By on

I am pretty much a free speech absolutist. Protecting idiots from free speech seems like a hopeless task. If some grifter is telling you to drink Clorox to prevent you from catching a disease, then I am pretty sure some day you will hear that message or a similar one and drink the Clorox. Besides the impossibility of protecting idiots, I also want to know what people are saying no matter how horrible or wrong it is. Not hearing bull shit, on the other hand, gives me the illusion that everyone in the world is in alignment with me. The ugly truth keeps me more in tune with what is actually going on.

However, this, oddly enough, still keeps me at odds with the people who endlessly whine about the horrors of cancel culture. Nobody has stopped them from talking. Yes banning incorrect and hostile speech is limiting speech. I agree. On the other hand, it clearly isn’t stopping free speech because these cancelled people or their supporters are writing incessantly about the dangers of cancel culture. The most prominent cancelled person in the world is Donald Trump. He still is talking. Journalists still are talking about what Trump says. Trump supporters still are hearing his commands. So, then, how has banning him from the Twitter cancelled him.

What people who are afraid of cancel culture are really saying is that there shouldn’t be any consequence to free speech. For example, they don’t want to be called racist or for people to boycott their businesses or for them to be removed from Twitter because of what they have said. But, isn’t that a fundamental part of free speech? You say something and then I get to react to what you say. What the anti-cancel culturers really want is to be free to say anything they want without repercussions. This is not free speech.

Cancel culture, for me, at least, has created a much more pleasant environment in which to talk. I can’t remember the last time I heard the casual use of racial or ethnic epithets. There was a time in the not so distance past when people said them openly and fearlessly. When I was 17, in the 1974, I took the El train in Chicago with my grandfather. At each stop, he would announce in a loud booming voice the ethnic group who resided near the stop. His designations were horrifyingly politically incorrect. I was mortified but nobody else seem particularly bothered by his narration and that is because there were no repercussions for the person saying them.

People wanted to be nice. I wanted to be nice. Besides, the people who used racial epithets were in every other way nice people, nothing I would say to them would change their mind. Why get into an argument with someone, particularly people who might have power over me, people like relatives or teachers or bosses, when if I can just ignore it and it kind of goes away. Until the next time. The lies we tell ourselves to keep our mouths shut.

Today people are much more careful. Most people, and that includes many people who might like to use racial epithets, know that if they use derogatory language they face consequences. Apparently, it is unpleasant to be called a racist and better to keep one’s mouth shut in order to avoid be called one. Good. I am absolutely fine with that. Let them censor themselves.

You see they are smart enough, or most of them are, to censor themselves. This means they are smart enough to know when they have slipped into racism or a topic that might be considered racist and therefore modulate their behavior accordingly. A new norm has been created about how people should talk with each other. One I much prefer because it saves me from having to hear the rubbish that comes out of their mouths. It also proves, although I suspect that they wouldn’t admit it, they do know what racism is and what is not. They are not some innocent lamb wandering into a field full of cancel culture wolves. They fully understand the situation.

In the meantime, please stop talking about how you are being cancelled. You are absolutely free to say anything you want but, now you are also aware that I don’t have to listen to your bullshit without you hearing my response. The choice is yours.

By on

I ran across the above word the other day and was completely stumped. Like I assume everyone else in the world does, I tried to figure out the meaning through the context. No luck whatsoever. I then used my reader’s dictionary. There was no Horren and no Dously. I tried to look up the word with the dash present, my reader’s dictionary, for some reason, probably user incompetence, would not allow me to look up the word with the dash in the middle.

I pondered it a little more. It came to me in a flash, it is a German phrase. Why it was German, I can not tell you but I was convinced. Well, in case you are wondering, it isn’t a German phrase, nor French for that matter. I tried rereading sentence for context again. No, I was still baffled.

In desperation, I went to Google Search where, miraculously, a word appeared but with no dash in the middle. Horrendously. I didn’t bother to read definition because it couldn’t be right, the word is Horren-dously. There is a dash in the middle. I tried google it again and I got the full word without a dash. I read the definition which was something like done badly or done appallingly.

Smug guy that I am, I thought well that can’t be right. The word Horren-dously came in the middle of the line, not the end of one line and the beginning of another line. That would be the only time I should see horrendously separated like that.

I reread the sentence yet again. The author did mean horrendously.

Damn dash.

By on

I think it is safe to say that nothing practical is being done to stop future mass shootings.

I recall when mass shootings became a more frequent occurrence that we were cautioned from getting used to the violence. People wanted to avoid normalizing mass shootings because once people thought of them as another part of every day life that people would be inured by them and lose the fight to stop them. I think we are long past this point. I know I am.

I haven’t the faintest idea what to do about mass shootings given the realities of our political system. I once thought that reasonable gun laws would solve the problem. By reasonable, I mean making it illegal to own a semi-automatic weapon. I understand and can accept hunting rifles for sport and hand guns for self-defense but semi-automatic weapons we could all agree served no useful purpose for the general population. Apparently, I was wrong. Gun laws can’t be passed and, at this point, seem irrelevant. How are you going to get the semi-automatic weapons already out there without starting a violent reaction from semi-automatic owners. Yet, after each shooting, this becomes the big push from my friends on the left. Despite the absolute certainty that these gun laws are doomed.

If gun control is dead, at least it was designed with the problem in mind. Limit the number of guns in circulation and then you would limit the number of shootings. The right can only offer bromides which which make them feel good but are essentially unserious solutions. The basic premise is that people are the problem and not the gun. There is a certain degree of sense in that notion but then it leaves unanswered how do we stop people from engaging in mass shootings.

What options do my friends on the right offer? They identify it as a mental health problem. But, then, what is the mental health solution?Nothing is offered but the right’s standard concerns regarding modern society? Bible reading, banning violent movies and violent video games, arming everyone to the hilt so they can fight back. If you say every American is free to have a semi-automatic weapon how can you very well force people to read the bible? Your belief in freedom is at war with itself. Also, I believe that some Bible readers have actually been inspired to try their hand at mass shootings after perusing the good book, so Bible reading is hardly a fool-proof solution but potentially dangerous.

I can only laugh when someone suggests that the violence in video games and movies are the problem. They are saying that images of violence are more dangerous than the weapon itself. Aside from being almost impossible to implement, it is demonstrably false — almost every country in the world sees the same violent images without the same result. And you can’t use the excuse of gun access because there are many different ways of killing someone available to these gunless citizens — poison, knives, automobiles and so forth. If the images of violence caused people to kill wouldn’t we also see more non gun murders in those countries? This is clearly not a serious solution.

Arming everyone so they can fight back is an interesting possibility but we already know it isn’t going to work. I know this because we have a well-armed population now. Why aren’t all these well-armed men with guns stopping mass shootings today? Could it be that most people don’t really have the confidence to engage in a gun fight with a crazy man? It’s more than just shooting a gun, it may be finding the guy when you hear shots, it might be the gunman has a hostage, it might be hundreds of different scenarios that complicate a situation which puts an untrained person in a terrible situation. Well-trained professionals make the wrong decisions under this type of pressure, and you want Joe Citizen to coolly kill a gunman. It is possible but, as we have seen, not a very likely outcome. Finally, what about the gunmen. I know they aren’t the most sympathetic of characters but, at least for me, it isn’t always a showdown between good guys and bad guys; sometimes it is really a good guy facing a schizophrenic off his medication. I would like to think we have a better way of dealing with crazy people than letting the person breakdown and shoot innocent victims until someone can stop him by killing him. But, then, need I remind you, I was completely wrong about gun laws.

So, where does, this leave us. Nowhere really. We all know another mass shooting is coming and no one is making a credible attempt to stop them. Mass shootings have become just another accepted part of modern American life. A terrible inconvenience that comes up every once in awhile. The only thing you can do about it is hope you or someone you love aren’t in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that, my friends, is the terrible truth.

By on

I recently saw a film clip from last year of Bill Maher comparing the U.S and China. Here is the link: https://www.thewrap.com/bill-maher-china-dominating-us/ China, of course, comes out on top. Maher’s comparison was akin to the praise that European fans of Mussolini gave “At least the trains run on time.” You see, the Chinese are getting things done while the US is mired in trivial disputes. Well, yeah thats what happens when you have a democracy. Democracies are messy businesses because democracies care about their people and have to hear from them before making a move. In China some autocrat makes a decision. Nobody gets to disagree or question it. The Chinese just do what they are told.

Maher did suggest that there might be some middle way between our present chaotic and efficient democracy and the Chinese dictatorship. But what is that middle way? It would have been helpful if Maher had chosen a democracy that is getting things done instead of a dictatorship that is getting things done. With a democracy I could see if he had something to say and an idea of how to make things better. Instead he raves about China. Yes, China. The China that locks people into their apartment blocks, the China that uses Uyghurs as slave labor, the China that is shutting down democracy in Hong Kong, the China that is threatening democratic Taiwan, the China that builds cities where no one wants to live? That is, indeed, the China Maher is talking about.

What’s really frustrating is that I keep hearing the similar comments from a lot of smart people. Particularly, since the reason they are giving up is they believe that the other half of the country are numbskulls undeserving of democracy. They are not going to waste their time persuading idiots to change their minds. This willingness to forego democratic institutions for dictatorial edicts because I am right is troubling. It is as simple as that — I am right and they are wrong. Which is all good and well as long as the dictator agrees with you, but what if he doesn’t.

Another argument is that our democracy isn’t really a perfect democracy. A minority has taken hold of our institutions through antidemocratic processes ( the Electoral College, the Senate, gerrymandering, the filibuster) and that the only way to change them is through dictatorial edict. I agree that the present system is unfair but it is still the system. A system that is difficult to change. Next to impossible to change unless your party elects a President, controls the House, has a super-majority in the Senate, controls a super-majority of the individual states legislatures, and has a working majority on the Supreme Court. And then, and only then, can you think about making big changes to the rules. And even if you have control of all of these institutions, even then, it will be really difficult to get all the changes you want enacted.

So barring a revolution, there is no way a lot of these processes are going to change soon. I hear those mutterers who believe that maybe a revolution is in order here, at least until we can change to a fairer system. Revolutions are bloody and acrimonious and, given the divisions in this country, comes with very real difficulties that does real harm to good people on both sides of the divide. You may think you want a civil war but you really don’t and, unlike the last civil war, there will be two sides who could possess nuclear weapons. Think about it. Who gets the nuclear weapons in this divorce? It may depend on where those warheads are located.

So let’s stop talking about revolution and dictatorships and support democratic institutions because even unfair ones are better than dictatorships. A good example of the benefit of democratic institutions is the storming of the capital on January 6. The rebels thought they could stop the process and change the result of an election. Much to the dismay of the rebels, possessing the capital building, only delayed the process. Enough good people at various points did the right thing and saved us. Keep in the mind this wasn’t one person acting heroically. It was many different people seeing what the right thing to do was and behaving responsibly. A lot of people, with varying degrees of power, following the rule of law, made the decisions for us. This is the biggest strength of democracy. We all play a part and, if change comes, the matter has gone through a lot of duplicate, chaotic and often unnecessary processes but the people have had their say.

Can our democracy be better? Undoubtedly. If Maher has any suggestions on how to make these changes through democratic means, I am all ears. But China is neither a fair comparison nor particularly relevant. China is not a democracy and we can glean little from studying their processes. That they can put up a building overnight is neither something to value nor emulate if it came about from the whim of one person.

This leaves us with a difficult and a messy bunch of often unfair democratic institutions that we need to plow through in order to make changes. Democracy is extremely hard work and, if you are looking for quick changes, it is likely to meet with failure more often than not. Democracy is neither efficient nor particularly fast. It is certainly messy but in the end it is always better than a dictatorship. And I mean always.

By on

During the 2008 Presidential Election, I talked with a man who thought Barrack Obama was a Muslim. I tried to correct him. He didn’t believe me. Several friends joined the conversation but nothing anyone said would change the man’s mind. I don’t know why we we pursued the matter because I knew from the start it was hopeless. This didn’t stop me from trying. I thought it was important that he understood that Obama wasn’t a Muslim. This was a lie and, as long as he understood that was a lie, he was free to vote for anyone he wanted. Of course, I failed miserably. He still believed Obama was a Muslim when our conversation ended.

This experience was quite frustrating. I don’t mind someone disagreeing with me as long as we are working with the same facts. But instead of arguing about what a fact means, we were arguing on what a fact was. I took Obama at his word that he was a Christian. The other man believed what someone mistakenly told him on the internet. We both believed our facts even though both couldn’t be true. How can you have an honest argument when you can choose your facts?

This explosion of conflicting facts has people wanting to keep misinformation from reaching the public. Can we stop the spread of false information? More importantly, should we stop the spread of false information? The world be a better place if people heard only the truth but how can we do it in such a way that our civil liberties are protected?

It when I reach that last question where I begin to feel differently about removing lies from public debates.

In my attempt to persuade my acquaintance that Obama wasn’t a Muslim, I gave him new and accurate information. The truth, however, and unfortunately, didn’t change his mind. The shining light of truth is no match for the closed mind. The truth quite simply didn’t matter. The answer, however, isn’t keeping the lie from the close mind. The internet isn’t the only source of misinformation. Humans have been spreading lies for thousands of years without the help of modern technology. Keeping lies off the internet only stops the speed, not the spread.

What, then, is the advantage of keeping lies off the internet. The lie doesn’t go away peacefully. The lie is still there waiting for someone to pick it up and carry it to a new person. Wouldn’t it be better to know the lie and be able to battle the lie instead of keeping a lie from the closed mind?

Don’t Social Media companies have a responsibility to the public to have truthful information on their sites? I am torn here. Do they? Isn’t Social Media supposed to be the town square? Facebook is offering a place to talk and not a court room for evaluating truth. Social Media companies presently police their squares for bad behavior. It is primarily a passive monitoring and works best when people are misbehaving. People prone to offense will always find something to be offended about. The Social Media police are kept busy evaluating these infractions.

Even this minimal policing has troublesome aspects. Who is monitoring? What do they believe? Where do they draw the line as opposed to someone else who holds a different set of beliefs? How much harm can a lie do versus how much damage does it do to not hear the truth. Don’t get me wrong lies are harmful. I would prefer that everyone tell the truth. That just isn’t realistic. Lies are always going to happen as long as humans are involved. We can only respond with the truth whenever a lie arises. To tell the truth, I must know the truth.

I can live with closed minded people reading lies on the internet as long as I get the truth as well. In order to insure this happens, I’m afraid the lies must be heard as well as the truth.

By on

I remember the good old days when I drank fluids without the foggiest notion of where the restroom was. I could reasonably gauge when I needed one and had a good fifteen minutes or so before I needed one. Not any more. If I start drinking, I need to know that a restroom is nearby because I have lost any excess time to go searching for one. Once I feel the need to pee, I desperately must reach that toilet within seconds. At night, this is particularly dangerous for my poor toes as I groggily race from my sound sleep to the bathroom for relief. For some reason, probably the not unreasonable fear that I am about to pee my pants, my toes bump into anything that might be in the way — slow moving cats, cabinet feet, improperly stored shoes — all become obstacles in my desperate journey to the bathroom.

Don’t drink before bed, you say. This would have been an option say 10 years ago, however, I am a man of a certain age when keeping the body together requires a certain amount of medication. Some of those pills need to be taken before bed, some of these prescriptions even advise a full glass of water with the pill. How do you hydrate and not urinate, I ask you?

By on

Governor DeSantis thinks that Florida teachers are in the business of sexual indoctrination. It isn’t happening but it’s scaring a lot of people needlessly which is precisely what DeSantis wants.

The most important thing to remember is that it isn’t happening. But instead of saying this over and over again, the people who oppose this law are saying “Don’t Say Gay.” But what is meant here is that a teacher might have to explain to a 2nd grader why Johnny has two mommies. What I fear some parents are thinking instead is why on earth do teachers need to say gay to 2nd graders. Let me repeat yet again, no one is explaining the joys of gay sex to 2nd Graders, or any sex, for that matter. It is a divisive political tool and nothing more. The law is not giving children any extra protection from being indoctrinated because no one is trying to indoctrinate them.

If there was indoctrination going on, and I can’t say this often enough — there isn’t, it would fail miserably. If your child identifies as a heterosexual, then no amount of indoctrination will change that. None. Zero. Nada. It will not happen.

The reason I know that is, as a gay man, I went through years of heterosexual indoctrination and still turned out gay. Even though the whole social structure I grew up in supports heterosexual relationships, even though the art I saw idealized heterosexual love, even though the religion I grew up only recognized heterosexual marriage, despite the fact the almost everyone I knew was heterosexual and I desperately wanted to heterosexual, I turned out gay.

There was also a strong social stigma against being gay. I grew up with a very real fear, unfounded thankfully, that every person I know and loved could turn against me if the learned I was gay. I could be fired from jobs for being gay. I could be arrested for being gay. Straight boys could get away with beating up a gays by saying the gay guy made a pass at him. Or the gay guy wouldn’t press charges because he somehow felt he deserved it. Still, despite all of the social support for heterosexuality and all the social pressure against being gay, I turned out gay.

You can’t make someone gay. Overbearing mothers don’t make you gay nor does distant fathers nor does playing with dolls or being a tomboy or any of a million different explanations. Right now, the only explanation, and I hate to quote Lady Gaga here, is that people are born that way and thus unable to change no matter how hard you try. This would also mean that heterosexuals are born that way as well. No amount of indoctrination is going to change someone’s sexual identity.

For DeSantis to claim that the Florida schools have been turned into sexual indoctrination centers is more than a little disingenuous. He is using gays, a group that doesn’t vote for him and is proportionately a small part of the Florida electorate, as a straw man. He wants to frighten parents into thinking that Florida teachers are trying to make their children gay or transgender.

I would ask him what the Florida teachers are actually doing to indoctrinate children.

Are they telling heterosexual children they are going to Hell just because they are heterosexual?

Are they forcing conversion therapy on heterosexual children? Which is, by the way, still legal in Florida and he supports. Parents can force their children to undergo this therapy against the wishes of the child. I am curious does this mean it would be OK for a parent to use conversion therapy on their heterosexual child to make them gay? If a parent can dictate their child’s preferred sexual identification, why not?

Are they forcing heterosexual children to take medication that makes them vomit when they see heterosexual pornography so that the child will learn to hate heterosexual sex? Or do they use electric shock therapy to stop children from being aroused by heterosexual sex?

Do they punish boys who like to play with trucks? What about girls who like to play with dolls?

If DeSantis really wanted to stop the indoctrination of children’s sexual identity, he might ponder making conversion therapy illegal and let the Florida teachers get back to their actual jobs of teaching reading, writing and arithmetic.

By on

Whenever I hear people saying if only children could pray in the schools, America would be a better place. They assume that forcing children to pray in school will somehow make them religious in the future. As someone who experienced twelve years of Catholic schools where prayer, religious ceremonies and religious instructions were all a part of the daily schedule, I can assure you that this rigorous adherence to prayer and religious faith in no way guarantees a Christian when this education ends. I have no desire be a Christian.

The religious training I received was boring, incoherent, and, whenever the questions got difficult, fell to stop asking all these questions and believe whatever I am telling you. Daily Mass was bore number one. If you want to turn a kid off religion, there is nothing better than daily Mass to do the trick. Mostly because it was daily. At some point, someone realized it was counter productive to force children, particularly small children, to sit quietly in Mass and listen to a religious service that had little meaning to them and so they went to a three days a week Mass schedule. By the time I graduated 8th grade, I think we were down to once a week. The teachers spent most of the Mass maintaining order among their unruly charges while the priest raced through the Mass in order to end, as quickly as possible, everyone’s misery. My fondest memories of Mass was that they sometimes served Long Johns (maple bars and chocolate bars) afterwards.

I attended St. Pius X grade school. One of St Pius X greatest achievements while he was pope was he lowered the age when a person could receive first communion. Children, if willing, could now participate in the sacraments. A fact that we were reminded about on a frequent basis. How lucky we were that we could become Catholics so young. Which is why I learned to curse Pope Pius X’s name because instead of limiting religious training to those few 7 year olds who freely choose to be Catholic, the Church, after Pius X, assumed that every child attending first grade would receive the sacraments whether they liked it or not. I guess I could have objected and the whole process would have stopped. But who is going to listen to a 7 year old concerning his religious commitment. They were in the business of making Catholics and no child was going to stop them from their duty.

Particularly troublesome for me was Communion. The whole idea seemed weird to me. The priest changed a piece of bread into the body of Jesus. I couldn’t figure out why. Really. Why are they doing this? Why did the church think it was so important to change a piece of bread into the body of Jesus Christ? More importantly, why did I have to eat Jesus’ body after the priest made the change? I was assured that one day it would make sense to me. I am still waiting.

Then there was Confirmation. Why? The only thing I could figure out is it allowed me to meet the archbishop of our diocese and I got to choose my confirmation name. Except my mother wouldn’t let me. My mother insisted my name was too long as it was. For those of you who don’t know, my name is Thomas Bartholomew Fitzpatrick. She insisted that my confirmation name be Bartholomew because of that. I tried to argue the point. In my confirmation training I was encouraged to find a saint who I resonated with. I reviewed the Lives of the Saints and found my saint. It was pointless. My mother, of course, won the argument and so all I really got from the whole Confirmation thing was a handshake from the Archbishop.

Too prepare for all these sacraments, most of the first four years of religion training was reviewing the Baltimore Catechism. The book outlined the important Catholic beliefs in a question/response format. By that I mean the book had a question: Who is Satan and then the book gave you the Catholic Church’s approved response to the question. If anyone in authority ever asked you a question about your faith, all you had to do is give the canned response from the Baltimore Catechism. Since I was good at memorization, I was golden. But I can’t say that I had a good sense of what the Catholic Church was about. In fact, soon after being confirmed, I promptly forgot everything I learned because someone older and wiser, perhaps my older brother or sister, informed me that no one will ever ask you a question from the Baltimore Catechism again. I, in case you are wondering, can confirm this to be true. I have yet to have anyone ask me a question that required a response from the Baltimore Catechism.

After twelve years of Catholic education, all I really I took from this time is a vague fear of Hell, a hatred of Confession, a difficultly staying awake during Mass, an unhealthy attachment to personal suffering and a pretty good recollection of biblical stories. Of these, only my recollection of biblical stories has helped me in real life as Biblical questions occasionally comes up in trivia contests. Faith, however, eluded me. I never quite developed any faith. I even asked my parents if I could stop going to church as I really wasn’t believing it. My parents declined my proposal and assured me that some day down the road, faith would come to me in some moment of need. I needed to continue with religion and religious education in order to prepare myself for this eventuality. As long as I lived with them, I had to go to church.

This might work for some people. It, however, was the worst possible way to persuade me. What I have discovered its that people either have religious sentiments or don’t. If you don’t, no amount of prayer is going to change that. In the 4th grade I remember a fellow student telling me he didn’t believe in God or any of this Catholic shit. I was amazed because, even though I had similar sentiments, I was confident that my parents were right. At some point in my life, it would all make sense to me. All I had to do was wait. I had no definite opinions on God one way or the other, but my friend definitively told me, “I don’t believe in God.” Think about it. After four years of Catholic education, in disagreement with his parents, his teachers and society as a whole, at ten years of age, he came to this conclusion. It is a feeling deep inside of him. You either have it or you don’t.

My parents wanted their children to be Catholics. In order to insure this outcome, they sent, at some expense, their five children to Catholic schools. The Church failed miserably. Zero Catholics out of five. I am sure there are better outcomes out there but I am betting those results had very little to do with prayer in the school or Catholic education. I once was arguing with my mother about God and I finally asked her, “What do you want from me?” She replied, “To get you to heaven.” I thought will this is impossible then. In her eyes, you are either Catholic or hell bound. For her, I was hell bound. How horrible to do everything possible to make your children Catholic and to fail. You won’t share eternity with your children because they rejected the Catholic faith. It was at this point I turned irretrievably against the Catholic Church. All I could think, and still think to this day, what a horrible religion. I understand that the Catholic Church is less strident about such ideas these day. Well good, it is, unfortunately, too late for my mother.

Pray with your children. Give your children a Christian education if you wish. Just don’t count on having a Christian when you are done.

By on

The Ukrainians, for now, have stopped the Russians. They have done a much better job than I, or, for that matter, a bunch of better-connected experts, believed possible.

Putin, however, is still president of Russia. He is angry and hurt that a less powerful nation knocked the socks off his nuclear power, one of the largest armies in the world nation. He needs a face saving way out of the mess he has made. Barring the remote, but still possible Russian coup, there are few possible face saving events that would stop the bloodshed in the Ukraine and leave Putin looking like a hero to his people. According to the experts, while keeping in mind that the experts have been mostly wrong about the war so far, is that Putin is about to turn his canons onto Eastern Ukraine and try to bomb it into submission. So more war, more bloodshed for the Ukrainians because Putin needs to look like a winner even though he is a loser.

What to do? The whole world, including Putin’s nominal allies in Belarus and China, now know him to be a liar and a loser and just all around asshole. The world knows the Ukrainians won the war. Well, not everyone. The Russians who have not been exposed to western media probably don’t know the Ukrainians have won the war. If the war continues, there is no guarantee that the Russians will perform any better than they have to date. Perhaps Putin could be persuaded that to save his nation any further humiliation, the world will let him claim victory as long as he stays within his borders. Since, at this point, the Russians are the only people who need to be convinced Putin is the winner, can’t we all agree to just tell the Russians they have won the war.

Now, before you get all grumpy about this, give me a hearing.

Even though the Ukrainians have beaten the Russians soundly, they have been bloodied by the war. It would be better if the war was over. The world outside of Russia knows the truth, only the Russians would be kept in the dark. Let’s face it, the Russians are used to being lied to by their government. It is nothing new. The wise ones would figure it out, and the rest would think Putin is a winner and that’s all that matters. Putin can even say he has decided to be magnanimous with the Ukrainians by allowing them to keep their government. Putin saves face. The Ukrainians can start rebuilding their war torn country. The refugees could return. The war would be over.

It would take some co-ordination but I think the citizens of the world could agree to this little white lie to save the Ukrainians any further suffering.

By on

A lot of people in California are talking about the homeless. The homeless population is growing. The homeless used to be invisible but now are visible to an uncomfortable degree. Because of this, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore them. They are annoying. They beg for money. They go through trashcans sometimes not even extending the courtesy of waiting for you to return to your home. They defecate on the streets. Their camps occupy block after block of city streets. They sometimes are angry. They are sometimes crazy. They are scary. They are making the California urban experience pretty unpleasant.

Californians are asking what can we do about the homeless? When anyone is ever pressed for a solution, though, they shrug their shoulders. There is no solution. Which isn’t exactly true. There are no cheap solutions.

Every solution, no matter where it comes from (Right, Left, Center), has the same glaring flaw. Money.

Some people want to jail them. Except this means we will need more police, more judges, more prisons. Plus there is the irony, particularly for people who don’t like spending money on the poor, that the tax payer ends up both housing the homeless and feeding them. No matter, it is a moot point. Despite the great satisfaction many people would have in rounding up the homeless and sending them to prison, there is no money for it.

Some people want to take care of the homeless which seems like the most humane way to handle them but, of course, housing costs money. Money for property buildings, money for property managers, money to maintain buildings. The rents will probably be supplemented by the government. All of this means money.

Some people want to address the psychiatric and/or drug problems that some of the homeless have. This requires hospitals, doctors, nurses, and social workers, all of which costs money.

You can see the problem here. It is money. Few people want to spend money on the homeless. I learned this first hand once when I had a conversation with a neighbor about the hepatitis epidemic which began in the homeless population. It had spilled over into the general population, so the city was trying to take action to stop the spread. My neighbor discovered a homeless man defecating on a sidewalk in our neighborhood. After filling me in on how he gave that particular piece of vermin a piece of his mind, he went on to fulminate about the city proposing a new tax that would provide more public restrooms for the homeless. He couldn’t understand why he should have to pay more taxes so the homeless would have restrooms. I thought I had a reasonable argument for him. I ventured, well, if there were more public toilets maybe he wouldn’t have to worry about homeless people defecating on the sidewalk. I was wrong. He would rather watch the neighborhood himself and chase away any offenders when necessary than pay more taxes. Mind you this was during a hepatitis epidemic. The city was washing down the streets with clorox.

So, the real problem here is we don’t have a way of raising the money that can address the needs of our homeless population. They are comparatively small group of citizens, don’t vote and seem completely overwhelmed by their circumstances to organize themselves into an effective political unit. This means that it is unlikely that any money is going to be funneled in their direction. In the meantime, we are left with the homeless.