Category Archives: Humanity

A prayer of peace for these troubled times.

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I found this beautiful and comforting. “Elohai neshamah shenatata bi tehorah hi” is the beginning of a traditional prayer recited upon awakening – it translates roughly as “God, the soul You have given me is pure.”

For some background, the full Hebrew prayer is below, found here:

Elohai n’shamah shenatata bi t’horah hi.My God, the soul You have given me is pure.
Atah v’rataH,For You created it,
atah y’tzartaH,You formed it,
atah n’fachtaH bi,You made it live within me [breathed it into me].
v’atah m’shamraH b’kirbi,And you watch over / preserve it within me,
v’atah atid lit’laH mimeni ul’hachaziraH bi leatid lavo.and/but one day, You will take it from me and restore it in the time to come.
Kol z’man shah-n’shamah b’kirbiAs long as the soul is within me,
modeh/modah ani l’fanecha¹I will give thanks to Your face/presence
Adonai elohai veilohei avotai,My Lord God of Gods of the generations before me,
she’atah hu ribbon kol ha-ma’asim,to You who are the power of good deeds,
mosheil b’chol ha-b’riot,the Ruler of all creatures,
adon kol ha-n’shamot.the Master Craftsman of every soul.
Baruch atah Adonai, ha-machazir n’shamot ha-meitim.Blessed are You God, giving souls to the dead.

It is interesting to me that this prayer by Rabbi Keller reflects a core plot point in The Chosen, the seminal novel by Chaim Potok. In it, one of the protagonists is raised by his father, a rabbi, in silence (i.e. without non-essential communication or fatherly affection). The father later goes on to explain:

“Ah, what a price to pay…. The years when he was a child and I loved him and talked with him and held him under my tallis when I prayed…. ‘Why do you cry, Father?’ he asked me once under the tallis. ‘Because people are suffering,’ I told him. He could not understand. Ah, what it is to be a mind without a soul, what ugliness it is…. Those were the years he learned to trust me and love me…. And when he was older, the years I drew myself away from him. ‘Why have you stopped answering my questions, Father?’ he asked me once. ‘You are old enough to look into your own soul for the answers,’ I told him. He laughed once and said, “That man is such an ignoramus, Father.’ I was angry. ‘Look into his soul,’ I said. ‘Stand inside his soul and see the world through his eyes. You will know the pain he feels because of his ignorance, and you will not laugh.’ He was bewildered and hurt. The nightmares he began to have…. But he learned to find answers for himself. He suffered and learned to listen to the suffering of others. In the silence between us, he began to hear the world crying.“

This novel, and this passage in particular, always touched me deeply. I was moved to hear the sentiment expressed in a modern prayer for peace, but also for compassion and compassionate action.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Footnotes:

¹ This line reflects the prayer Modeh/Moda ani, which is recited upon awakening and before getting out of bed. “As this prayer does not include any of the names of God, observant Jews may recite it before washing their hands.” In Talmudic times, Jews traditionally recited Elohai Neshamah upon waking. The prayer was later moved to the morning synagogue services. (Wikipedia)

Pro-trump propaganda: A rebuttal (Long)

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Warning! Wall of Text!

This post crossed my screen a couple of weeks ago, and after a bit of research I discovered it’s being shared across multiple channels on Facebook and elsewhere. It’s so outrageous in its content that I couldn’t sleep much last night, so I was compelled in the name of decency to offer a fact-based rebuttal. I won’t name and shame the author, because that’s not my privilege, but it’s out there if you want to search for it. Original text in italics, my responses follow.

𝐼’𝑚 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑘𝑠 𝑑𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑝 𝑎𝑑𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛. 𝑆𝑜 𝐼 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝐼’𝑑 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠.

“Whining” about the Trump administration is, more properly stated, resisting autocracy, oligarchy, and a rising tide of fascism that needs to be fought at every turn. Consider these points:

  1. 𝐴𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒 (𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑗𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓) 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑚𝑖𝑑𝑑𝑙𝑒 𝑐𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑. 𝑊𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑐 𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑑𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑏𝑢𝑡𝑒.

Donald Trump has absolutely no mandate, given that 75,019,230 Americans voted for reason, sanity, and compassion instead of madness and oligarchy. Trump’s 77,303,568 votes constitute a razor-thin margin of 1.48%, or 2,284,338 people – less than the population of Houston, Texas.¹

In our nation, Republican-leaning states take more in federal dollars than they contribute, where Democratic-leaning states provide more tax revenue to the nation than they get back, so please don’t tell us that Republicans are “pulling the economic weight in this country.”²

  1. 𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑛’𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑦, 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑎 𝑗𝑜𝑏. 𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑖𝑠 ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔. 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑜. 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑑𝑣𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛. 𝐼𝑡’𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑚𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡.

More than 1/3 of Americans have a second job or side-hustle just to survive.³ In 2020, 4.1% of our nation was classified as “working poor,” people who have jobs but still fall below the poverty line.⁴ The old GOP line about “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” is a cruel philosophy that leads to things like opposing the cancellation of student debt. “I had to pay off mine, why should other [implied: undeserving] people sponge off my taxes?” In Romanian, they say “să moară și capra vecinului” (may the neighbor’s goat die too), expressing a desire for others to suffer if you cannot thrive yourself, a feeling that is inherently worse than Schadenfreude.⁵ “Wage theft is a costly and pervasive problem that affects millions of workers across the country. For example, Cooper and Kroeger (2017) investigated just one type of wage theft (minimum wage violations) and found that in the 10 most populous states in the country, 17% of eligible low-wage workers reported being paid less than the minimum wage, amounting to 2.4 million workers losing $8 billion annually. Extrapolating from these 10 states, Cooper and Kroeger estimated that workers throughout the country lose $15 billion annually from minimum wage violations alone.”⁶ “According to the Economic Policy Institute, wage theft costs U.S. workers as much as $50 billion per year — a number far higher than all robberies, burglaries and motor vehicle thefts combined.”⁷

  1. 𝑈𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎 𝑈.𝑆. 𝐶𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑛, 𝑜𝑟 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑙𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑦 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑎 𝑈.𝑆. 𝐶𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑔𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑑! 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑓𝑎𝑣𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑙 𝑠𝑎𝑦𝑠.

The fact that you don’t care what “liberal media channels” say doesn’t change reality. American citizens are being caught up in Donald Trump’s sweep for undocumented immigrants. It’s happening, it will continue to happen as long as ICE is given carte blanche by the current administration and MAGA-dominated Congress.⁸

  1. 𝑇𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎 𝑏𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑝. 𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑠, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑏𝑎𝑙𝑙. 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡’𝑠 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑟𝑒.

International trade is not a zero-sum game. You don’t have to have a winner and a loser – the best deals are made when everyone wins. Sadly, Donald Trump – and hence MAGA – believe something entirely different: “You hear lots of people say that a great deal is when both sides win,” he writes in Think Big and Kick Ass, co-authored with Bill Zanker of the Learning Annex. “That is a bunch of crap. In a great deal you win — not the other side. You crush the opponent and come away with something better for yourself.” To “crush the other side and take the benefits,” he declares, is “better than sex — and I love sex.”⁹ In other words, it’s not enough for Donald Trump to win – 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑒𝑙𝑠𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑒. Treat business collaborations or international relations in this cruel and narcissistic manner and you will only generate one thing – massive resentment and a decreased desire to do any business in the future. That’s not winning – it’s self-sabotage in the long run.

  1. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑙 𝑅𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝐴𝑐𝑡 𝑜𝑓 1964 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑏𝑦 𝑎𝑔𝑒, 𝑠𝑒𝑥, 𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒, 𝑒𝑡𝑐. 𝐷𝐸𝐼 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠. 𝐷𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑠 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑢𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑣𝑜𝑡𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒.

If you think the Civil Rights Act has eliminated racism in America, you are living on your veranda, sipping mint juleps while the “darkies” work happily in the fields. The Brookings Institute, writing about systemic racism in America, said “The reality of this history has been on stark display in recent weeks. From the terrible killings of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, to the countless, untold acts of racism that take place every day across America, these are the issues that are defining the moment—just as our response will define who we are and will be in the 21st century and beyond. Truly, the very nature of our “national soul” is at stake, and we all have a deep responsibility to be a part of the solution.”¹⁰

“At this point, it’s evident that DEI has become interchangeable with a less socially acceptable racial slur” – specifically, the “N-word.”¹¹ And sadly, discrimination across the board which remains endemic in our society and which Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity, and DEI attempt to combat includes not just people of color but women and all sorts of minorities as well.

  1. 𝐼𝑡’𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡’𝑠 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑦, 𝑖𝑡’𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑦. 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑏𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝑑𝑎𝑚𝑛 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑡.

This is 100% true – and it’s why Trump and Company want to eliminate all financial oversight, such as the elimination of organizations like Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.¹²

  1. 𝑊𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝐵𝑎𝑛𝑘. 𝐼𝑓 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑠. 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑛𝑦 ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑒𝑓 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑦 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑎 𝑜𝑟 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎.

Despite the fact that Colin Turnbull’s analysis of the Ik in his book 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑀𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑃𝑒𝑜𝑝𝑙𝑒 has widely been discredited, Lewis Thomas in his seminal work 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝐶𝑒𝑙𝑙 wrote: “For total greed, rapacity, heartlessness, and irresponsibility there is nothing to match a nation. Nations, by law, are solitary, self-centred, withdrawn into themselves…. They bawl insults from their doorsteps, defecate into whole oceans, snatch all the food, survive by detestation, take joy in the bad luck of others, celebrate the death of others, live for the death of others.”¹³

America is not an island, and as the world’s wealthiest nation we have done more than our fair share to assist the global community in many ways, which is only right and proper. The Brookings institute soundly refutes many myths about foreign aid, including “America spends too much on foreign aid,”(foreign assistance is less than 1 percent of the federal budget), “Others don’t do their fair share,” (There is a broad international commitment that wealthy countries should provide annually 0.7 percent of GNP to assist poor countries. Five countries (Norway, Sweden, Luxembourg, Denmark, and the U.K.) exceed that benchmark. The average for all wealthy nations is around 0.4 percent. The U.S. ranks near the bottom at below 0.2 percent), and “U.S. foreign aid is mainly backed by Democrats” (Foreign aid historically has been viewed more as a Democratic than Republican program. The Marshall Plan was initiated by the Truman administration, and in the 1990s, when votes in the Congress on foreign aid spending were close, the appropriations bill garnered more Democratic than Republican votes. But every president, Democratic and Republican, until the current occupant of the White House, has been a strong proponent of foreign assistance. In fact, some of the most rapid increases in foreign aid have come during Republican presidencies)¹⁴

The shuttering of USAID will literally kill people, and it’s unbelievably cruel and xenophobic. “The Roman Catholic Church’s worldwide charity arm sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s cuts to U.S. foreign aid on Monday, saying his plans to end funding for relief agency USAID will have a “catastrophic” impact in the developing world. ‘The ruthless and chaotic way this callous decision is being implemented threatens the lives and dignity of millions,” Caritas Internationalis, a Vatican-based confederation of 162 Catholic relief, development and social services organisations working in more than 200 countries, said in a statement.'”¹⁵

  1. 𝐷𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑎𝑏𝑦, 𝑑𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑙. 𝑊𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑦? 𝐵𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑤𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑖𝑡. 𝐴𝑟𝑒 𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐 𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒? 𝑁𝑜𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑖𝑙 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑙𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑢𝑚, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑔𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑠? 𝐶ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑎. 𝑊𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑓𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛? 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑛. 𝐴𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑜𝑖𝑙, 𝑔𝑎𝑠, 𝑐𝑜𝑎𝑙, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑛𝑢𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟. 𝑈𝑛𝑖𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑛 𝑓𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑙𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑤𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑝𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑟!

First of all, your data is incorrect. The world’s leader in lithium production is Australia, followed by Chile. China is only third.¹⁶ Your quote about unicorn farts and liberal tears sounds like something you’d hear on Breitbart or OAN or Fox News, and is petty and childish. Europe is the world’s leader in replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources, and is on track to reach a target of a 42.5% share of renewables by 2030.¹⁷ It can be done if the social and political will is there, but in the USA the fossil-fuel lobby is immensely wealthy and powerful, and our legislators receive massive amounts of money to ensure that renewable energy is consistently sidelined in favor of more drilling and coal digging.¹⁸

For what it’s worth, it’s worth mentioning in the service of full disclosure:

    O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O
     THIS POST MOVED STICKY BLACK FILTH FROM THE BOWELS
        OF THE EARTH, AND SET IT ON FIRE IN YOUR AIR
    O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O O=c=O

On the other hand, 15% of my energy consumption comes from a solar farm in Maine, and similarly did for many years in Utah thanks to their Blue Sky program. It can be done, and people who care about our environment will continue to fight the fossil fuel industries’ dominance.

One point on which we agree: Nuclear power has been given a bad rap, and we need more of it – along with increased research and development on how to reduce or treat nuclear ash.

  1. 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠, 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑡.

R. Buckminster Fuller, one of the world’s greatest forward thinkers and the inventor of the geodesic dome, had a philosophy that came to be known as the “World Game” – “Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.”¹⁹ Historically, progressives have aligned themselves with this concept in various ways, while regressives – those in favor of preserving a world where only the wealthy and influential have rights – have sought to accumulate power and build walls to keep the “unworthy” out.

A big subset of MAGA today are evangelical Christians who wear their religion on their sleeves, who in the words of Paul the Apostle are “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” (New Testament, 2 Timothy 3:5)

Russell Moore, long one of the top officials in the Southern Baptist Convention, said “Well, it was the result of having multiple pastors tell me essentially the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount parenthetically in their preaching – turn the other cheek – to have someone come up after and to say, where did you get those liberal talking points? And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would not be, I apologize. The response would be, yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak. And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”²⁰

It is only the feelings of people – whether from doing their best to follow the teachings of Jesus, or from a humanistic sense of wanting the best for the greatest number of people – that will help humanity crawl out of the mud and reach for the stars, by building a world that works for everyone, with no one left out. And we will never “get over” that.

  1. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛. 𝑆𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡.

Sure, if you want to base your opinions solely on the Bible or what you’re hearing over the pulpit instead of science. In reality, it’s not simple at all.

“Sex can be much more complicated than it at first seems. According to the simple scenario, the presence or absence of a Y chromosome is what counts: with it, you are male, and without it, you are female. But doctors have long known that some people straddle the boundary—their sex chromosomes say one thing, but their gonads (ovaries or testes) or sexual anatomy say another. Parents of children with these kinds of conditions—known as intersex conditions, or differences or disorders of sex development (DSDs)—often face difficult decisions about whether to bring up their child as a boy or a girl. Some researchers now say that as many as 1 person in 100 has some form of DSD. When genetics is taken into consideration, the boundary between the sexes becomes even blurrier. Scientists have identified many of the genes involved in the main forms of DSD, and have uncovered variations in these genes that have subtle effects on a person’s anatomical or physiological sex.”²¹

Even if you want to discount the science, which is a terrible thing to do²², people need to understand that LGBTQIA+ people have always existed, they will always exist, and no amount of oppression or erasure will stop them from existing. Gay rights are human rights. Trans rights are human rights. There’s no question that inclusion and respect for non-binary people brings social challenges and demands difficult adjustments, but to do anything else – especially to work to strip rights from your fellow sojourners in mortality – is in direct opposition to the teachings that most MAGA adherents claim to honor: “That which is distasteful unto yourself, do not unto others – this is the whole Torah, the rest is commentary.” (Rabbi Hillel).

  1. 𝐸𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑠ℎ 𝑎 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑠 𝑎 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙, 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑. 𝐴𝑛𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑒𝑙𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑤𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔.

“The modern education system was designed to teach future factory workers to be “punctual, docile, and sober.”²³ 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 is what’s wrong, and utterly so. In 1928, Margaret Mead, an American Cultural Anthropologist, was famously reported saying, “Children should be taught how to think, and not what to think.” It turns out she was way ahead of her time and was already tapping into a theory that educational psychologists would later term ‘Metacognition’.²⁴ For societal progression to occur, children need to be taught more than reading, writing, and arithmetic – they need to learn critical thinking, social consciousness, and life skills as well, and they need music, literature, world history, and the arts.²⁵ And they definitely don’t need religious indoctrination, as specified in the Establishment Clause of our nation’s Constitution. Public funds must be used for public education, not private religious institutions. If people want their children to attend such schools, they should pay for them out of their own pockets, not via tax-supported vouchers.

  1. 𝐷𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑑 𝐽. 𝑇𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑝 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑈𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑛 𝑏𝑦 𝑎 𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑠𝑙𝑖𝑑𝑒 — 𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑟 𝑣𝑜𝑡𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑣𝑜𝑡𝑒. 𝐺𝑒𝑡 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑡.

In 2020, Joseph Biden won the popular vote by a margin of 4.45%, and for 4 years MAGA screamed “Not my President!” in 2024, Trump won the popular vote by a margin of 1.48%. In 1972, Richard Nixon’s margin over George McGovern was 23.15%; 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 was a landslide, despite Nixon’s later disgrace and resignation. Trump has no mandate for anything despite what you might hear on Fox News. It’s worth mentioning that the “electorial” (sic) college has long been recognized as an outdated construct designed to preserve the power of white landowners²⁶ and deserves to be replaced by a one-person, one vote Presidential election. Yes, even if this had been the case in 2024, Donald Trump would have won the election, but the results would have been entirely different in 2000 (Bush/Gore) and 2016 (Trump/Clinton) and Trump would never have ascended to the presidency at all.²⁷

¹ https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/2024
² https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/07/red-states-feed-at-the-federal-trough-blue-states-supply-the-feed.html
³ https://www.newsweek.com/americans-side-hustles-survey-1930416
https://www.newsweek.com/vault/banking/savings/gen-z-money-habits-bank-of-america-survey/
⁴ https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/working-poor/2020/
⁵ https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2023/06/we-must-banish-bootstraps-mythology-from-american-life
⁶ https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-2021/
⁷ https://inthesetimes.com/article/wage-theft-union-labor-biden-iupat
⁸ https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/trump-immigration-raids-citizens-profiling-accusations-native-american-rcna189203
⁹ https://www.vox.com/a/donald-trump-books
¹⁰ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/systemic-racism-and-america-today/
¹¹ https://archive.ph/5TPDb (archived from http://readcultured.com/how-white-people-quickly-turned-dei-into-a-racist-slur-1866e4e3dedd)
¹² https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/us-senator-vows-to-fight-back-against-trumps-plan-to-dismantle-financial-watchdog/3478108
¹³ https://www.goodnews.ie/betweenourselvesjune2005.shtml
¹⁴ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-every-american-should-know-about-u-s-foreign-aid/
¹⁵ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-foreign-aid-cuts-catastrophic-says-global-catholic-charity-arm-2025-02-10/
¹⁶ https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/lithium-electric-vehicles
¹⁷ https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/share-of-energy-consumption-from
¹⁸ https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?cycle=all&ind=E01&mem=Y&recipdetail=S
¹⁹ https://www.bfi.org/about-fuller/big-ideas/world-game/
²⁰ https://www.npr.org/2023/08/05/1192374014/russell-moore-on-altar-call-for-evangelical-america
²¹ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/
²² https://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_Cult_of_Ignorance.pdf The salient quote here from Isaac Asimov is this: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
²³ https://qz.com/1314814/universal-education-was-first-promoted-by-industrialists-who-wanted-docile-factory-workers
²⁴ https://coachbit.com/the-parent-bit/metacognition-reflective-learning-can-help-kids-perform-better/
²⁵ https://artomicparticles.tumblr.com/post/95126208009/no-child-left-behind-cartoon-by-david-horsey
²⁶ https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/electoral-colleges-racist-origins
²⁷ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin

If you’ve ever worked retail

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Barking, unreasonable, terrible managers. Mind-clenching Corporate stupidity. Unpredictable schedules. Lazy or arrogant or brown-nosing co-workers. And, of course, the ubiquitous customers: arrogant, entitled, insouciant, demeaning, demanding, illogical customers… with the occasional gem of a human being hidden in the regular flow. All these are things that the average retail worker has to put up with on a daily basis.

The worst and most outrage-generating stories can be found at Not Always Right, but there’s one place a retail worker should go – if you haven’t already – to smile, cringe, laugh, and find kindred spirits: Retail, by Norm Feuti.

Retail, Strip One, by Norm Feuti, January 1, 2006.

Anyone who has ever worked in retail or still does owes it to themselves to be familiar with this lovely, long-running comic strip. It sadly came to an end after 14 years when the artist wanted to move on to a different career in illustrating children’s books, but the entire thing is available online as an archive. I greedily devoured every one, because it so perfectly captures every aspect of the retail experience, from managers, to co-workers, to the most horrible customers… all of which have to be dealt with in a day’s work if you’re interested in keeping your job.

But it’s not just about the horrors; along the way you will get to know and fall in love with a delightful cast of characters who grow, and learn, and survive the journey. Of course there are the ones you love to hate, but that only adds Tabasco sauce to the chimichanga, as it were.

Only the first year was captured in hard copy, but if Norm were ever to think about publishing the other 13 years in dead-tree edition, I would be first in line to buy them.

There was also a companion volume, “Pretending you Care,” which included many strips from year one along with wonderful expositions about what it’s like to work in the retail world.

Both are available on Amazon, but neither one is cheap, sadly – I was fortunate to score a copy of each through AbeBooks, my go-to source for difficult-to-find books, at much more affordable prices. They occupy honored places on my bookshelf.

While I never actually worked a retail floor, I did work in pizza shops for 3 years, and spent 6 months in a customer-service chair for a software company – essentially the same as retail work without the face-to-face interactions with customers. It was, to be very honest, the most soul-sucking job I ever did in my entire career, and would never again repeat the experience even if I had to. Thank Ṣiva H. Viṣṇu for retirement.

That said, I undertand. And I have always done my best to be a bit extra kind and appreciative to those people on the floor or behind the register who serve my needs, who endure the daily horror, and who long for nothing more than the end of their shift.

To all retail or customer-service workers out there, thank you.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

The challenges of selling stuff online

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I have written before about dealing with scammers on Craigslist, but this vehicle – as well as Facebook Marketplace or local swap/sell groups – is still an effective way to generate some cash for items that one no longer needs.

But above and beyond scams, which seem to surface with just about every ad placed thanks to bots run by the bad guys, there are always challenges to deal with. The series below by Kevin McShane at kevincomics.com is illustrative of some of the things one has to deal with on a regular basis.

The first one (being ghosted) is by far the most common. Hey, if you’re not really interested, why did you ask in the first place? How much energy does it take to just send a courteous message to the seller saying “Thanks for the info, but I’ve changed my mind” or something like that? I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the people who have the decency to do this.

The second one is infuriating. Sometimes it’s all I can do to refrain from sending back (in all caps) “JUST READ THE @#$% POST, YOU BLISTERING SIMPLETON!”

Despite putting in all my posts something like “No holds, no deliveries” I will invariably have someone express interest and then say “Can you deliver to Augusta?” Lazy wanker. Instead of unloading a semi-full of obscene imprecations at them, the Goodwoman of the House suggested replying, “Sure, for an extra $100.00.” That might just get the message across as well.

Then there are the folks who will say, “I want this but I won’t get paid until Friday, can you hold it for me?” I’ve been stung far too often by this, because Friday comes and either they ghost me (#1 above) or come back with “Hey I changed my mind.” In the meantime, I could have sold it three times over and by now the other buyers have moved on. So I don’t do that any longer. If you want me to hold something, you can pay me with PayPal or one of the other cash apps, and then I’ll hold it until Friday.

The kind of person who is too lazy to bargain is always a burr under my saddle. Just sending a message saying “bottom dollar price” or “what’s the lowest you’ll take” or “will you take less” is a dick move. No, I’m not going to put in your work for you, dipweeds. Make me an offer and I’ll either accept it or counter. And if I counter and you don’t move at all, I’m not likely to sell it to you. This is how dickering works. If you don’t do this, you’re more interested in “winning” than in getting an item for a good price.

[When we sold our first home in 1980, my first wife and I listed it for a very fair price given the work we had put in to improve it. We had a guy come in and say outright, “I’m the kind of guy who is used to getting what I want” and offering us $500 less on a $49,000 home. (I know, I know, prices today are insane, but at that time it was a good deal on an 800 ft² home.) Clearly it wasn’t about the money, it was about winning, and if he hadn’t said that I might have been just fine with a bit of wiggle room. We took the offer because we were in a difficult situation, but I wish I had been able to tell him to shove his offer where the sun doesn’t shine; pay our asking price or buy something else. The smug grin on his face still raises my blood pressure when I think of it 40 years later. Up yours, Monty.]

As for the last one, I’m not your therapist, buddy. Leave the story out and just cut to the chase. Can you pick it up today or not?

Like I said, online selling can be very productive, but dealing with idiots definitely raises the blood pressure. It makes me have even more respect for retail workers, who doubtless have to put up with similar nonsense many times every day.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

An essay on Star Trek, Androids, and the gig economy

Posted on by The Old Wolf

This showed up in Imgur recently, and it’s the second time I have seen it there. It makes a powerful lot of sense, and shows how badly broken our current system of employment is at all levels.

A twitter thread by @_danilo on 24 January 2020. A hat tip 🎩 to Phil Stracchino for the transcription.

After the premiere of Picard, [I] name checked Bruce Maddox, [and] decided to head back and watch Measure of a Man, TNG S2E09.

And it turns out Maddox is a bit of a tech bro. Startling how well this holds up three decades later. This kind of guy is still a problem.

As a refresher, The Measure of a Man was TNG at its hammiest, most thought provoking best.

A courtroom drama where the fate of Data hinges on the question of whether he is sentient being deserving of what we’d call basic “human rights”.

After Riker delivers a devastating presentation that proves Data is an elaborate machine, Picard joins Guinan for a drink.

Guinan warns Picard that civilizations love nothing more than to create “disposable people,” to do the jobs no one else wants, with no recourse.

Guinan’s point is that by creating a special category that allows Data to be property by an arbitrary distinction, the Federation risks creating a permanent underclass.

This was the lever Picard needed — he wins the argument by appealing to Starfleet’s high mindedness.

This got me to thinking about Silicon Valley innovation.

Today, androids are far beyond our technological capabilities. So what the Valley did was build it lean.

Rather than building artificial laborers, the tech industry invented artificial supervisors.

When the algorithm determines who gets fired, when you work, what you get paid, and everything else about your daily life, there’s no limit to the cruelty of the workplace.

The human needs of the laborers are invisible to the software.

You don’t need to invent an entire android under this model, nor do you need to bear the costs of manufacture.

The software becomes an abstraction around real humans, but the owners of the business never need see them or interact with them in a supervisory context. rows in a db.

We’re left with “algorithmically disposable people.” Entirely commodified labor that can be discarded at will.

No one has to look them in the eye when they’re fired. No one need think of their kids or dependent parents.

No one has to worry about a thing — except the workers.

Gig workers are precarious not only because they lack benefits, but also because the everyday bedrock of their work is determined by a black box algorithm designed to extract maximum profit for a distant corporation.

They are raw material to be optimized.

And what is so dark about this is that the software is perfectly suited to this task.

Software perfectly shields the humans profiting from this one-sided equation from confronting the personal toll it takes on the algorithmically disposable people the company is chewing through.

One of the most striking parts of @Mikelsaac’s Super Pumped¹ is how OPTIONAL it was for Uber management to interact with drivers.

They could hide away, pop out to interact with the drivers IF THEY WANTED, and go back into hiding again, and the machine kept working either way.

Footnotes

¹ This refers to Mike Isaac’s Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (September 3, 2019)

A Twitter thread from a year ago, more relevant than ever

Posted on by The Old Wolf

With Dildo Braggins now facing over 91 criminal counts, this thread from @OfficeBob helps to understand the “classified documents” issue. I thought it deserved wider exposure.

A Twitter Thread by @OfficeBob from Aug. 15, 2022

A friend with classified document experience has given me permission to post her comments here, and so…a thread:

“This week in Trumpland has been wild. So I thought I’d put my FSO hat back on and talk about document classification. This is a long one. A sitting president cannot wave his magic wand and declare something declassified.”

“He has the authority to read someone into classified programs whenever he wishes, but the documents themselves must go through a review process before being officially declassified.”

“Certain topics, like nuclear programs (including some communication programs that support nuclear deployment), cannot be declassified by anyone. The president included.”

“There was a lot of brouhaha when Trump included blatantly untrustworthy individuals in his planning. It was stupid of him, but also his prerogative as president.”

“When a president leaves office, they leave their security classification at the door of the White House. Some presidents may continue to receive national security briefs but that is at the discretion of their successor.”

“Those that receive briefs are read in under the authority of the sitting president. They do not have a security clearance of their own that entitles them to classified information.”

“A former president cannot declassify anything. Once they leave office, they are civilians in the eyes of the law. It doesn’t matter if the documents were generated when they were president or if they know the contents. NARA will not give them access.”

“No former president can just go to the archives an open a classified file generated during his presidency.”

“He certainly cannot talk about sensitive information that he is aware of once out of office. This goes for any government employee. There are topics that I am not allowed to discuss with anyone.”

“Most of them are mundane, but they are still classified. Others could put me away for a few decades if I talk about them. Therefore, zipped lip.”

“Top Secret/SCI documents cannot be secured by a simple padlock. The National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual, or NISPOM, has strict guidelines on securing classified documents that must be followed.”

“Including the construction of the room that TS/SCI documents are stored in. From the door frame to the thickness of the walls to the lighting fixtures.”

“Inside, the documents must be contained within an accredited safe/file cabinet that declares the classification of its contents. Each cabinet must be secured with a unique combination or reinforced lock.”

“TS/SCI cannot be stored with Secret, which cannot be stored with Confidential. Each classification must be stored only with similarly classified documents. Some SCI documents are so sensitive that they must be stored separately from all others.”

“Storing documents in a room locked with a padlock in cardboard boxes isn’t even sufficient for Confidential. Removing any document from storage requires that it be checked out and then back in by the FSO.”

“Entering certain parts of a building that stores classified documents requires an FSO escort.”

“Every facility that stores classified documents or works on classified projects falls under the aegis of a civilian Facility Security Officer. By law the FSO “owns” the documents. They are solely responsible for their safekeeping.”

” Go into a government office and look for a picture somewhere near the entrance. It will be a photo of the FSO along with their contact information.”

“DoD/DoE security audits are anal retentive to the extreme. You better believe the auditor will measure the width of your door frame and remove screws to make sure they meet minimum standards.”

“They’ll test the drywall. Run fiber optics through the HVAC ducts to make sure no one could overhear something through them. God help you if a measurement is off by less than a quarter of an inch.”

“If you facility ONLY meets minimum standards, chances are good it’s not going to be your facility anymore.”

“I have had people jailed for far, far less than what the FBI recovered at Mar-a-Lago. I’ve fired employees for taking a single Confidential document out of my facility by accident. Because at the end of the day, it’s MY document and MY ass on the line in an audit.”

“Put Trump in prison.”

Yes, for the health of our nation and our democracy, the crimes of this evil, sick person need substantial consequences, along with everyone who supported his lunacy. May the RICO indictment spread far and wide.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Happy International Women’s Day

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Today Google honors International Women’s Day with one of their doodles.

I am 100% in favor of honoring the women of the world. And, I have some thoughts. Consider these remarks by Morgan Freeman on the occasion of Black History Month:

MIKE WALLACE: Black History Month, you find …
MORGAN FREEMAN: Ridiculous.
WALLACE: Why?
FREEMAN: You’re going to relegate my history to a month?
WALLACE: Come on.
FREEMAN: What do you do with yours? Which month is White History Month? Come on, tell me.
WALLACE: I’m Jewish.
FREEMAN: OK. Which month is Jewish History Month?
WALLACE: There isn’t one.
FREEMAN: Why not? Do you want one?
WALLACE: No, no.
FREEMAN: I don’t either. I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.
WALLACE: How are we going to get rid of racism until …?
FREEMAN: Stop talking about it. I’m going to stop calling you a white man. And I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man. I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You’re not going to say, “I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.” Hear what I’m saying?

2005 interview with Mike Wallace for television’s “60 Minutes” news magazine program

There has recently been an immensely favorable response to the Neflix series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” ¹ as well as rising awareness of the challenges still faced by women around the globe (astonishingly, in the 21st Century. Sadly, there are bastions of troglodicity (my own word) in my own country where people in power are bound and determined to keep women in a state of perpetual subjection and inferiority – notably the US Congress, SCOTUS, and legislatures in various “red” states around the nation, such as Texas, Alabama, Utah, and many others.

The Christian faith has a lot to do with it, especially religion of the evangelical sort:

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour.”

Ephesians 5: 22-23

“Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man; rather, she is to remain silent.”

1 Timothy 2: 11-12

But even in non-Christian societies, the pervasive attitude that women are inferior beings has been present for millennia – the following passage from one of my favorite short stories, set in Brazil, lays it out pretty clearly.

Then [the tribal chief] went on to explain—it took all night—that the tictoc nut was not like other nuts. Everything, said the chief, everything could think a little. Even a leaf had sense enough to turn itself to the light. Even a rat. Even a woman. Sometimes, even a hard-shelled nut. Now when the world was made, the deuce of a long time ago, man having been created, there was a little intelligence left over for distribution. Woman got some. Rats got some. Leaves got some. Insects got some. In short, at last there was very little left. Then the tictoc bush spoke up and begged, “A little for us?”

“River of Riches” by Gerald Kersh, 1958

Fast forward to our day and age and country, and these attitudes have some direct consequences within individual families, and not just in the less-tangible global sense of economic and social inequality. In other countries it’s worse still; female children in Afghanistan and India, for example, are more likely to be abandoned, sex-selectively aborted or killed in instances of infanticide than are boys. Human trafficking, largely perpetrated upon women and female children, continues to be rampant. The evil is mind-clenching.

If we’re going to be fair about it, every other day should be International Women’s Day… plus February 29th when it rolls around because women slightly outnumber men on a global basis. But until the recognition which they deserve is granted them in the same sense that Morgan Freeman expressed, I give honor – every day – to all the women of the world², who not only bear and raise the next generation but who have made incalculable contributions to humanity since the dawn of time.

This little essay may do absolutely nothing to improve the situation, but I felt that for myself, it was important to mark the day with more than just a congratulatory message.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Footnotes

¹ If you liked the series, read the books by Margaret Atwood, including The Testaments. They add a lot of things you’ll never see in the series and leave you with some reasons for optimism instead of bleak hopelessness.

² Cis-, trans-, or otherwise, in case you were wondering.

The Witches are Coming, by Lindy West

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Some time ago, a preview of this book appeared in various places around the internet; reddit, Twitter, and a few others. I encountered it, and knew at once that this is a book I would need to own and read. And I was right.

The excerpt reads as follows:

My husband plays the trumpet, which is a sort of loud pretzel originally invented to blow down the walls of fucking Jericho and, later, to let Civil War soldiers know it was time to kill each other in a river while you chilled eating pigeon in your officer’s tent twenty miles away, yet somehow, in modern times, it has become socially acceptable to toot the bad cone inside your house before 10:00 a.m. because “it’s your job” and your wife should “get up.” What a world! If one was feeling uncharitable, one might describe the trumpet as a machine where you put in compressed air and divorce comes out, but despite this—despite operating a piece of biblical demolition equipment inside the home every bright, cold morning of his wife’s one and only life—the trumpet is not the most annoying thing about my husband.

West, Lindy, The Witches Are Coming

Once I had read the book, I felt morally obligated to leave a review at Amazon, if for nothing else than to give this beautiful collection of essays a signal boost. This is a cross-post of that review, with a bit of amplification.

A witty, acerbic, and irreverent look at sexism in the 21st Century (and other critical issues that are crying out to be addressed).

Make no mistake, this book will resonate with women… but it’s a book for men. We as those who hold supreme privilege in our society by simple roll-of-the-dice virtue of having a Y chromosome cannot be allies in the fight for gender equality (indeed, for human equality) – we must be the frontline warriors.

We can no more expect women to overcome misogyny than we can expect people of color to overcome racism. The problem is not them; the problem is us. Until people like Donald J. Trump and those who think like him can be rendered irrelevant or educated (and doing either will be an Augean task, if even possible), writers and influencers like Ms. West can continue to publish and speak and agitate, but they must become the rear guard. It is up to men to take up the cause and win the war.

At the age of 70, I do not expect to see a bloodsoaked fatal flawless victory in my lifetime, but battles are being won.

The #MeToo movement and its consequences are just one example. But that’s still a sortie in the war, waged by the oppressed minority. Do you wonder why there are so many “strident” feminists out there?¹ It’s because their stridency is the moral equivalent of the Watts riots and so many subsequent outbreaks of violence by people of color who have been enslaved, oppressed, lynched, sidelined, and minimized for over 400 years. Read up on history and you’ll see that women have been waging a battle for equality for just as long, if not longer.

Men, buy this book and read it. Then think about it, and read it again. Despite its biting humor and delicious writing, it’s not a book to entertain or amuse. It should be a textbook for anyone who wants to understand why the problem of misogyny is so rampant, and what needs to be done moving forward.

I’ve written about racism before. For all the talk about Critcal Race Theory, (an academic theory that is not being taught in K-12 schools, no matter what Tucker Carlson may be telling you), white America needs to face the fact that racism is real, and rampant, and deeply ingrained in our society.

But in all honesty, there should be a Critical Gender Theory as well. Donald Trump and his “locker room talk,” Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and so many others bear not mute but loud and blatant testimony that for far too many men, women are still less-than: objects to be used, property to be managed. Ms. West’s book offers few real solutions to the issue. She’s loud and funny and sharp and biting, and shows in delicious prose where our society has gone wrong and how much there is to do, but in the end analysis it will be up to the faction in power (read: men) to make the difference.

Fixing Hollywood and the media would be a good place to start, but I honestly don’t hold out much hope for that in the short run. As long as there are dollars to be made by depicting women as pliant sex toys in drama and advertising, nothing short of the zombie apocalypse will get entertainment and advertising moguls to wise up.

In the meantime: Men, read this book. It’s not just the pathetic moanings of a whiny liberal feminist; it’s an unashamed accounting of what women in general have to face on a daily basis. If you, by the grace of God, get a sense that maybe you’re part of the problem even without wanting to be, this is a good place to start as I mentioned in my other post on racism:

It won’t be easy, but it has to be done.

(And if you care about the climate and the impending destruction of our global environment which we may not have any way to reverse, you should read this book as well.)

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Footnotes

¹ You might also be interested in watching Ms. West’s Shrill, a 2019 Emmy Award-nominated drama about a woman who seeks out ways to change her life without changing her body.

Once Upon a Time, A Long Time Ago… it was Great to be a White Male in America

Posted on by The Old Wolf

I grew up in New York City in the ’50s. So when a friend of mine posted this, and I watched it, I was naturally struck with feelings of nostalgia for times and events in my life that are now gone forever.

But along with the nostalgia and wistfulness was an overpowering awareness that I was watching the documentary of a reality that only existed for some Americans. The stark contrast, totally ignored in this yearning little video, is well represented in this image from Life Magazine:

Those happy folks in the back, smiling in their car… those are the people we see in the video. The ones in the front, waiting in a bread line, were not even visible anywhere.

It was great to be white in the ’50s.

You grow up in that environment, and you grow up a racist, and a sexist, even though there may not be a malicious bone in your body. Racism and sexism were in the blood and bones and DNA of society, and you were bombarded with blatant or subconscious reminders that women’s place was in the kitchen (barefoot, pregnant, and with no vote)¹, and black lives didn’t only not matter, they were totally invisible.

See Dad and Jim play. Watch Mom and Mary wash the dishes. And enjoy it.

This one was relatively subtle. There was much, much worse out there.

With a history like that, anyone born in the ’50s or even the ’60s is going to have these attitudes driven deep into their psyches, and they are devilishly hard to expurgate completely. That’s why a person who wants to have a positive effect on the world around them needs to pay attention to the advice below (which applies to any “-ism,” not just racism) and practice it on a daily basis. Not unlike alcoholics in recovery who realize and understand that they are never really “cured,” these ways of thinking will surface at a moment’s notice given half a chance.

The Old Wolf has spoken.

Footnotes

¹ Things have improved, at least on the surface – but sexism in American society is still a very real phenomenon, particularly in the workplace. Advertising agencies, still embarrassingly aware that sex sells almost more than anything, still pump out sexist ads, although in the #MeToo era, some companies are issuing mea culpas (but only when they get caught out).

As for racism? Sometimes I wonder if we’ve made any progress at all since Selma. Some of the things I’m seeing now in terms of voter suppression in Georgia and other GOP states recalls a very dark stage of American history, as outlined brilliantly by Heather Cox Richardson.

If you can’t say somethin’ nice…

Posted on by The Old Wolf

Thumper had a hard time remembering his dad’s advice, but he got it in the end. And it’s advice that holds its value through the years.

While living hard against the north foothills of Salt Lake City, I would walk out my back door almost every day and hike into the mountains, often up City Creek Canyon. If you go past the water purification plant as far as the road will take you, you will encounter Rotary Park, dedicated to Marion Duff Hanks who was a prominent Rotarian and a General Authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Featured centrally in the dedication is the Rotarian 4-way Test of any principle:

  1. Is it the TRUTH?
  2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
  3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
  4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Bernard Meltzer is credited with something similar with regards to the spoken word:

“Before you speak ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If the answer is no, maybe what you are about to say should be left unsaid.”

The Greeks have a proverb which I first learned from my wonderful modern Greek professor at the University of Utah, Bill Cocorinis:

“Η γλώσσα κόκαλα δεν έχει και κόκαλα τσακίζει” (I glossa kokala then exi kai kokala tsakizi), which means “the tongue has no bones, but it breaks bones.)

Whoever coined the old saying about sticks and stones was trying to make a legitimate point, but it’s not universally applicable: words can hurt far worse than sticks and stones, and the damage they can cause can last long after broken bones have healed. The scars from verbal abuse and bullying can last a lifetime.

The name of this blog is taken from a concept promoted by R. Buckminster Fuller which came to be called, in its simplest form, The World Game. It deals with building a better world, or in his own words,

“Make the world work, for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation, without ecological offense or the disadvantage of anyone.”

-R. Buckminster Fuller

John Denver incorporated this concept in his eponymous song:

I want to play in the World Game
I want to make it better it’s ever been before
I want to play in the World Game
I want to make sure everybody knows the score
About using less, doing so much more

John Denver, from the album “It’s About Time” – Sony Music Entertainment

So to you, to me, to all of us – let’s do our best to keep our words soft and sweet, because in the words of Andy Rooney, we never know when we may have to eat them.

The Old Wolf has spoken.