Decrepit Old Fool

… but you shouldn’t bother to apologize for it.  We’re glad to know what you really think.

Regarding contraceptive funding, Rick Santorum backer Foster Friess recently said “This contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s so… inexpensive. Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.” The comment wasn’t as well-received as he expected and now he’s apologizing:

“After listening to the segment tonight, I can understand how I confused people with the way I worded the joke and their taking offense is very understandable,…To all those who took my joke as modern day approach I deeply apologize and seek your forgiveness. My wife constantly tells me I need new material–she understood the joke but didn’t like it anyway–so I will keep that old one in the past where it belongs.”

Yes, he is sorry. He’s sorry he got caught waving his real attitudes toward women around in public where people could see them, and he’s a sorry sack of… patriarchal privilege. No, he wasn’t prescribing aspirin – maybe – but if you watch the whole video he certainly was prescribing an attitude that government should work against women’s health care and autonomy. No one was “confused” by his “joke”.

I’ve got news for him; back in “his day” the assumption of abstinence was even stronger than it is now, and sex-outside-of still happened. It was invented by Mother Nature, not by Democrats. All the religious accretions we’ve piled on since then have a measurable effect all right, but in the opposite direction from what was intended.  For a couple examples, our teen pregnancy and abortion rates are about double that of godless heathen Holland, and the rate of contraceptive use among Catholic women is just about the same as among non-Catholic. In arguments between religion and Nature, religion loses. Nature cannot be fooled but with some effort it can be understood and to some extent used to advantage. We call that understanding “science”.

Republicans talk about morality a lot, and they talk about fiscal responsibility a lot. So I have a couple questions for them.

Is it moral to make life-altering decisions for other citizens while excluding them from the process? Consider the now-famous photo of the Republican panel on contraceptive funding. All men. Somehow this seemed OK to the lawmakers. Don’t forget that image; it wasn’t an aberration. It is the true depiction of Conservative attitudes towards women. Toward you, if you are a woman and toward your mother, your wife, your sister, your  daughter or your female friends if you are a man.

Is it fiscally responsible to ignore the reality that contraceptive funding pays off for everyone? That it’s a net benefit in health AND in health care costs? That it helps families achieve and sustain economic stability? People can’t get married right out of high school anymore – that economy is long gone.

According to Frank Schaeffer, the Conservative movement saw an opportunity in Roe v. Wade, but it has lost itself to the power it gained in the process. A political calculation has taken them off the road they were originally on. They’ve gotten caught up in abstinence-advocacy (good luck with that) and homophobia (welcome to the wrong side of history) and the erosion of the wall between church and state (historical results not encouraging).  And now they’re going after birth control, which is one of the greatest advances for humankind, ever. If we made this story into a movie it would be called “Back To The Patriarchy”.

I am glad they are doing this before the election instead of afterward.  Get it all out in the open, I say. And let’s make sure it sticks to them. Like flypaper.

See Also:

• Several states - most recently Virginia - are requiring medically unnecessary transvaginal ultrasound tests prior to abortion.
• Slate: Virginia’s proposed ultrasound examination law is an abomination
• Lousy Canuck: Republicans’ contraceptive hearing – no women witnesses allowed
• The Bible says that ensoulment happens at conception though, right? Well it only started saying that recently. Prior to about 30 years ago, the Bible didn’t say that.

Kent Ashcraft is best known for “Dear Dr. Laura”, a satirical screed on the application of Leviticus to modern life. I received his latest contribution this weekend:

A man is shown walking into the offices of the School Board. He asks to see the superintendent, and is shown into his office. “What can I do for you, sir?” asks the superintendent.

“Well,” says the man, “I’d like to enroll my children in one of your schools. But I have very specific requirements as to the values they will be taught.”

“As you know,” says the superintendent, “these are public schools, and so the government has a great deal of say in these matters. What exactly are your requirements?”

“I want my kids to be led in prayer every day, preferably several times a day. I want them taught to obey the word of God. They need to be told that homosexuality is a grievous sin. They must not have any teachers who are atheists, and I don’t want them hearing anything about so-called moral relativity.”

“Anything else?” asks the superintendent.

“Yes, I want my kids taught that our great nation is unique and exceptional, and that there are forces of evil in the world we must be prepared to fight on all fronts. Can one of your schools give my children such an education?”

The superintendent replied…

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…”I have wonderful news for you, Mr. Mahmoud. There are hundreds of such schools right here in Tehran!”

(Translated from Farsi)

I am Rick Santorum, but I did NOT approve this message

Looking through my archives I discovered this is the sixth piece I have received from Mr. Ashcraft:

• Peter King’s ‘Radical Islam’ hearings
• Bush Memoir edition
• Is patriotism a virtue?
• National Swagger and whistling in the dark
• Jesus returns, is crucified again

I’ve been informed that it’s been too long since I last posted. It’s true I’ve been having trouble concentrating; ideas come to me and I start writing and can’t seem to get them into finished form. Mostly this is related to some difficulties with pain management but this week with careful stretching and a bit more drugs than usual I’m feeling a bit better. Now I’m back to almost no drugs and getting around so well one of my co-workers noticed the improvement. But Oscar’s condition is even more improved than mine, and he is the subject of this post.

This picture is from this morning, and as I write this he is reposing on the cushion on my desk.

A few weeks ago I found him under the basement steps in the middle of the night, unresponsive, his breathing labored. We gave him extra fluids, antibiotics, some kidney medicine, an enema and lots of care.  At the end of this round of care he showed signs of liver pain but that’s improved too; perhaps metabolizing all that medicine was hard on his furry little system.  Now he’s getting around again. He moves like a very old man (which he is) and he has cataracts so I don’t know how well he can see.  But seems to know where he is going, and he seems to enjoy life so it looks like we have him a while longer. The picture is from this morning, and as I write this he is reposing on the cushion on my desk.

It’s been said that tiny minds like rules. A lot. But maybe that’s a bit simplistic, because there are different kinds of rules.

There are religious rules that must never be violated, even when there’s no apparent reason for them. Like not working on the Sabbath, or not marrying a dude if you’re a dude. Of course when the lack of foundational reason is pointed out, a bunch of reasons will be made up on the spot. But they fall apart on even casual examination.

There are secular rules that are basically politically compromises, like tax code and speed limits. Yes, there are reasons for them, but there can also be arguments against them or different ways of handling them.

Then there are rules that derive entirely from good reasons, like slowing down on icy roads, or washing your hands before you make someone a sandwich.

I’ve arranged them in this order because they are distinguished by the kind of trouble you are in if you violate them. In the first kind, it’s all authority-based trouble. You stepped on the wrong crack and now you’re in the soup, brother. In the second kind, it’s a mix. In the third kind, you’re likely to cause real harm even if the authorities never know you did it.

Rules work best when they’re internalized; when you understand the reasons for them and agree and basically would never think of doing whatever. And that’s fine: you don’t litter because you’re sick of seeing litter all over the place, and we get a better world in the bargain. It doesn’t even matter what the authorities say about it.

But trouble starts when people internalize rules that don’t have any real reason for them. Then you get religious fanatics yelling at school girls for immodest dress, or gay kids in school driven to suicide by a relentless campaign of blame and ostracism.

Sometimes authority-based rules began as reason-based rules. But over the years people obeyed them because the authorities said so, instead of the original reason. And like a game of generational “telephone” the rule became its own reason for existing.

One input to the different kind of rules is the kind of authority from which they derive. There’s “because I say so” authority and there’s “because I know what I’m talking about” authority. The first kind tells you to feel bad about some personal quirk, and the second kind tells you to wash your hands when you make someone a sandwich.

That’s all I have time for right now; I have to go to work. Because if I don’t, stuff won’t get done and if enough stuff doesn’t get done I won’t have a job. At my age, that’s no joke.

After the documentary there was a mini- auto show in the Marriot hotel next door.  You can visit the photo album from the link at right, where there are 24 pictures from the show.

Motor-powered Transportation photo album, to which I just added 24 photos of this auto show.

Of course everyone wanted to Ooh and Ahh over the Tesla roadster, but the most impressive vehicles there were the high-production models. These included the Mitsubishi MiEV, the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt and the Fisker Karma.

The Chevvy Volt seemed like the least audacious entry, designed to appeal to people who wouldn’t want anyone to know they were driving an electric car. But it is somewhat understandable; Chevrolet has not had good experience with innovative designs. Conventional has always been their comfort-spot.

Most daring would certainly be the Nissan Leaf; the company CEO basically bet the whole corporation on it. But it’s only daring in terms of corporate survival; the Leaf is a practical-looking vehicle designed for small families.

The Mitsubishi MiEV looks funny but don’t be fooled; it’s bigger on the inside.  It just doesn’t waste space on a long hood and trunk. People I saw getting in and out of one seemed to do so very easily and the interior was really roomy. The only way to improve it would be to manufacture it at the Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Illinois, dammit.

What’s a Fisker Karma, you ask?  It’s a luxury electric sedan and oh baby is it sweet.  That is one beautifully-finished automobile, and it seems to be designed so the owner won’t have to make excuses for its comfort or craftsmanship. If you are a one-percenter and your Bentley is starting to bore you, this is the car for you.

I wish I could have nicer things to say about the Tesla Roadster.  Sure, it really burns up the asphalt but the best thing that comes to mind is; “It will draw attention to electric vehicles.” The craftsmanship wasn’t all that impressive, and it was entertaining to watch people trying to climb into and out of the car.  Heaven help you if you go over a bump of more than four inches.

I very much enjoyed seeing the custom-made electric motorcycle that somebody made out of an old Harley, and the old 1975 Vanguard Electric car. That Vanguard is probably what people think of when they think “electric car”.  I think of “spending $400 on ‘fuel’ each year instead of $1,400″.

It is true that all-electric cars have limited range and take hours to charge up. But for commuters I’m not sure how much that will really matter.

NOTES and updates

• Part 1 – GM executive Bob Lutz vs the real world

I’ve seen various solutions to crud-encrusted front derailleurs, but nothing beats a hunk of inner-tube material zipped onto the seat tube and the brace between the tire and the bottom bracket.  Keep the front derailleur oiled and protected this way and it will keep working even under very adverse conditions.

Thursday evening we went to see Revenge Of the Electric Car at the historic Normal Theater. The documentary followed GM executive Bob Lutz, Nissan president Carlos Ghosn, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and renegade engineer Greg “Gadget” Abbot as they raced to bring an electric car to market.

I’ll probably have three or four posts about the documentary in coming weeks. But here’s one incident that stuck in my mind. It was about GM executive Bob Lutz.

Lutz was a top exec for GM who made the decision to destroy the EV-1 electric car. Not just to terminate the program, but to take the cars back from people who had leased them… and have them physically crushed. Later he came to regret the decision and backed the Chevrolet Volt. But he’s the archetype of the cigar-smoking, swaggering jerk of the auto industry who figures you can’t sell a car unless it drips testosterone.

The incident:

So here’s the incident: He was at an electric car show and saw an urban policing vehicle. I think it was a T-Motion EV-1, very small and efficient-looking and clearly made for parking enforcement and dense traffic. There was a young woman, a model, standing next to it, which is common at car shows. He smirked at her and said; “Honey, tell you what. I’ll run away in my Corvette ZR-1 and you see if you can catch me in this thing.”

The model smiled back at him; I’d pay money to know what she was thinking at the time. My guess would be a reference to some body part. But the point of the story isn’t Lutz being a jerk; it’s Lutz misunderstanding the world.

Gotcha!

Let’s say a policeman is driving her little urban electric police car. It has a top speed of, maybe, 50 miles an hour and is so small she could drive it on a sidewalk if she had to. It looks like it’s equipped with all the basic cop equipment though, and probably features a super-reinforced passenger cage as many tiny cars do now.

Now let’s say Bob Lutz does something stupid in his ZR-1 where our electric-car-driving officer can see him. Remember they’re in the concrete canyons, not the open road. She turns on her flashing lights, pulls out behind him and he decides to make a 500hp run for it. What happens next?

Most likely he gets stuck in traffic, but the officer can drive right between stopped cars and pull up behind him. But suppose he gets away and hits a highway on-ramp. He’s home free, right? No way the little electric cop car can catch him.

She doesn’t have to catch him. She’ll pull over and consults the video from her dash cam, isolating his license number on the touch screen and accessing the OnStar law enforcement channel. She’ll have OnStar cut the engine on his Corvette and then request backup. Just about the time mister Lutz realizes he’s been had, he’s swimming in flashing lights and sirens.

Economy, Information and “freedom”

Something like eighty percent of Americans live in urban areas now; a car capable of more than 100 mph is more of a burden than a symbol of freedom. The power isn’t in Lutz’ monster V8 engine; it’s in the information and connectivity wielded by the cop. All he can do is sit there and fume as she walks up to the door and tells him to keep his hands where she can see them.

Sure it’s fun to think about cutting donuts on the salt flats, or zooming down picturesque highways along the seashore, but in the environment where we actually live, the ability to maneuver and park means more than zero to sixty in four seconds. So much the better if the car can advise you of tangled traffic in time to take a different route, and best of all if it is very inexpensive to run. Then the owner has the freedom to spend money on something besides gasoline.

We almost lost GM entirely to Lutz’ mindset. Unfortunately it reflects our national mindset for living on Earth as well. It might help if we were more maneuverable, adaptable, and a whole lot smarter. We have too many Lutz-es in politics, broadcasting, and business already.

The documentary was next door to a mini auto show, where we saw a Nissan Leaf, a Chevrolet Volt, a Tesla roadster, and a Fisker Karma. I’ll have more to say about those next.

This lovely piece of music resurfaces every so often – I think I overheard a few moments of it in a commercial for something or other yesterday. It deserves its own showcase. Enjoy!

This piece has been described as “a musical joke” – it could be, and has been, overlaid on many animations and stop-motion videos. Like any meditation it is a creative starting point, not a destination.

First, the trailer:

Margin Call is a drama about life inside a giant Wall Street trading firm during the 36 hours before the bottom fell through. Or more correctly the bottom already had fallen but only a small group of analysts knew it – and the question of whether to have their traders act on that information in the four or five hours before the rest of the planet figured it out.

And in fact the story feels more like a stage play than a blockbuster movie. There’s no violence and only a little music: everything is done with acting and dialog and directing. How you take 36 hours in the life of some characters, compress it down to 109 minutes, and in the process humanize them and give context to their actions I leave to people who understand literature.

Notice I said “humanize them”, not “excuse their actions”. Because, while it isn’t clear they could have done anything differently once things came to a head, there is a strong sense of consciously-made steps leading for years into disaster by brilliant people who knew better.  We are presented with a kind of moral nihilism possible only with tightrope-walking levels of balance and skill. Not by all the characters, to be sure – but by the most powerful ones.  The less-powerful characters sounded warnings, yes. In plenty of time to do something about it. It rings true because it echoes nearly every human-made catastrophe I have ever studied.

109 minutes. Highly recommended.

NOTES:

• See also the documentaries;  Enron, the smartest guys in the room and (of more direct relevance to this film) Inside Job
• There’s also a scene that will make you look at bridges a little differently from now on.
• I said “moral nihilism” but on reflection, there’s as much fatalism as nihilism.
• Update: I forgot to give credit to alert reader Chas who emailed me to recommend the film. Thanks Chas!

We live in the thin veneer - a two-mile layer on a globe 7,000 miles across

The World

In the new year I’d love to wish for a sudden attack of good sense among the world’s leaders. Maybe a full-on effort to develop clean energy for example. And cut the US military budget by half, so we’d only be out-spending the next largest mil-budget by a factor of three instead of six. Or if you prefer, outspending the next five countries combined instead of the next 20. I suppose it could happen, but planets don’t generally win lotteries. So my wishes will have to be more personal in nature.

And us…

I love movies, and especially ones where the main character is changed by the story. Which is to say, they learn something that deepens their humanity, often at a terrible price but sometimes not. This is called character development, and it marks the difference between James Bond and Wikkus from District 9 or Sarah Connor from Terminator. In Bond movies, a bunch of stuff happens, but 007 himself is no better than when he started. In a good movie the main character is edified by the experience.

Shakespeare said “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players…” So I guess that makes you and me actors in our own little movies.

So my wish for you is that your character development this year be an inspiration to your audience, whoever that may be. And that the ratio of benefit to cost be high. As happy a New Year as can be, may it all add up in December, and many sequels.

Idle question for New Years’…

What percentage of New Years’ posts do you suppose use the “Earthrise” picture?

NOTES:

• Astronomer Phil Plait explains; “What is a new year, exactly?“