and driving automobiles, are mature enough to walk down a street with an AK47. Why are they better able to handle weapons than a car and alcohol?

The thing here is I, by and large, have surrendered on gun laws. I don’t see the point if the 2nd Amendment trumps any restriction on a person’s capabilities to use guns. However, this law, to me, seemed like a no brainer. Why should an unsupervised 15 year old be walking down the street with a loaded gun. He can’t drive a car. He can’t buy alcohol. And, hey, I am to the point if he is accompanied by one of his parents or a guardian, I am perfectly willing to let him brandish his weapon. But, no, if this minor tweak of the law, which would give law enforcement in high crime areas some legal power to monitor underage gun use, is seen as an attack on the 2nd Amendment, there is simply nothing to talk about anymore. It appears that the gun lobby wants everyone armed from cradle to the grave — regardless of their ability to use guns, their maturity to make decisions and their rationality to use high caliber weapons. To the firing range we must all go.

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De Santis is worried about Drag Queens grooming children at Drag Shows so he is banning children from them. The press who live to spar with the Florida Governor have taken up his challenge. It has everything a good headline writer wants to see – sex, innocent children and controversy. Because other Republican governors have no better way to grab a nice juicy headline, they are using DeSantis method to get the attention they crave. They now are worried about Drag Queens and are banning children from attendance. Because Democratic leaders can’t stand when Republicans get headlines and they don’t, they have joined the fight in defense of Drag Queens.

DeSantis is a clever fuck. He set his little trap — just trying to defend the children of Florida — and, of course, instead of ignoring the bastard taunt’s and waiting for a better fight to engage in, the press and the Democrats go all in on the wrong issue. They will fight to death to ensure that children can see Drag Shows.

Before people get all bent out of shape, yes children should be able to go to Drag Shows if their parents want them to. I don’t have a problem with it. Yet, until DeSantis made this an issue, I doubt very much that many children were going to Drag Shows in the first place. And, if the child’s experience is anything like my experience of Drag Shows, most children will become bored with them after the small amusement of watching a man acting as a woman wears off. It isn’t child’s entertainment but not particularly dangerous either. On the other hand, banning children from drag shows isn’t likely to affect the Drag Queen’s pay nor the child’s education. It is a minor issue at best, so why has it become the hot topic of the week.

It is based on the false notion that an adult can imprint a sexual identity on a child. Drag Queens and Gays, who can’t have children of their own (which is also not true), have to find children they can groom into future Drag Queens and Gays. This isn’t happening and, even if they were, trying, the Drag Queens would lose. Nobody can guide a child into their sexual identity. We know this to be true because society, with the support of the family, the church and the community, has been unable to change people with homosexual feelings into heterosexuals for thousands of years.

So the concern for a child having a once off experience at a Drag Show and then having their whole sexual identity shaken to the core is dubious at best. This is particularly true for the 90% plus children who are identify as heterosexuals. For them, the worst case scenario would be a bit of resentment for wasting their sweet time on something that they will never use again — kind of like their feelings towards Geometry and English Grammar.

But DeSantis, at very low cost to himself, has positioned himself on the side of parents and children and the Democrats with six feet four blue haired Drag Queens with a two day beard. Drag Queens weld little power in the Republican electorate and, more importantly, large swaths of the party despise them. It is a smart move which engages the Republican base while doing little to no harm with people who are potential voters. Think about the average voter here, the ones who have never been to a Drag Show, they might be left with the question of why do Democrats want my kid to see a drag show?

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I struggle with White Privilege and White Guilt because a lot of White people think there is no reason for it. The Civil Rights movement won the battle. It is illegal to discriminate against anyone — Black, Brown or White. Now, can you kindly stop talking about it.

Why stop talking about? Do we stop talking about other historical events? Say the Revolutionary War, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War (battles only) and any other historical event. We don’t. Why is it so important for people to stop talking about Racism?

I was reminded of the reason the other day when a friend posted the following picture to Facebook.

The picture of Black teenager surrounded by a crowd of angry White women reveals everything. White people don’t want to think of Grandma as some racist thug. They want to think of her baking apple pies and reading bedtime stories. Don’t you dare take that memory away from me. The truth here is very difficult for white people because our ancestors are the villains. And that means acknowledging that Grandma might have been a racist thug.

The founders of the country, by and large, shared this prejudice. Anyone studying this country’s history needs to study this. An ideology of racial superiority was created that enabled white people to enslave Blacks and deprive them of their rights. This too is important to study. Millions of White people for hundreds of year either actively stopped Black people from being treated as their equals or did absolutely nothing to change this situation. This means, particularly for any white whose family arrived before 1965, that unless their family were known civil rights activists, their family is in some culpable in this racist enterprise. To understand our history, this too has to be examined.

I know for certain that my ancestors, all who arrived before 1870, are suspect. I know of no civil rights activists in my family’s past. I have no record of them being KKK members or belong to any racists organization so they are in that large group of Whites who did absolutely nothing to help Blacks win their rights. Their silence allowed racism to flourish. Why were they silent while Blacks were lynched and deprived of rights? This is a question worth pursuing. This means looking at racism and how it affected White people’s behavior.

It is painful. I get why people don’t want to look at it. It doesn’t fit into our nice tidy story of hardy European immigrants braving the Atlantic and hostile natives to settle our country. But, unfortunately, that story, in no way, will help you understand American History.

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I have a trick ankle that can give out for no good reason, so, even though I enjoy history, climbing through an ancient pile of rubble* presents a unique problem for me. I want to see the rubble but I also don’t want to break any bones while imbibing my whim. Even as a young man of 17, when climbing the temple steps in Teotihuacan in Mexico I saw the danger. These steps might have been suitable for the ancient Aztecs but are impossible for the modern foot. They simply do not accommodate the entire foot. This required me to either angle my foot in such a way that my foot would fit on the entire step or only using only half of my foot to push up to the next step. Either practice could easily collapse my ankle, sending me tumbling down the stone edifice. The further up the stairs I got, the more terrified I became as I stupidly turned around to see how far I’ve climbed and saw the distance I would fall. Long enough to break a lot of bones and maybe even kill me.

But nothing exceeds the pure terror of the Acropolis which combines uneven rocky pavement with terrifying heights. If I could take my time, focus on each step and climb, I think I would have been fine. The Acropolis, however, has the added danger of knowledge hungry tourists. There is a sort of pathway to the top but it is strewn with large rocks and small ones and it is all up. The further you go, the longer the fall. This is daunting enough but then you add hundreds of tourists racing around me with only one thing on their mind — getting to the top before I did. Somehow the beauty of the Acropolis is enjoyed much more if you get to the top before a struggling old man. Once I get to the top there is no time to rest enjoy the beautiful view and the old rubble. The pathways going from ruble to rubble are rocky and uneven. There are unsecured stones and pillars laying this way and that. I am questioning whether it is worth the possible danger to my body to see the ancient world. Although I did think of my million dollar idea while thinking about it — a stand renting football helmets and pads for worried travelers would give those people an added measure of security.

*Thanks to Ted Shifrin for correcting my spelling of rubble. I had ruble.

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I avoid talking about Donald Trump because he, in my opinion, is a narcissist. As long as people are talking about him, he is happy. It doesn’t matter if they say good things or bad things as long as they are talking about him. But occasionally he says something that irritates me so much, and so obviously wrong, I have to point it out in the futile hope that the people who voted for him will finally come to their senses.

So here goes. In a recent speech, Donald Trump claimed he could end the Russian war immediately with two words. So end it, I say. Why wait? Say the two magic words he thinks will end. But no, Trump is waiting. He is saving this information for a future when he might be President.

There is a lot wrong here. A secret plan is all well in good but if Trump keeps it a secret it is impossible to determine whether he even has a plan at all. It’s all locked away in his head. There is no way to determine whether he knows what he talking about or is full of shit. Not telling anyone what you are thinking is game playing at its worst. He is being positively useless it ending the war while pretending to have superior knowledge about what can be done. Thanks for absolutely nothing.

Then there is the idea that he can end a bloody and costly war with two little words and won’t do it because there is nothing in it for him. Thousands of people will die, billions of dollars will be wasted fighting the war and rebuilding the Ukraine, millions of displaced people will remain refugees while he sits on his surefire solution to a complicated problem. Not too surprisingly, his Republican allies are silent while they are trying to make cuts to balance the budget. If he could end the war, as he says he can, wouldn’t that save the American taxpayer billions and help cut costs in the budget. Of course, they would rather grumble about Medicare and Social Security. Again, thanks for nothing.

Trump needs to stop sulking and spill the beans or keep his big trap shut. But saying you can stop and war and then doing nothing is heartless and unforgivable. People are dying here.

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I have a trick ankle. It even gives out on me when I am standing still. For most of my life, it was a minor nuisance and hasn’t stopped me from traveling the world. Indeed, I have taken spills at many of the great tourist destinations with the attendant scrapes and bruises that accompany such tumbles. These were minor inconveniences and well worth suffering through to see the wonders of the world. I have reached an age when I can say I have see a lot of the world and I am now more worried about my bones than seeing the great sites. I have had to make some difficult decisions.

Uneven pavement is one of the gravest dangers for people with a trick ankle. The cobblestone street is, by far, the most uneven pavement known to man. Why people think cobblestone streets are charming is beyond me. I see a mine field. Any misplaced step on an awkwardly placed stone can send me tumbling to the rocky pavement below. There is a hugely different experience between you body falling on stones and falling on asphalt. Before I can cross a cobblestone street, I study it to find the flattest possible path across. Invariably I didn’t study the street hard enough because I find myself stranded in the middle of the road facing horribly mismatched stones and wonder what next.

Why cities continue to use these death traps is a mystery to me. Where is the charm? It is a bunch of stones, of various sizes and shapes, thrown down onto a street (see below). Why is this charming? I have been told it is history. Cobblestone streets are a part of history. Well, so are outdoor toilets and I don’t hear people clamoring to keep them to preserve the historical integrity of the neighborhood. After streetlights and electricity were integrated into the modern city, concerns regarding historical integrity were abandoned years ago. So why not consider cobblestone streets the outhouses of roads and apply a thick coat of asphalt to make these roads more walkable and safe.