Current Issues

Current Issues  /  Personal  /  PotD
Feeling Fatigue From Jousting At Windmills
October 29, 2016

Those who want to reap the benefits of this great nation must bear the fatigue of supporting it.— Thomas Paine

 

charles i. letbetter - feeling fatigue from jousting at windmills

Doing your best and seeing no results creates a fatigue not easily resolved

This is one of those mornings when, after looking through the news headlines and all the currently trending topics, I’m inclined to throw up my hands and move to the Netherlands. This isn’t a single-issue moment. Rather, it is one defined by too many issues, too much effort, and too few results. I don’t want to live in a country where we have the problems we are currently having.

None of us should have to live in a country where militarized police are shooting horses out from under Native Americans who simply want to keep their drinking water reasonably clean. Furthermore, I resent the fact that police officers from Indiana, whose salaries are paid with my tax dollars, are in North Dakota contributing to this travesty. No one asked if they should go, the matter wasn’t even put to a vote by our sorry excuse for a state legislature. They just went, giving the extremely false impression that people of Indiana support the desecration of tribal lands.

I’m no longer interested in supporting a country where the people running for our top political office—all of them, not just the two at the top of this dung heap—are some of the most hilariously inadequate people to ever run for office anywhere. I am beginning to fear going out into public knowing that roughly half the people out there are complete idiots who think that isolationism and unregulated business is a good thing for the country. I don’t want to be around those people. I don’t want to talk to people who have apparently lost the ability to reason.

Banging My Head Against A Wall

I have written emails (since no one actually communicates by letter anymore). I have made phone calls. I have tried playing by the rules of the game and have gotten absolutely nowhere. When I send an email, you know what I get in return? Requests for money, like this one:

I’m close to giving up.
Our final End of Month Deadline is just hours away — and things aren’t looking good.
I won’t sugarcoat this. We are WAY behind where we should be.
I wouldn’t be asking unless it was important.
If we fall short in the final stretch, we can kiss our chance of winning a Democratic Congress goodbye.
We have an ambitious goal — 32,982 gifts in 72 hours. Please, will you pitch in $1 and help?
Thank you,

Nancy Pelosi

Mind you, I didn’t write Congresswoman Pelosi. I wrote my own Congressman, Andre Carson. I’ve written him more than a few times and have never gotten anything more than fundraising emails in response. The same applies for Senators, the Governor, and various other officials in government office. I don’t even trying writing the President. I learned at 16 what a complete waste of time that is.

If no one is going to respond, if my attempts at trying to make a difference fall empty, then how can we say we live in a representative democracy? At this point, I’d be thrilled with a “thank you for writing” form letter, which was formerly the standard response from elected officials.

I will still vote on November 8, because in the race between untrustworthy and absolutely deplorable, I’ll reluctantly go with untrustworthy. I feel I can survive better under an oligarchy than a fascist dictator. Don’t take my vote as an endorsement, though, because it’s not.

We Get What We Deserve?

I keep hearing different pundits say that we get what we deserve, that the disappointing choices for President reflect the decline in our national character, the disintegration of our collective reasoning, and our steep fall into anti-intellectualism. At times, I tend to believe those pundits are correct. After all, three people in Florida, Iowa and Virginia have already been caught attempting to change people’s votes. Not only can we not trust politicians, we can’t trust our neighbors who are working at the polls.

And how is it we can acquit the seven jackasses who took over a federal park by gunpoint, but yet we’re using brute force to remove people protesting at Standing Rock over the desecration of their own land? Are there two different sets of rules that no one has told us about? That’s certainly the way it appears.

Could it be that we have horrible choices for leaders because we have become a country of horrible people?

I don’t buy that. We are still a country of innovators. Look at what Elon Musk is doing to transform your roof into a power source. This is still the country where teens who meet in an online chatroom can grow up and get married. We are still a people who create amazingly unique art, incredibly moving films, and automobiles that drive themselves. Clearly, not all of us are complete fools, despite how we commonly appear.

Do we not deserve a government that reflects our best characteristics and not our worst? Why do we not have a government that better values innovation and invention rather than continuing to support antiquated ideologies that have been proven to not work? Why are we still sending huge portions of our population to jail for no good reason when we’ve known for over thirty years that our current methodology doesn’t work? There are plenty of Americans who are intelligent enough to know that continued war after war after war is a horrible idea; don’t they deserve a government that reflects their views?

Nothing Left To Do

I’m hitting a figurative wall where I no longer desire putting time and energy into a cause that, apparently, is already hopeless. For the past eight years, we have had a President who might very well be one of the most intelligent people to ever hold the office. How did we respond? By electing to Congress the biggest pile of do-nothing bovine excrement to have ever disgraced the name of public service. If that is genuinely what the majority of America is choosing, then America and I no longer have enough in common. Just as we need to distance ourselves from people and things that are not healthy for us, perhaps it is time to do the same with our country. If I cannot, in good conscience, give you my allegiance, and I can’t at this point, then why should I stay around?

I’m not packing my bags just yet, mind you. I am still holding out one thin sliver of hope. But I am fatigued from wanting to improve a country that doesn’t want to improve.

I think I’ll just go back to taking pictures of naked people, if there are any left.

Continue Reading

Current Issues
Getting Ready For Whatever Happens Next
October 28, 2016

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause. —William James

 

charles i. letbetter - getting ready for what happens next

With less than two weeks until the general election, there is sufficient reason to be concerned about the future. Are we ready?

 

11 days until the election. Only 11 days. If this were any other year, we’d be able to look at that date and know that all the nonsense and lies and insanity would quieten down at that point. We don’t know that this year, though. In fact, all indications are that the insanity might actually get worse. I normally wouldn’t take such an alarmist tone except for the fact that, unlike previous years, that’s the tact Homeland Security and law enforcement agencies are taking. Those tend to be fairly level-headed, err-on-the-side-of-caution organizations. Homeland Security is especially good at understating threat levels. So, when they express a heightened level of concern, all my bells and whistles start sounding. Here’s what I’ve seen so far this week:

  • Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior federal law enforcement official told NBC News that “local, state and federal authorities and even multi-agency Fusion Centers are on the lookout for signs of trouble.”
  • The Washington Post reports: ” the Oath Keepers, a national group of former military and law enforcement officers, has urged its members to “blend in” with voters and do “incognito intelligence gathering and crime spotting” at polling places across the country on Nov. 8.”
  • Huffington Post not only reported that intimidation group Vote Protectors,  “plans to send volunteers to monitor polling places in nine cities with high minority populations on Election Day,” but also demonstrated how extremely easy it is to create the badges the group plans to use.

And there’s still more.

Is The Threat Real?

I would really like to think that the threat is just a bunch of stupid (VERY stupid) old white men running off at the mouth. Certainly, that’s what we thought of the claims of violence and civil war that preceded the two previous presidential elections. We recognized the racists for the minority they are and ignored them. Both times, they went away, thoroughly beaten. Even the FBI investigated few of the claims.

This year, however, is different. Homeland Security, the FBI, and local police forces are on “heightened” alert. Now, why do you suppose they would do that if they didn’t feel that threats being made were at least partially credible? Looking not only at incidents of violence and intimidation at political rallies, Homeland Security monitors other forms of “chatter” and activities that might indicate a higher level of danger. They don’t like raising threat levels just for fun.

In addition to domestic concerns, the State Department has issued alerts for several embassies around the world specifically for Election Day. Some are closed for 48 hours either side of November 8 while others are closed only for the day itself. Still others are saying their embassy borders will be closed and barricaded on November 8 and will not reopen until safety can be confirmed. The Department of Defense is paying special attention to chatter between terror cells with known US connections and Homeland Security has stated concern that Daesh-connected cells in the US could be planning events to disrupt the election itself.

Oh, and then, there’s still that matter of the Russians hacking the DNC email servers. If they can get into secure servers, who knows that they might try to pull on Election Day? So yeah, I would consider that, at least, a portion of the threat is valid.

How Should We Respond?

We have to trust that law enforcement officials are well-prepared to deal with any significant threat. However, a lot of what concerns the average voter is smaller-scale intimidation and interference. After all, Indianapolis has always taken a rather peaceful approach to solving its problems. We tend to not be a high-profile target. Also, Roger Stone, head of Vote Protectors, has since ordered the badge creator and other disruptive instructions removed from the organization’s website. Again, a lot of angry old white men spewing hot air.

Still, neither Homeland Security nor the FBI is backing down. So, what are our options if we are to be reasonably prepared for whatever might happen not only on November 8 but the days following? We have some ideas:

  1. Vote. There is absolutely no excuse for not voting. If you can vote early, vote early. If you need to take someone with you for protection, then do so. If you are eligible to vote, this election needs your presence.
  2. If you feel even slightly intimidated by anyone you see at or near a polling place, say something. Contact the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, at 800/253-3931 or email at voting.section@usdoj.gov. Do NOT call local police as they have no direct jurisdiction over polling places.
  3. Stay away from polling places other than to vote or pick up YOUR children from a school. Once you’ve voted, leave. There’s no reason to hang around and create a crowd.
  4. Take basic precautions against the threat of local violence. Make sure your car has gas and you have enough food to  last a couple of days should you need to stay home.
  5. Don’t join any demonstrations.  Demonstrations turn into riots and then people get hurt. Stay home. Watch Netflix. Eat popcorn. There’s no reason to fuel a fire.
  6. Consider hosting an election night orgy. I actually saw this recommended on the Late Show With Stephen Colbert last night. Naked people are less likely to become violent and dangerous.
  7. Just go ahead and move to Canda. Beat the rush.

There are probably a few other things you could do, such as hoard left-over Halloween candy to help keep up your energy. The biggest consideration, I think, is to stay clear of fools and avoid any large groups that might be considered a target. If everyone would do that then we wouldn’t have a problem, would we?

I understand being passionate about the election. I understand being passionate about a candidate. There is no way I will ever understand people threatening violence in a way that has the potential to destroy our democracy. There’s now way to tell which direction things might swing. We just have to be ready for whatever happens.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  PotD
Domination Destruction: Killing Everything We Find
October 28, 2016
charles i. letbetter - domination destruction: killing our own planet

In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction. —Audre Lorde

 

charles i. letbetter - domination destruction: killing everything in our path

As humans assert their domination over the planet, destruction inevitably follows

Typically, when we talk about human violence, we’re talking about our tendency to want to destroy each other. Syria. Yemen. Iraq. Afghanistan. North Korea. Chicago. Our propensity toward killing each other is nothing new, of course. We’ve been doing it for centuries. Misinterpret some religious texts and one can even attempt to justify their destruction of another people by claiming that their deity commanded them to wipe out everyone who does not worship as they do. We’re very good and very experienced when it comes to wiping each other off the face of the earth.

As we’ve become more advanced in our ways of killing each other, such as using drones so that we don’t have to actually face those on whom we drop bombs, we’ve also become better at destroying every non-human entity as well. Species and ecosystems that have existed for thousands of years have become targets of destruction to such a degree that many have already gone extinct with hundreds more in danger. We justify our destruction of the planet with various excuses, saying we need the energy from natural resources or the food from various species. Yet, our wanton decimation of these ecosystems could leave us with nothing but a barren wasteland of a planet that is no longer capable of sustaining our own lives, much less any other.

A new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) makes clear just how horribly destructive we’ve been and how threatening the dangers are. By killing everything around us, we’re dooming ourselves to destruction.

Say Goodbye To The Animals

We typically associate the WWF with its broad efforts to protect animal life across the planet. They certainly do the best they can, but their efforts are no match for the determined march of corporate interests. As a result, we’re losing animal life at an unprecedented rate. The statement that’s been making headlines is this one:

Populations of vertebrate animals—such as mammals, birds, and fish—have declined by 58% between 1970 and 2012. And we’re seeing the largest drop in freshwater species: on average, there’s been a whopping 81% decline in that time period.

Stop and think about those numbers a minute. We have less than half the animals we did in 1970. It took us less than fifty years to rip through the entire animal population of the planet, completely devastating whole species who have survived natural changes in environment for hundreds of thousands of years. Many of the species we’ve eliminated existed prior to the evolution of homo sapiens and even through the first several thousand years of our existence. Yet, in less time than it takes for a single human generation to pass through history, we have destroyed all of them.

Most damning is what we’ve done to freshwater species. 81 percent of freshwater species are gone! Do you realize how fucking close to complete extermination of freshwater life we’ve come in a simple 42 years? And for what? So we can build our hydro-electric dams, strip mine coal, and place water-contaminating oil pipelines in places they’ve no right to be in the first place. Understand, prior to 1970 we still had the same power needs, but we somehow managed to not kill off EIGHTY-ONE FUCKING PERCENT of freshwater species. Hope you’re enjoying that fresh trout and other fish because they could all be completely gone within the next twenty years if we continue at our current rate.

How Did We Do This?

Obviously, we didn’t commit such broad destruction across the planet by going through and killing every animal one by one. While poaching and illegal fishing are certainly part of the problem, there are many other factors that have contributed to this dramatic decline in animal species. I’ll let the folks at WWF explain:

construction vehicle iconHabitat Loss and Degradation

Habitat loss and degradation is the most common threat to animals on the decline. Everything from unsustainable agriculture to residential or commercial development to energy production can damage vital areas for wildlife. WWF helps countries take stock of their natural resources and use that information to make better decisions on how to grow.

Food utensils icon

Food Systems

Our current food system impacts habitats to make way for agriculture, leads to the overfishing of our oceans, and contributes to pollution. WWF is pursuing new ways to provide nutritious food for all while minimizing the negative impact on the natural world. Watch the video.

cliamte change icon

Climate Change

As our climate changes, various animals will need to adapt to survive. Changes in temperature can mix up signals that trigger events like migration and reproduction, causing them to happen at the wrong time. The global community is taking major strides to curb climate change in the coming years.

exploitation icon

Species Overexploitation

Animals face the dangers of overexploitation, too. Sometimes that’s direct, like through poaching and unsustainable hunting and harvesting, and sometimes that’s indirect, like through unintentionally catching one type of sea creature while attempting to catch another. WWF works to stop wildlife crime and prevent illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing.

 

Numbering Our Own Days

How long do you plan on living? If you’re under the age of forty, chances are very high you’ll live well into your 80s, and quite possibly another decade beyond that. Think of all it is gong to take to support your life over that period of time. Think of the amount of food you’ll need to consume. What is going to be the source of that food? Think about the clothes you’ll need to wear. What is going to be the source of the materials necessary to make those clothes? Think about all the energy you’ll need to consume to power a life that is increasingly dependent upon electronic devices. How are we going to source all that power?

To the extent that we continue to destroy everything and everyone with whom we come into contact,  we are numbering our own days. We cannot continue to live on a planet that has been scorched by our carelessness. Realize, we have already KILLED OVER HALF OF ALL SPECIES that existed in 1970. If we continue at that rate, we might have 40 years before everything is gone. Where does that leave us?

This is why your down-ballot votes matter. Your vote for Congressperson matters as that is where funding and policy decisions are made to help stop the destruction. Your vote for state legislature matters as state policies are frequently to blame for the continued destruction for fresh waterways. Your vote for city offices matter as local policies contribute heavily to the contamination of groundwater and the destruction of local resources. These are all things that the President can’t control. While your vote for that office is important, without your vote for all the other down-ballot offices the vote for President becomes practically meaningless.

For all the talk about colonizing Mars, the fact remains that, for at least the next 75 years, we are limited to one planet; a planet we are actively bent upon destroying. Perhaps it’s time we started paying more attention to the earth around us. If we don’t, we will die; it’s just that simple.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  PotD
Sleeping Right Through History
October 23, 2016
charles i. letbetter - sleeping right through history

Never under any circumstances take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night. —Dave Barry

 

charles i. letbetter - sleeping right through history

When we sleep through historic events, what we are missing is the chance to tell a story

Won for the ages: After years of waiting and suffering, Cubs are in World Series declared the banner headline on this morning’s Chicago Tribune. The excitement is palpable across social media. It’s been 75 years since the baseball’s Chicago Cubs played in a World Series, even longer since they actually won one. There was yelling, screaming, and excitement all over the place.

I slept right through it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve slept through history. I missed the first Apple commercial in 1984. I missed Bill Clinton’s appearance on the Arsenio Hall show in 1992. The Supreme Court decision that decided the 2000 election? Yep, I was asleep when that came down. Slept right through Saddam Hussein’s capture in 2003 as well. Sleeping through history is something I’ve become quite good at doing, and I’m reasonably sure that I’m not the only one who does so. I know because Kat was sleeping right next to me when the Cubs won last night.

On some level, sleeping through historic events is common. After all, we have to sleep. We can’t always anticipate that something historic is going to happen. The Cubs have been letting us down and choking on the big game for 75 years. What reason was there to think that last night would be any different?

At the same time, though,sleeping through events of global importance deprives us of one of the most exciting experiences in the human condition: telling a story.

Culling Through History

A fair portion of the time, we have good reason to sleep through what is being called a historic event. When something is actually happening, we don’t always know if it is something that history is going to bother remembering. For example, when we think of school shootings the one that continues to be the most important, historically, is Columbine. Why? The country was shaken to its core. We, collectively, had never imagined that such a thing was even possible. However, there has been 31 school shooting since Columbine. Each, in their own way, could claim some historical significance, but history itself doesn’t remember them because they became too commonplace.

Historic events are sometimes obvious. The assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and John Lennon, for example. The Challenger explosion would be another. Certainly, the events of 9/11 fall into that category. Something so massive, so startling, is immediately etched in our brains the moment they happen we know they’re important.

Others, however, sneak up on us when we’re not paying attention. As Hurricane Katrina approached the Gulf Coast, forecasters attempted to warn residents, and the government, that this storm was stronger than anything we’d seen before. Too many people didn’t listen. Governors didn’t listen and force evacuations that could have saved lives. The federal government didn’t listen and as a result, aid was slow in arriving. Citizens of affected areas didn’t listen to the warnings, tried riding out a storm that couldn’t be ridden. Because we weren’t expecting the hurricane to be historic, the nation tried sleeping through it and was knocked right out of our comfortable beds.

Perhaps we can be forgiven for sleeping through some historic events. Our lives are full trying to handle every-day events. We are too tired to handle the big stuff. When we sleep through moments of great significance, though, we miss out on more than we expect.

Living To Tell The Tale

I remember talking with my father about the events of December 7, 1941. He was still a child on that fateful morning, but he still remembered quite clearly the response of those around him: everyone was scared. The men were torn. They shared a farm and if they all joined the military, which they were inclined to do, then who would handle the 500 acres that provided the only source of income for five families? Those with older children were concerned about sending them off to fight an unfamiliar enemy. Since news moved much slower during that era, anxiety ran high as the future of the nation seemed uncertain.

Being alive when a historic event takes place doesn’t always change our own lives directly. We don’t always see things then as they turn out. I remember the Watergate Scandal, for example. The only way in which it directly affected my life was that the televised hearings preempted my afternoon cartoon shows. I was less upset that the President of the United States had committed a crime and more pissed off that I was missing Popeye the Sailor and Roadrunner. I remember watching Hank Aaron break Babe Ruth’s homerun record. While it was exciting, there was also a sense of relief. Network news programs had regularly interrupted whatever was showing every time Aaron came up to bat for what seemed like a month (it was only a few days) before he hit that ball. We were glad the constant interruptions were over.

Regardless of our perspective on an event, however, we still come away with a story that is worth telling. If anything, it is the wide-ranging differences of our perspectives that making listening to those stories so great. We can get the historical facts of an event from any history book or a quick bit of research on the Internet. To truly understand the emotion of an event, though, we need to listen to the stories of the people who witnessed those events. Without those stories, our understanding of history is rather empty and void of context.

Our Own Historical Record

One of my favorite radio programs is the Moth Radio Hour.  The Moth isn’t a news program and it’s not really a matter of commentary, either. The Moth is people telling stories, real stories, not fiction, in front of a live audience. These stories relate to us things that happened around historic events in people’s lives. While the event itself might not have made the news, it was important to the history of the person telling the story. So, an astronaut explains what it feels like to be in space for the first time. Another story is a woman telling about her search for her signature scent. A military veteran relates the rigors of Honor Guard training.

All the stories we tell are important to history because it is our stories, the explanations of how we felt, what we saw, how we were affected, that gives context and meaning to the cold, dry facts of history. If the generations that come after us are to learn any lessons from the history that has come before them, they need more than history books. They need our stories, yours and mine, to give them a sense of why an event was so very important and why they need to pay attention and learn.

What happens when we do not tell those stories? Our history is empty. We know events occurred, but we fail to understand them. We know the fight for civil rights was challenging, but we don’t understand that battle until we listen to the stories of people like John Lewis, who was there next to Dr. King, who was arrested and beaten, who was sprayed with the fire hoses. We know the dustbowl era affected migration to California, but to hear my Uncle Fred tell about his decision to pack up and move injects the sorrow and pain of that momentous event make the experience real.

We need these stories.

Sharing Our Own History

When it’s all said and done, the fact that I slept right through last night’s game is probably not significant to the global understanding of history. Baseball and I aren’t that close. Other events, though, require that I stay awake. The evening of November 8 would be a good example. No matter how one slices it, this election has important historical significance. We need to be awake not just because we need to know the outcome. We need to be paying attention because there will come a day when our stories will be an important part of the historical narrative of our country.

Sharing our stories, whether through the centuries-honored oral tradition or through creating a video for social media, is an important part of history. We need more than dates and numbers and names. Those who come behind us need to know why we vote the way we do, how our lives are affected, and how we adjust our plans based on the outcome. History is not something we watch happen. History is something we experience, even if it is passive.

We need to stay awake. Our stories are important. Make sure you tell yours.

Continue Reading

Art  /  Current Issues
Missing The World Summit On Arts & Culture
October 19, 2016
charles i. letbetter - missing the world summit on arts & culture

Our culture is more shaped by the arts and humanities than it often is by politics. —Jim Leach

 

charles i. letbetter - missing the world summit for arts & culture

Global discussions of arts and culture are taking place and the US is largely sitting on the sidelines

There is a conference taking place in Malta right now involving arts and culture organizations from all over the world. The World Summit On Arts And Culture includes participants from every populated continent, people dedicated wholly to preserving the future of the arts and the cultures they represent. Interestingly enough, this is one international program where the United States is sitting mostly on the sidelines. Yes, National Endowment for the Arts chairperson Jane Chu did speak this morning, but the only other American organization on the very full speaking schedule is Robert Lynch, CEO of Americans for the Arts late tomorrow. The conversation is very diverse with points of view from places whose cultures and arts have long been overlooked by the Western arts community.

From the summit’s website:

The focus of the 2016 World Summit on Arts and Culture, will be on Cultural Leadership in the 21st Century. The arts and culture can be considered to be at a crossroads – faced with many challenges and opportunities at the global, national and local level such as: the impact of new technologies on the production and distribution of cultural goods and services; threats to global security; new patterns of migration; changing contexts at the national level including austerity measures and continuous requests for reform; aspirations from artists and culture operators to extend their impact and outreach to other sectors, while also struggling to guarantee freedom of expression and ensure cultural diversity. 

charles i. letbetter - missing the world summit on arts & culture

Relying On The Voice Of Others

I really can’t comment too terribly much beyond this point because I’M NOT THERE! Sigh. No one ever wants to send me to the fun stuff. I could volunteer to be shot at and be accepted right away, but offer to be involved in conversations about how photography factors in arts and especially non-Western cultures and nooooo, I’m still sitting here at home. Fortunately, though, those who are participating have been very active on social media, especially Twitter. There is also a discussion paper that covers many of the issues addressed today and tomorrow. The paper’s quite academic so you’ll most likely need to give it multiple reads. However, there are some gems from that document that are well worth quoting here.

… the cultural leader is an agent of change who contributes to cultural development in their country, Discussion Paper 21 Ayeta Anne Wangusa region or continent. The cultural leader does this through visioning and building relations with partners to address systemic challenges resulting from our colonial history and the current globalisation era. It is also about conserving our intangible heritage for posterity, as well analysing the underlying belief systems of Africa and their interaction with the Global North and Global South, to promote social cohesion and sustainable development. —Ayeta Anne Wangusa,  Executive Director of Culture and Development East Africa (CDEA)

What is urgently needed today is leadership which promotes dialogue for new governance, collaboration and coproduction endeavors with civil society and cultural movements. —Lucina Jimenez, Director General of ConArte Internacional

charles i. letbetter - missing the global summit on arts and culture

Voices Not Expected

One of the areas we tend to dismiss when discussing arts and culture is the Middle East. We do so out of great ignorance. The regions where war is most commonplace are also homes to great troves of artistic and  cultural importance that have influenced artists, writers, playwrights, and politicians for centuries. Many of these artifacts have been recently destroyed and preserving them seems almost impossible. I found these statements from the discussion paper most interesting.

I n Arab cultural scenes with no or overpowering art infrastructures, small and short circuit networks formulate; friendships sustain some of the bonding. Within these networks, collaborations force themselves on individuals; time is limited, shifting dramatically, and so are the identified resources, therefore sharing or teaming up allows being in and outside of a production process. There is no continuity for those who fall out of these processes. Personal, or collaborative, collections of notes, writings, ephemera, accesses, experiences and interests in miniscule histories are the sites of intervention. There is still a huge discrepancy in sustaining rights; to access, to copy, to say, to stay, to object, to reject, to exit. 

…

A cultural leader is not a state, but its policy; is not an institution but its dynamic; is not a community, but its bond; is not a social (media) space, not a financial model, nor a future built by forecasts, but their logic of probabilities, that could continue to enhance our working models. —Ala Younis is an artist, trained as an architect in Amman.

charles i. letbetter - missing the world summit on arts & culture

Wait, There’s More

The discussion paper is quite full of perspective that should yank us from thinking exclusively about local perspectives and open our conversations more to immigrants bringing their culture and artistic perspective to us. Consider these examples:

In Asian cultures there is a long tradition of artistic creativity as communal, rather than the individual specialist called artist, and in many Asian societies there is no word for artist.

…

Lopsided emphasis on left brain thinking stunts creative imagination. It is unfortunate that many Asian countries inherited educational systems from the industrial revolution of eighteenth century.

…

Cultural leadership, especially in education and official policy, should be able to promote not only the intelligence quotient, but intuitive, creative intelligence and all other intelligences that enrich the creative imagination. —Felipe M. De Leon, Jr., Chairman and Commissioner for the Arts of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, in the Philippines

Cultural leadership is not only the implementation of concepts and theories from the business world into the cultural sector, but – like the concepts of cultural management and cultural entrepreneurship – it has also to do with the creation of social value by artists and organisations and how to balance managerial effectiveness with artistic value for society.

…

Regardless of how and where these challenges emerge, indisputably leaders will be required for the cultural sector. The cultural sector now has little choice but to respond: the present challenges of new media, changing audiences, dwindling public funds, and a decline of historical awareness are merely the next steps in this continuing pathway. —Annick Schramme,  President of ENCATC, the European Network on Cultural Management and Cultural Policy

charles i. letbetter - missing the world summit on arts and culture

What I’m Missing

While justing being in Malta this time of year would be nice, what I’m missing are the voices of incredibly talented and intelligent people as they discuss ways to make sure the arts and culture continue to develop throughout the century in the face of numerous obstacles. Participants posting from Twitter give us just a taste of those conversations.

I could, of course, go on and on and on.  You wouldn’t read them if I did, though. If you’re interested in more, search #artsummitmalta for current tweets coming from the summit.

We have thousands of arts organizations scattered across the US, most of which do absolutely incredible work. We need these larger conversations, though. Art and cutlture is not merely a local experience, but a global one. The questions and challenges are universal. We need to grab hold of these conversations and push them forward.

And maybe next year I can hid aboard a tramp steamer or something and actually participate.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  PotD  /  Social Commentary
Love As A Political Platform
October 16, 2016
charles i. letbetter - love as a political platform

I think artists are always investigating how to have an economic, political platform. —Jeff Koons

 

charles i. letbetter - love as a political platform

What if we ditched the existing political parties and went with one that has love as its political platform? Consider the potential

Another Sunday morning. I’ve already taken the dog for his morning walk, both of us enjoying the extra light from the full Hunter’s Moon. The second pot of coffee is on. Dishes are washing in the dishwasher. Clothes are drying in the dryer. For the moment, everyone is asleep except me and the black cat, Burberry. She’s taking advantage of the quiet to give herself a thorough cleaning. For however many seconds this lasts, it is calming.

We are so incredibly inundated with politics this season that there seems to be no escape.  I don’t mind admitting I’m concerned. I doubt the accuracy of polls in a race where a large number of voters are likely to go with a literal coin toss on election day. With Russia threatening, Yemen simmering, and Syria ready to explode (again), moments like these where my blood pressure is almost back within normal range are few.

At moments like this, I can’t help wondering what might be Poppa’s sermon topic were he preaching this morning. He disliked politics and didn’t  think they belonged anywhere near the pulpit. Yet, in an atmosphere as politically charged as this one, even the church isn’t immune.

Perhaps he would artfully dodge the matter by talking about love as a political platform. He would use John 13:34 as his text: A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. He liked that passage. From there, he would develop the political platform based on the qualities of love. Perhaps something like this:

Love As Domestic Policy

When developing any political platform, one has to first consider how they are going to handle matters here at home. Certainly, we can use a lot of love right here, right now, and there are myriad ways love could be applied. One strong move might be to dissolve the two existing major political parties. They have become so incredibly polarized that they are no longer able to function. The hate between the two sides of the aisles in Congress has brought much-needed legislation to a standstill. Dissolving both parties and starting over with a stated intent of working from a basis of respect, loving those of contrary opinion, willing to sacrifice for the sake of consensus, would set a strong example for the people of the United States to follow.

Across the country, applying love through everything the federal government does would have a profound effect. We would end mass incarceration, mandatory sentencing, and find ways to actually help those who are challenged to fit into society. We would take an attitude of moving from community policing to community helping, perhaps putting more social workers on the street who can help people address problems before any law is broken. We would abolish the failed war on drugs, look at the legitimate power of cannabis, and address the basic conditions that lead to severe drug use.

A political platform that uses love for domestic policy invokes radical changes in the way we think, in the way relate to each other. We are not adversaries as many would have us believe. We are brothers and sisters committed to each other in Love, and that is a power that can take communities from the slums to the heights of prosperity, from crime to celebration, and from desperation to hope.

Love As Economic Policy

The economy is a huge and very sensitive issue in any political platform. When President Obama first entered office in 2009, we were in the throws of the worst economy since the Great Depression. Yet, while the numbers say that the economy has improved dramatically, those improvements haven’t been felt on the street where people are still struggling. That we need to apply some love to our economic policies seem obvious, but exactly how would we do that?

Perhaps we need to start by de-incentivizing greed. Love does not hoard, love gives. We have, since the beginning of the stock markets, based our measurements of economic growth based on monetary accumulation. We look at sales growth as a primary indicator of a company’s value with no consideration of whether they bring any actual benefit to the national or global population. If we change our valuation away from one that rewards greed to one that rewards actual benefit, we incentivize growth that is actually felt outside the corporate boardroom.

Love also is found in an economy where no one has too much and no one has too little. Our national wage system is in tatters and reinforces a social caste system that keeps the poor and disadvantaged, especially people of color, from making any personal economic progress. Yes, love rewards those who achieve, but it does not turn its back on those who struggle. Love sets a wage standard that allows everyone to live without need, without fear of being in want, and with an ability to be proud of who they are and what they  do.

Love As Foreign Policy

Insomuch as the United States is a global power, we have a lot of influence in what happens around the world. We have the ability to change everything from the spread of deadly disease to the ability to grow crops and make a region self-sustaining. We have, too often, used our influence and power for bad. The world desperately needs for us to turn our foreign policy around and use it to spread love across the globe.

We do that by funding programs and providing assistance to efforts that help people, not those that hurt them. We spread love by helping to stabilize economies so that there is an absence of need. Love comes not when we sell our surplus weapons so that one tribe can have power over another, but when we trade their weapons for food, medicine, and economic support.

To those who insist on war and doing harm to others, we respond first to those they victimize, welcoming refugees, especially those persecuted and in need of medical attention. We keep our offers of love on the table at all times, but we fund no one’s aggression and do not allow our acts of kindness to be manipulated and misused. We defend where we must, but we do not utilize aggression as a means of getting what we want.

Love As Education Policy

Love facilitates learning throughout one’s lifetime. Love looks for ways to remove the barriers to learning whether they be financial, logistical, emotional, or intellectual. Love finds ways to help those for whom learning is a challenge and is not satisfied with any excuse for one not being taught to the full level of their potential. Love rewards those who learn and encourages them to use what they know, along with the skills and talents they possess to make the world a better place.

Love also understands that as much as we are all lifetime learners, we are also teachers. Some may teach in a classroom, others may teach through skill development or helping to advance understanding in critical thinking. Love values teaching because it understands the necessity of teaching to improve the learning that moves the world forward. As a political platform, teaching is critical because we have, for too long, relied on inappropriate standards of measure that punish actual broad instruction. Love gives teachers room to utilize different styles, methods, and pedagogies to meet the instructional needs of their students.

More than anything, Love shares knowledge and wisdom with respect, teaching history with regard to its impact on different cultures, teaching science as the progressive understanding of the earth based on fact rather than mythologies, teaching mathematics in light of its practical applications, and teaching the arts as an open expression of culture and personhood.

Love As Healthcare Policy

There is no political platform that can promise to make everyone well, to increase everyone’s longevity, or prevent new disease. Living and loving involves risks and where there are risks there is inevitably pain and infirmities that love on its own cannot prevent nor take away. How love responds to these critical moments of need starts by, once again, removing the greed incentive that has placed adequate healthcare out of the reach of many. Healthcare as a profit center is not love. Medicine as a source of profit is not love. Instead of rewarding the healthcare system based on the amount of profit it can produce, love dictates that reward instead be based on the amount of good being done.

Love does not deny anyone the best available healthcare, neither does it distribute care based on status or economic or social standing. Love provides to each the treatment they need at the time they need it without any unnecessary delay. Access to medicines is universal and availability of appliances such as artificial limbs are unhindered.

As policy, love takes medical care wherever it is needed, looking for creative and different ways to reach remote rural areas where care has too often been sparse and insufficient. Love leaves no one hurting and seeks to improve the quality of life for all.

Love And The Interior

Responsibilities for the Department of Interior are overly broad and too frequently under-funded. Everything from infrastructure to energy to the environment falls under this enormous umbrella and its myriad subdivisions. Yet, here too, a political platform based on love offers a more balanced and practical way of addressing the many physical needs that occur throughout our country.  Love reaches out, looks forward, and protects our resources.

Love develops infrastructure based less on what currently exists and more on what is necessary for the future, looking at new technologies and embracing means of transportation that improve efficiency while reducing environmental impact. Love longs for sustainability in an energy policy that relies less on resources that can not be replaced and emphasizes those that are naturally occurring and provide benefit to the environment.

Love understands that we are firmly connected to this planet and must be good stewards of its use. Protections for waterways and all that exists within them is critical to a loving environment. Reducing our own footprint is a demonstration of love that allows those who come behind us to continue enjoying the natural wonders that fill our lives with beauty and pleasure.

Love As Social Policy

Our society is ill from all the partisan bickering to which we’ve been subjected. This is not a new disease for our country, but one which has reached such a critical point that have lost the use of some through alienation and marginalized many through hate. We need a political platform that brings love back as the dominant force in our society, encouraging and rewarding those who do for others before doing for themselves.

We need a national social policy that is wholly inclusive, so that people of color needn’t cower in fear, so that no one should ever be afraid to express who they are or what their sexuality might be, so that everyone gets an equal voice, even those with little to offer in return. A political platform based on love does not disregard the elderly no matter their age or level of ability. Neither does it leave children abandoned, starving, and without sufficient care.

Love rewards those who give, whether in terms of finances, or skills, or time spent holding the hand of one whose days are nearing their end. Love rewards those who strive for peace, diligently working to end conflicts before they escalate to violence. If the United States is to be the shining beacon of hope we want it to be, we must utilize love more than anything to stamp out all the fears that keep us from trusting, from engaging, and from appreciating those around us.

Starting A Conversation

We are, quite obviously, too late to impact this election cycle with a political platform so radical as that dominated by love. We can, however, begin a conversation that moves us forward toward a future where our political discourse is less dominated by hate. There will always be those who disagree. Vice is as much a part of the human condition as is virtue. Yet, the one we feed, the one we emphasize, the one we practice in our own dealings is the one that will dominate the next election.

All religions, not just Christianity, hold the same mandate given in scripture that we are to love one another. Love is not an option. Even if one holds no belief in a higher power, the universe demands unity,  cooperation, respectfulness, and peace. We have seen the depths to which the ravages of hate can take us. Now, let us reverse course and set our sights for the heights possible through love.

Yes, I realize that this all sounds so very  Pollyanish. Ideals set goals that are seldom achievable in reality. Still, we get out of our government exactly what we put in . We have endorsed hate for too long. Perhaps it’s time we try the alternative.

Peace be unto you.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  Personal  /  PotD
It’s Okay For Boys To Wear Makeup
October 12, 2016
charles i. letbetter - it's okay for boys to wear makeup

I feel more confident if my makeup looks good. —Ellie Goulding

charles i. letbetter - It's okay for boys to wear makeup

Major marketing milestones are great, but reaffirming a little boy’s desire to wear makeup is even better.

Kat’s Little Man is bright. He reads well beyond his grade level, excels at math  and problem-solving, and is quite sure he already knows everything (and isn’t afraid to say so). That part’s good. Where things become challenging are with his social skills. He likes people, but they annoy the crap out of him. Many of you can relate. They can also hurt his feelings quite easily and one of the most frequent reasons is he likes to wear makeup.

He’s asleep as I write this, but if I were to take a picture at this moment you’d see fingernails with chipped remnants of the nail polish he put on his fingers the other night. He did it himself and did a very good job. That’s about as much as he can get away with at school. The dress code prohibits any child from wearing makeup until fifth grade. If he could, though, he would probably wear makeup to school every day. He likes makeup. A lot. Unfortunately, his expression of that pleasure comes at a price.

So, when Covergirl Cosmetics announced James Charles as their first male spokesmodel, Kat and I thought it was a big deal. I waited until the Tipster had gone to bed before calling Little Man over to the computer. “Hey look!” I said, excited to show him something cool. “Here’s another boy who likes to wear makeup!”

His response was not what I expected.

Biases Start Early

“Yeah, I know. The girls at school still say that nail polish and makeup is only for girls and that boys can’t wear makeup.”

No excitement. He looked at the computer then down at his fingernails. I didn’t need to ask to know how he felt, but I did so that he can learn to express how he’s feeling. “I’m sorry they said that. How did that make you feel?”

“Angry,” he said. “I like wearing makeup and I want to wear makeup but those girls are just stupid.” He was visibly, physically agitated. Not wanting to get him upset right before bedtime, I tried to distract him with this:

 

That didn’t work. “Yeah, but they still won’t let ME wear makeup to school,” Little Man mused as he returned to his seat on the couch.

“Well, maybe that could be you on that cover one day,” I tried, grasping at straws. I wanted him to be excited and encouraged and that just wasn’t happening.

He looked back at the picture on my monitor and said, “I can do better makeup than that.”

All About The Makeup

At this point, I should probably emphasize that sexuality is not part of the conversation we have with Little Man. He’s not close to understanding that topic yet and we see no reason to push him in any direction. That decision is his to make when he’s ready to make it. At this point, we try hard to not separate our friends into groups. Whether they’re gay, straight, bi, trans, or gloriously somewhere between all those choices, we still refer to them simply as our friends. The sexuality conversations can come later.

What matters for the moment is that Little Man really likes makeup. He always has. Kat has pictures of him when he was only two after he had gotten into her makeup. To some extent, that exploration is quite normal for a little boy at that age. I remember my middle son, the one who is now a Marine, coming out of the bathroom when he was four, his face covered in his mom’s makeup. Many parents have similar stories. Where other boys move on, though, Little Man never has. He loves makeup and is constantly “borrowing” his mom’s best makeup (always the expensive stuff) for his “experiments.”

Since the kids were on fall break last week, Kat took some time with her little guy to teach him how to apply makeup properly. She gave him a palette and the appropriate applicators, then let him put the makeup on her face. While his color choices made it appear in pictures as though his mom had a black eye, his general application and blending were surprisingly good. His eye shadow application was spot on. The kid may well be a natural.

Supporting Little Man’s interest in makeup isn’t difficult. We have plenty of makeup appropriate for experimenting. Kat has the knowledge of how to teach him to use the makeup correctly. No one at home judges his choice in any way (though we might sometimes wince at his color combinations).

We can’t control what happens when he leaves the house, though. He’s not content only wearing makeup at home. Little Man wants to look good when he goes out, even if it’s to the store, and we can’t control the responses he encounters in those situations.

Building A Better World

The atmosphere for boys like Little Man is improving. We have male friends who wear makeup when they visit so he knows he’s not alone. People around him who know him help by not reinforcing old gender stereotypes. There are no “girl” colors or “boy” colors.

Attitudes, though, are a different thing. Seeing that even in second-grade children have already developed opinions about what boys can do or girls can do is disappointing.  We not only limit our children’s means of self-expression, but we also limit their ability to explore and try new things. We limit their goals and their desire to achieve when we tell  them that they can’t do something simply because of their gender.

As adults, our responsibility is to build a better world for our children. We make sure the air remains breathable. We make sure the planet can continue to provide food. Their safety, education, and ability to achieve are matters we take seriously. We fail all children, though, when we establish limits because of their gender. Boys can wear makeup. Girls can sport crew cuts. Neither should ever feel that anyone is limiting them because of who and what they are.

If we do not provide that world for our children, we all have failed.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  PotD
Sexual Assault Was Never Macho
October 11, 2016
charles i. letbetter - sexual assault is never macho

 Sexual assault is not a prize or a victory; neither is it something to be bragged about even if it didn’t actually happen.

 

charles i. letbetter - sexual assault has never been macho

Sexual assault is not a joke, nor a conquest. To treat it as anything other than a crime is wrong.

Processing the pictures above was emotionally difficult. They were shot for a special project a few years ago and I’m thankful to say that what appear to be bruises and abrasions on the model’s face are just an incredibly good makeup job. There are others from this project, a fight scene in particular, that I still can’t stomach. Never mind that I know the assault is fake, that no punches were actually thrown, that every step was carefully choreographed. The images are still disturbing.

I know there is perhaps some sexist bias in what I’m about to say, but I was raised to respect women. My father gave us no choice. He started by setting a strong example in how he treated our mother. We never heard him so much as raise his voice to her. He demanded nothing less from my brother and me.Being disrespectful to our mother was a capital offense and the quickest way to get a belt applied to our tail ends.

So, when I look at the recent news and see apologists such as Pat Robertson attempting to excuse a discussion of sexual assault as nothing more than macho talk, I’m not just disturbed, I’m angry.

Being Macho Is Nothing To Brag About

Eighth-grade gym was when I first encountered someone trying to act macho. There was one bully in particular who figured out that offensive language bothered me and was constantly using that as a means of torment. As strange as it may seem now, repeated use of the word “fuck” could almost bring me to tears (partly because I wasn’t sure what the word even meant).

The locker room was the worst. There, this loud, unruly, frequently suspended classmate would attempt to brag about how “macho” he was. He would tell in graphic detail tales of his alleged sexual exploits with different girls in our class. Each afternoon was a new claim about a different girl.

No one bought his act. First, everyone knew he was lying about his conquest. He was called out on that fact more than once, and on at least two occasions I can remember, he took a punch to the face when the wrong guy’s girlfriend was mentioned. Every last one of us was interested in sex, mind you — we were 14-uear-old boys in the 70s. We looked forward to experiencing it for ourselves. Still, the whole macho thing wasn’t cool. If anything, acting macho was a good way to get your nose bloodied.

Bad Excuses For Bad Behavior

Who would have ever thought that all the way here in 3016 we would have a presidential candidate who not only brags about committing sexual assault but then attempts to defend it with claims of “just acting macho?” Even a year ago, when it was already clear that this election cycle was going to fly off the rails, I don’t think any reasonable person would imagine such horrible words coming out of a candidates mouth.

What is unquestionably worse, though, is that people are defending both what was said and what allegedly happened. There can be no more certain sign of complete and utter moral decay that for someone like Robertson, someone who has made a career of claiming to represent the most popular deity in the United States, to defend such disrespectful, disgusting, and distasteful discussions as nothing more than, “being macho.”

Mind you, I never liked Robertson in the first place, something else I learned from my father. Even n the early days of the 700 Club, Poppa called Robertson a charlatan who was siphoning money out of the pockets of those who already had the least to give. Still, to actually sit there on television and endorse bragging about sexual assault is so far beyond the pale as to completely remove any thin shred of integrity the old codger might have had left. There is no excuse for sexual assault and no room for those who tolerate it.

Sexual Assault Is Not A Joking Matter

What may be most disturbing is that so many apologists for the candidate are treating the subject of sexual assault as though it were a humorous topic. Their complete dismissal of the seriousness of the matter is an affront to every woman on the planet. I am mind-blown by the flippancy with which too many people are responding to the candidate’s statement.

Fortunately, women are fighting back in a very powerful way by telling their stories. British author Kelly Oxford called for women to tell their stories of sexual assault, and they have, by the thousands. Their stories are not easy reading. Accounts of sexual assault are not entertaining. In fact, having read a few last night, I can only imagine how difficult it was for women to dredge up those horrible memories.

We have talked before about the problem this country has with overcoming a persistent rape culture. Treating sexual assault as though it were some kind of adolescent right of passage reinforces that rape culture. As we continue to allow such conversations to exist we continue to put every woman on this planet at risk.

We Know Better

Some have attempted to dismiss the candidate’s remarks as merely locker room banter. I can imagine there are still some locker rooms where such misogyny is still tolerated, but those locker rooms are the exception, not the rule. Want to know what a professional locker room is like? It’s LeBron James picking up the towels his teammates left behind. It’s the Colts dancing after a victory.The locker room is also the seen of a lot of crying after a loss and challenges among teammates when someone fails to pull their weight.

We all know that sexual assault is wrong. Being macho has never been cool and has never been an excuse. There is no reason to tolerate this among anyone. We would punish any teenager we caught acting up like this. We certainly have no reason to tolerate it from a presidential candidate or his supporters.

Dismissing sexual assault is disgraceful and so are those who excuse it.

 

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  PotD
5 Things More Important Than Politics
October 10, 2016
charles i. letbetter - 5 things more important than politics

Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable. —John Kenneth Galbraith

 

charles i. letbetter -5 things more important than politics

Politics be damned. There are things more important. A lot of things. Time to re-focus

My newsfeed is full of comments,articles, statements, and quotes regarding last night’s Presidential debate. I’m doing my best to ignore as much of it as possible. I was having hot chocolate and cherry pie while the debate was occurring, enjoying time with family. I went to bed before the debate was over. I slept well, not giving a second thought to  either candidate.

With a field of candidates more unlikeable and unqualified than we’ve ever seen, the intelligent move would have been to shut down the conversations, ignore the buffoonery, and focus on issues we could actually change for the positive. Apparently, we’re not that smart. From the very beginning, we went for the clown show, laughing at how absurd it all was. Our constant attention encouraged even more stupidity and it grew to the point we now have a circus that is nothing more than really bad slapstick.

Meanwhile,  there are really important things going on in the world. There are probably thousands of things I could list that are more important than politics, but we’ve narrowed the list to five in hopes that maybe someone will actually pay attention this time. Take a look.

People In Haiti Are Digging Mass Graves

The death toll is over 1,000 in Haiti now. Cholera is beginning to sweep the island, which could kill more than Hurricane Matthew did. Rural areas, once again the hardest hit, are in desperate need of help with the most basic of necessities, such as clean water and sanitation. If you live anywhere in the United States, even if you are homeless, you are better off than the people of Haiti at this moment.

Calls for help are, of course, going out, but one thing we learned from the aftermath of the earthquake there three years ago is that the government is so incredibly corrupt and cares so very little for its people that very little aid actually gets to the people who need it. By some accounts, as much as 90 percent of aid sent to Haiti never reached its intended destination. Instead, it was hoarded by government leaders who used aid funds to line their own pockets.

What do we do? I don’t know. There’s no aid that does not have to go through government channels.While NGOs such as the Red Cross and the UN are doing their best, what we are seeing so far is a repeat of the disaster from three years ago. Haiti’s government doesn’t care if people die. Only a full-scale takeover of the government gets people the assistant they need, and no one is going to do that. The people of Haiti are screwed.

Meanwhile, the death toll from Hurricane Matthew in the US is at 17. That story is buried in most newspapers this morning, too. I had to hunt for it.

Santos Gives Nobel Prize Money To Colombian Victims

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos won the Nobel Peace Prize last week for his efforts to end the long civil war in his country. Some were surprised that he won despite an election that turned away an agreement that would have ended the conflict. Yet, the Nobel committee chose to acknowledge his efforts, saying that the election results were out of his control.

The monetary piece of the Nobel Prize is 8 million Swedish krona, which, based on this morning’s exchange rate, is just under a million dollars US. That much money buys a lot in Colombia and President Santos had many options. Politics being what they are, no one would have been too surprised had Santos chosen to put the money behind something that would benefit him politically. Instead, he chose to give it to those most affected by the ongoing war.

With the peace agreement having been shot down by voters and a cease-fire set to expire this week, fears in Colombia are mounting. The rural people have that country have been especially hard hit. Yet, unlike the situation in Haiti, they have a President who, at least on the surface, seems to care.

Stew Is Better Than Steak

Food is so much more important than politics. With the weather having cooled off, we can once again turn our attention to the savory and flavorful dishes that not only fill us but keep us warm. I made my first pot of chili for the season last night and will probably do some manner of veggie stew later this week.

Is stew actually better than steak, though? Really?

Think about that question for a moment. Think of the variety, the flavors, the options one has with stew that simply doesn’t exist with steak.  If I prepare a steak for dinner, I have to be careful to choose just the right cut of meat, prepare it in just the right way with a limited group of appropriate spices, and pray that I’m not distracted and ruin it by cooking it a touch too long.

Stew, on the other hand, is a rainbow food. Toss at it whatever’s left over in the fridge, or what you’re still pulling from your garden. Maybe you add meat, maybe you don’t (though, by definition, most stew at least has a meat stock base). One can get really fancy with the ingredients, or one can play it loose and adventuresome. Making a bad stew is almost impossible. Oh, and cutting the meat into chunks also makes it more tender and flavorful, something you can’t do with a steak.

See? So much more important than what the Republican called the Democrat.

The Cubs

Tonight is game 3 of the National League playoffs, Cubs vs. Mets. The Cubs took the first two games. They have a talented pitching staff. The bats have worked when they were needed. The Cubs could sweep the Mets tonight.

Politics? Who needs politics when there is a more than reasonable chance that the Chicago Cubs could end up in the World Series for the first time in 108 years?

I have to admit, it has been interesting to watch the playoff coverage in the Chicago Tribune. They have been so very careful to not get too excited, to not be overly positive, to not give the Cubs any undue credit.  We’ve   been down this road before: the Cubs make the playoffs but can’t seal the deal. To be a  Cubs fan is to spend every October crying into your beer.

Yet, this year, with this team, things could be different. Maybe. Just maybe.

Tomorrow Is The Deadline For Voter Registration In Indiana

Okay, this is sort of political. Although, politics aren’t the only reason we vote. Duty, commitment, love of our country, and an obligation to participate in our government are why we vote. Politics are merely an annoying side effect, rather like anal leakage.

Voting is always more important that the politics surrounding your vote.  There are too many people in our country who would take votes away from people whose voice needs to be heard. If you have the ability to vote, you have a moral obligation to do so. This is the way our country was designed to work. You not voting is exactly the same as Congress spending roughly two-thirds of the year on vacation: neither are doing what the country needs us to do.

No, voting doesn’t make the politics go away. Sometimes, the politics get worse. We are such an ideologically diverse country that our passion sometimes gets in the way of doing what is right.

Voting is not an endorsement of a candidate. Voting is saying to those elected, “Hey, I’m a citizen. My life matters. And I’m watching you.”

If you are not registered to vote, do so now.

 

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  PotD
The Value Of A Well Considered Opinion
October 3, 2016
charles i. letbetter - the value of a well-considered opinion

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance. —Plato

 

charles i. letbetter -the value of a well considered opinion

When we think we know it all is when the opinion of someone else may matter most.

“You’re never as smart as you think you are. There is always someone who knows more and understands better than you. Pay attention to those people.”

The words of my late father seem more applicable today than ever. I still remember sitting next to him as he warned me about opening my mouth too soon, a bad habit I’ve had since high school.

“Almost everyone knows at least one thing you don’t,” he warned. “Other people’s opinions may seem foolish and uninformed, but dismissing the well-considered opinions of those who are more experienced,  study deeper, and have better access to information only shows your ignorance, not theirs.”

There are days I’m still not sure I’ve adequately learned that lesson. I’m careful about whose opinions I consider. “Consider the source,” is the advice that comes with much of what I read. Of the millions of opinions scattered across the Internet, most leave me skeptical of either their facts or their intentions.

Social media makes it easy to put ourselves in an echo chamber. If we don’t like what someone is saying, we can simply block them, ignoring everything they might have to say. Sometimes that act is necessary in order to avoid constant streams of drivel. When we block someone, though, simply because they have opinions contrary to ours we put our own level of understanding and knowledge at risk. We need the contrasting thought. We need friction against our own opinion.

Knowing Which Opinion To Trust

When one goes to apply for a new job, the prospective employer almost always asks for references. We choose those references based upon the assumption that those people say good things about us when asked. However, have you ever had a reference that wasn’t as positive about your skills as you’d hoped? Maybe you didn’t get the job because someone you trusted mentioned your perpetual habit of being late or not always following through on your promises. Perhaps they even lied.

One of the primary reasons we’ve come to disregard the opinions of others is because too often we find them self-serving, frequently uninformed, and too often void of any truth. The Internet has given everyone a voice, but not every voice needs to be heard on every topic. Does someone sitting in a basement in Queens really understand the political complexities of the ongoing war in Columbia? Can a person who barely managed to graduate high school actually hold a reasonable opinion on the economy?

The answer to both questions is yes, they can. The upside of the Internet is that it allows people to study things and obtain a level of knowledge without having to suffer through traditional means of education. A person who might have nearly flunked out of school because of bad grades in English and History might have a natural affinity for numbers and the nuances of economic theory. The basement dweller has the ability to reach out and talk directly to people on both sides of the equation in Columbia, side-stepping all the political protocols of the State Department. Look below superficial appearances and those opinions we’ve thrown away might actually have merit.

When An Opinion Really Matters

The second challenge of opinions is understanding whose opinion matters when. I could sit here all day and talk about feminism and women’s rights, but the value of my opinion on that topic is limited because I’m not female. I don’t have those experiences that women face on a regular basis, and cannot fully understand what they go through because no one is going to treat me as a female. The same applies to race. I hurt when I see the injustices levied against people of color, but when speaking on the matter my opinion is limited. I might know a lot about a topic, but if I can’t possibly experience what other people experience my opinion loses value.

A well-considered opinion is one that has had those experiences. I respect the opinions of Congressman John Lewis on matters of race because he has been there on the front lines. He felt the spray. He has the scars. Congressman Lewis understands the situation at a level I cannot begin to comprehend. I respect Kat’s opinion on matters of feminism and sexual identity because she has both feet in those arenas right now. She is enduring those experiences and deals with the challenges at a level I can never know for myself. The opinion of someone who has been there is always stronger than that of the person who merely observed.

Equally important, though, are the opinions of those who speak for those who would not be heard. Reporters and advocates for causes and regarding situations where those who endure the experience are not able to speak for themselves. Those who are hungry, homeless, beaten, torn from their homes, left with nothing. Those who go and look, who are hands-on in helping those in need, who immerse themselves in hostile situations, have opinions we need to trust.

Listening To The Chorus

Perhaps most important right now, in this political climate, is listening to the opinions of diverse people who agree on issues even when it does not necessarily serve them well. Climatologists, for example, did not quickly or easily support the concept of global warming. They have an understanding of weather cycles and know that some changes are inevitable. But as more of them take up the cause and warn of the dangers, theirs is a voice we do well to heed.

Perhaps the strongest chorus at the moment is that of newspaper editorial boards regarding the upcoming presidential elections. Most seasons, we expect their endorsements to follow along party lines. Conservative papers endorse the Republican candidate. Liberal papers endorse the Democratic candidate. Independent papers endorse a third party. For as long as I can remember, that has been how endorsements flow. There’s rarely any surprise.

That history does not hold true this season, though. Look at the aggregators and we see headlines like these:

After 148 Years, The San Diego Union-Tribune Endorses A Democrat For President

For The First Time In Its 126-Year History, This Newspaper Endorsed A Democrat

There are dozens of others who have followed suit, newspaper editorial boards who understand the effect of politics on their readers better than anyone. When they all start leaning in the same direction, we need to listen.

We Don’t Know Much

We are fooling ourselves when we think that what we read in our social media newsfeeds constitutes being informed on a subject. Our ignorance runs much deeper than anyone cares to admit. Egos do a great job of making us believe that we’re smart enough, that we don’t need to listen to anyone else’s opinions. We can even find plenty of quotes urging us to ignore the detractors, be our own person, and stand up what we want.

We couldn’t be any more stupid than when we ignore the well-considered opinions of others. Especially right now.

Maybe we should do more than look at headlines as they pass. Perhaps we should give ourselves more time to actually read, and think about what we’re reading.

A well-considered opinion has value that cannot be matched by our own understanding. We would do well to close our own mouths more often and listen.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  pop culture  /  PotD
Excessive Media Erodes Our Trust
September 27, 2016
charles i. letbetter - excessive media erodes our trust

There’s a danger in the internet and social media. The notion that information is enough, that more and more information is enough, that you don’t have to think, you just have to get more information – gets very dangerous. —Edward de Bono

 

charles i. letbetter - excessive media erodes our trust

If you don’t trust media it might be because you’re using too much of it.

CAUTION: YOU ARE CONSUMING MEDIA. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

We changed brands of dog food this morning. We felt the dog wasn’t getting enough from his previous brand, so we did a little bit of research and switched. This morning, I didn’t feel we’d done enough research. The dog normally comes in from our morning walk, eats a little, then falls fast asleep because 4:00 AM is early even for a dog. Except this morning, after inhaling the new food, he didn’t go to sleep. He’s been bouncing around all over the place, terrifying the cats, and getting himself into trouble. So, I hit the brand’s website to double-check the ingredients. I needed specific information and found it on the brand’s website. That makes the dog food company a media provider.

A number of my friends in journalism were sharing this article from the Washington Post decrying how that there really is no such thing as “the media” and, if there is, WaPo certainly isn’t part of it. The argument author Paul Farhi attempts to make is that the term “the media” is too broad to be defining. If one defines “the media” according to the constraints given by The Oxford Dictionary, then practically everything around you is, technically “the media.” Here’s the definition:

(the media)
the main means of mass communication (broadcasting, publishing, and the Internet), regarded collectively
See the problem? If “the media” is the vehicle for all communication, all communication is “the media.”

Not Your Grandfather’s Newspaper

When I first woke up this morning, I knew that the headlines would be dominated by spin on last night’s presidential debate. Among the myriad of headlines was this one: The Media Calls Debate For Clinton. I’d link you to the article, but it has since been removed (apparently an editor woke up). My point is that the article was a case of one information source blamed another information source for communicating information. Seems rather silly, doesn’t it?

When one puts something on the Internet, whether it’s a Facebook status or a tweet or your grandmother’s cookie recipe, there is one underlying purpose: to communicate. When one puts something on the Internet, one is engaging in the digital form of publishing. That makes you part of “the media” and a consumer of media at the same time. Therefore, taking this circular logic all the way around, when one criticizes “the media” online, they are ultimately criticizing themselves.

Yeah, stop and let that sink in for a moment. Hurts the brain a little, doesn’t it?

Believe it or not, all these media sources are less than 100 years old. Only newspapers and printed leaflets existed in 1916. Even the first talking movie, The Jazz Singer, was over a decade away. With so few choices for information, trust in those sources ran high. Chances are, in most areas, your grandparents or great-grandparents knew who published the local newspaper. They probably went to the same church, were members of the same civic groups. Few people would have thought of publishing their own paper or printing their own leaflets. Information needed to be important if it was going to be distributed.

Contrast that to current standards where “if you think it then you must tweet it,” or something like that.

What We Say

Gallup released a poll earlier this month with the headline: American’s Trust In Mass Media Sinks To New Low. Here’s the actual question and how the long-term graph looks:

Notice that Gallup attempts some nebulous framing of the question by adding the qualifier “mass” to “media,” so as to restrict opinions to what might once have been regarded as “legitimate” news sources—the ones your grandparents would have trusted. Given the overwhelming number of “news” sites, especially when one includes aggregators such as Huffington Post and Breitbart, Gallup’s question is still too broad to have any real, definitive meaning. If the survey tells us anything, and that point would certainly be arguable, it is that we only trust a limited number of the information sources we access.

Similarly, Hart Research, acting on behalf of NBC News and The Wall Street Journal, asked half the respondents of a 1,000-person survey to “rate your feelings” toward “several public figures, groups, and organizations.” In the total list, “the news media” ranked toward the bottom with only a 19% positive response, between Donald Trump (28% positive response) and Vladimir Putin (6% positive response). However, once again, the lack of a narrow definition calls the results into question. Some people might consider satire sights such as The Onion part of the news media. Others might consider aggregators part of the news media. Neither is there any delineation between sources that provide a majority of reporter-based editorial content and those that are merely an omnibus of collected opinion. 

What We Mean

What is generally considered “news” in this Internet-driven age is a far cry from the traditional expectations of journalism. There are millions of websites that distribute information related to current topics. For many people, that makes those sources “news.” Never mind the fact that they’re opinions we’ve written ourselves, largely to amuse ourselves. By the broad contemporary definition, this website might, at least on some days, considered a news source. That scares me because, despite the sometimes excessive amount of research we put into an article, it is never our intent to provide anything more than an opinion.

Perhaps even more frightening is how frequently people refer to social media, specifically Facebook and Twitter, as part of the news media. Neither site has reporters or editors controlling what you see or don’t see. All the information flowing through those sites is curated by one person: you. You decide what is “news” and what is “information” and what is “entertainment.”  What’s telling is that a very large number of people make absolutely no distinction between those categories. They simply toss everything under the general heading of “the media.”

And they don’t trust it. Which, again, using that circular logic, means we don’t trust ourselves. We probably shouldn’t. We don’t know what we’re doing. We’ve proven that we’re not terribly judicious in the media we consume. If we were, debunking sites like Snopes wouldn’t get nearly as much traffic. On any given day, we publish more false information through our own social media accounts than all the newspapers and news networks combined. We distrust “the media” because we know, secretly, that we are complicit in spreading rumor more than fact.

A Difficult Diet

Like a person whose health deteriorates from eating only fast food, the solution to our media loathing starts with a very harsh reality: we need to cut back. Continuing the fast food metaphor, we need to pay more attention to the source of what we’re consuming. Sure, there are days when ordering pizza makes sense for our schedule, but that doesn’t happen every day. Most days we’re more conscientious about what we consume. The same is true of media. Some days I need the smile I get from a video on Funny Or Die. Making that my source for breaking news and information, though, is just silly. I’m going to check my local paper, then local television news, then national news sources if applicable. I’m damn sure not going to rely on Facebook or Twitter.

We have a preponderance of choice. Media surrounds us already and as the Internet of Things grows the amount of media being thrown at us is going to get worse. We need to start making those tough choices now. Back off the Buzzfeeds and TMZs, limiting them to inconsequential topics that we probably shouldn’t care about in the first place. Pay more attention to the source of our information. Hint: anytime you see an article tagged as “sponsored,” know that it was written by someone, or on behalf of someone, who has a vested financial interest in the topic. Therefore, it’s not news. Recognise opinion for what it is: someone else’s viewpoint, not news.

If we don’t trust media it’s because both the media we create and our choice of media to consume are not trustworthy. The problem is us. We’ve gotten fat on easily available, always accessible media. Saying we distrust “the media” is like saying we don’t like mac & cheese while a fresh bowl sits in front of us. We need to put ourselves on a media diet and see just how much our opinions change.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  PotD
Hello, Human. Today You Get To Die
September 26, 2016
charles i. letbetter - hello human, today you get to die

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. —Mark Twain

 

 

charles i. letbetter - hello, today you get to die

We rarely get to choose when we die. If your day was today, would you be ready?

Looking at the headlines this morning was a bit depressing. Golfing great Arnold Palmer died at age 87. Miami Marlin’s ace pitcher Jose Fernandez was killed in a boating accident.  Mylan Hicks, currently a defensive back in the Canadian Football League and formerly of the San Francisco 49ers, was killed in a Calgary nightclub shooting. While I had no personal connection with any of them, I certainly respect their accomplishments and the impact their deaths have on their respective sports. We’ve mentioned multiple times that this is being a lousy year, but the past couple of weeks have been especially brutal it seems. Two friends have lost their fathers in the past two weeks. Other friends have lost childhood playmates way too early in their lives.

Death surrounds us all the time. We are subconsciously aware of that fact, but there are times when it seems to get too close for comfort. When we see so many die around us we start to feel uncomfortable. Dealing with the reality of our own mortality is not easy. No one really wants to die, especially not right now. Yet, there are so many ways in which death can sneak up and take us unexpectedly.

China lost control of a space station and it could crash into a US city. Imagine driving to work one morning and a chunk of space station falls out of the clear blue sky and you die. This is the reality in which we now live.

Mitigating The Risk

Before walking the dog each morning, I’m careful to check the weather. Regardless of what the forecast might have said the night before, weather has a nasty habit of changing. This morning, there were storms in the area. Lightning struck less than a mile away. So, we watched radar and timed our walk to minimize the risk of getting fried on the sidewalk. That wouldn’t be a good way to start the morning.

We know the potential for dying is out there. We all have those preventative actions we take to mitigate the risk that we might die on any given day. Eating veggies is one of those things we know pushes death out a little bit. Same goes for driving safely and crossing the street at the crosswalk with the light. Most people try to not do stupid things that have a high-risk factor for ending up dead. Even when doing something silly like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, we take the precaution of using a reasonably good parachute packed by someone we trust.

Yet, no matter how many precautions we might take, death sometimes has a way of finding us at the least expected and most inconvenient moments. Be sure, Jose Fernandez didn’t think the risks were too great when he got on that boat.  None of us see all the risks. No matter what we do, sometimes death just shows up and says, “Hey, you’re coming with me now.” We don’t get any choice in the matter.

Being Ready To Die

If all the recent deaths around me have done anything, they have reminded me that I need to go ahead and get some kind of burial insurance. Sounds morbid, doesn’t it? Yet, all of my experience tells me it’s a smart move. My parents had burial insurance. They bought it when they were in their 30s. They were able to pre-pay for their funerals, including the caskets, so that when that time inevitably came for them my brother and I didn’t have to worry about the cost or wondering what they might have wanted. That act alone was one of the kindest things they ever did. When you have a parent die, the details of paying for and planning a funeral are not where you want to spend your time.

There’s something about actually making such a purchase, though, that feels uncomfortable, as though we’re tempting fate. In my mind, I know that my parents lived another 40 years after pre-paying for their arrangements. Yet, there’s this nagging feeling that if I take the same precaution it’s like thumbing my nose at death, taunting it to come and get me.  The same applies to life insurance. Both make the lives of our families so much easier, especially if our death is unexpected. Still, there’s no getting around that icky feeling that if you make that purchase you’re tempting fate.

Being ready to die is as much an attitude as anything, though. We have to be comfortable with death, okay with the concept of no longer existing in this world. I no longer think that we need to know what happens next. If we were meant to know the universe would provide a reliable, believable way of telling us. It hasn’t. We’ve made up our own myths over the millions of years, but when we get down to it, we have to be okay with just going. Period. Let whatever comes next, if anything, take care of itself.

Remembering to Live

Like the Mark Twain quote at the top of this page, being satisfied with our life makes it easier to be okay with the inevitability of death. No one should obsess over their own death; it’s not only unhealthy, it prevents  one from making the most of life. I’m not talking about being happy, mind you. Happiness is a temporal state and in that moment when some jackass cuts you off in traffic “happy” isn’t exactly the emotion one feels at the time. Rather, contentedness is more what I’m going for; that sense that my life isn’t perfect and I’m okay with that.

Are we content? I’m not, not really. There are still things I want to be doing, not bucket list things like winning a Pulitzer and such, but everyday things such as finding the next great supermodel and teaching my youngest son to drive and regaining some fluency in French and Italian. I have in my mind a level of activity that I’ve let slip. Having been there once, I know it can be achieved. I let go, though. I want that contentedness back.

What about you? If a chunk of that Chinese space station were to fall on you today (don’t worry, it won’t … yet) you’d certainly be disappointed that you didn’t have more warning, but would you be content with where your life is right now? What would it take to get you to that point in your life?

I fully expect to live long enough to be a pain in the ass to my grandchildren, assuming at least one of my sons gets around to providing some. I’m not expecting to die.

But then, not many people ever are.  Perhaps we all need to do better prep work. Try to not die today, okay? I think our quota is full for the rest of the year.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  PotD  /  science
10 Horrible Deaths Awaiting Offspring Of Anti-Vaxxers
September 25, 2016
charles i. letbetter - 10 horrible deaths awaiting children of anti-vaxxers

No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people. —Albert Camus

 

10 Horrible Deaths Await Offspring of Anti-Vazzers

Those who fail to vaccinate their children sentence the innocent to the most horrible of deaths for which there is no justification

We do not enter this conversation lightly. My words may well anger some. I don’t expect to persuade those who are already committed, but to those who are still questioning, who have not yet made up their minds, heed my words: Those who do not vaccinate their children hold the blood of the deaths of innocents on their hands. Not only is refusing to vaccinate children one of the most stupid and ill-conceived acts of selfishness ever devised, it is morally criminal for it effects not those making the decision, but those innocents doomed to endure the results.

I have not wanted to tackle this issue as it is off topic for our normal discussions. I realized, however, that I needed to get my hands dirty, metaphorically speaking, and address the matter when I snapped at Kat while she was reading aloud an especially ridiculous comment from someone so horribly ignorant, so fully deceived by all the lies and nonsense, that they didn’t even recognize the basic science of germ theory. Granted, it was still early in the morning and I only had three cups of coffee in me, but the level of nonsense being spewed by this person in a public forum was so intense my temper got the best of me. I barked at Kat to stop reading to me anything written by someone who has ceded use of their brain.

If a topic has gotten under my skin to the point that I’m being unkind to someone I love, then obviously I need to address that matter head-on and be done with it.

All Natural Was A Good Idea

“All natural.” The phrase started becoming dominant in the popular lexicon of the 1960s, when the anti-establishment movement started considering the possibility that everything we were ingesting, wearing, breathing, and eating might not be working in our favor. Back then, there was practically no regulation on the use of chemicals in the creation and development of other products. Neither was anyone watching what was being dumped into waterways. Only when the pollution began to accumulate to a point that it began directly interfering with our lives did Government intervene and pass laws limiting and prohibiting certain chemicals.

The movement was necessary and helped save the lives of millions of people. However, what is important to realize is that the “all natural” proponents of the time used science to make their point. They didn’t rely on conjecture, hearsay, or popular mythology in an attempt to make their point. Studies were done. Samples were taken. Scientific method was used to prove things such as the dangerous levels of lead and mercury in water and other products.

The “all natural” movement today has evolved into an anti-science, anti-medicine group that mistakenly thinks that nature has the solution to everything that sickens us. They are convinced that  the more we become holistic and natural in our approach to life, the better our lives will be. So, they decry genetically modified organisms, refuse to drink municipal treated water, and deny their children the safety of vaccines.

Nature Doesn’t Like Us

As it turns out, nature doesn’t like us as much as we like it. Raw milk, the non-pasteurised, non-homogenized stuff that comes directly from a cow’s udder, contains bacteria that, prior to 1864, wiped out entire tribes and cities. The same applies to less natural drinks such as beer and wine. All that alcohol actually gives bacteria a nice resting place rather than destroying it. The all-natural stuff rather sucks.

Many other food sources have similar challenges. Has anyone noticed all the recalls of organically grown leafy vegetables? Ta-da! They need some science in order to survive the process of being packaged, shipped, refrigerated, not refrigerated, and the ride home from the store. Otherwise, they develop nasty things that can KILL YOU if you ingest them. Seriously, all-natural isn’t what it’s cracked up to be!

Jeffrey Kruger, science writer for TIME magazine, wrote in an opinion piece in 2014:

“Messing with nature” is the whole point of medicine, given that it’s nature that cooked up every disease that ever existed. You want pure nature? OK, die young.

As brusque as the statement is, we have the longest life span in over 3,000 years because of science and medicine. Nature will kill you.

No One Wants To Keep You Sick

I’ve heard all the “big pharma” horseshit and I’m not buying it. No one’s best interest is served by intentionally keeping people sick. If we would take a moment to understand how numbers work, we’d see the mathematical fallacy in such a concept. There is no conspiracy. No one is trying to “keep you down.”

Instead, just a few days ago, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife DoctorPriscilla Chan (a pediatrician who had her own daughter vaccinated), pledged $3 billion to the eradication of all disease. In explaining the reasoning behind the commitment, Dr. Chan stated:

We are the limit of what we understand about science and disease. We want to push back that boundary. By investing in science today, we hope to build a future in which all of our children can live long and rewarding lives.

Funny, that doesn’t sound much like a conspiracy to keep everyone sick, does it? Oh, and while we’re at it, please don’t miss the fact that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has already spent over $2 billion fighting malaria and have committed another $1.6 billion to fight the spread of AIDS.

Wait, we’re not done. Viacom/CBS CEO and an all-around frequently unlikable guy, Sumner Redstone, donated $1.5 million to help eradicate polio, a disease that would have been gone already if everyone would vaccinate their children. So, let’s just put to rest that ridiculously insane notion that “big pharma” wants to do you harm.

Science Is Your Friend

I fail to understand this unreasonable concept that science and nature are at odds with each other. Science looks at nature, discovers what’s under the covers, how it works, why things respond well to certain stimuli and not others, not because it keeps them out of the bars and brothels (which are already full of politicians and lobbyist) but because doing so helps us to get along better with nature and use nature to our benefit.

For example, it is science that tells us we really need bees for something other than honey. Many of the very vaccinations and cures against which the ignorant rail have their source in a better understanding of nature. Nature is a partner in better health when we pair it with well-studied matters of science. We can all get along.

When we refuse to do so, when people start believing a ridiculous 12-person study that has been thoroughly debunked by the very doctors who participated as well as  multiple independent studies then we have a problem. Vaccinations do not cause autism and I can quite comfortably sit here and say without any bad feeling that those who claim otherwise are utter morons and a danger to society.

Yes, some people have allergies to certain medicines. Kat is allergic to penicillin, which is a damned pain when she gets sick, but you don’t find her campaigning against the medicine. I’m deathly allergic to bee stings, too, but you don’t see me out spraying the yard to kill the little buggers.

Anti-Vaxxers Are Vile People

Those who refuse to vaccinate their children are vile people because they are not the ones who ultimately suffer the consequences. Rather, they doom innocent children, theirs and others with whom they come into contact, with the possibility that they could die quite horribly from diseases that are totally preventable. This is not a judgment call. This has nothing to do with race, social standing, educational level obtained, levels of pseudo-fame, religion, national origin, gender, sexuality, or anything else over which one has no control. People who fail to vaccinate their children are making a deliberate choice to put their children at risk.

We have laws that require putting children in specialized safety seats when traveling in vehicles. We have laws about the non-flammability of children’s clothing. There are even laws about how old a child has to be before they can stand at the bus stop by themselves. Our society values our children, yet we are, for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend, tolerating these utter morons who not only put their children at risk, but yours and mine as well because they believe some garbage about vaccines causing autism or some other shit.

No, these people are dooming children to DIE just as surely as did the Nazis who stripped Jewish children naked and marched them to the showers. If anything, the risk at which anti-vaxxers are putting their children is worse because these diseases, against which they should be immunized, may not strike until they’re older. Or they might even be passed on to a subsequent generation that would be born with a fatal disease. Death from these diseases is not quick, but lingers, putting a child through unspeakable pain.

Let’s Get Real About The Danger

There are ten major diseases that can doom a child to a horrible death; diseases that are wholly preventable with vaccinations. This is the risk imposed upon your children. Sure, there’s a chance your child could grow up just fine without any medical issues. There’s also a chance that a two-year-old can make it across a busy four-lane highway without getting hit, but do we really want to take that chance? These are our children we’re talking about!

Here, let’s take a look at just what can happen without the vaccinations that can stop disease.

Measles

Measles, interestingly enough, is a lung disease. If someone who has it, even if they’ve not yet developed a rash, coughs or sneezes in your vicinity and you’re  not immunized, there’s a 90 percent chance you’ll catch the disease.  Or maybe you weren’t there at all. You thought you were being careful. Walking into the room, though, where that person coughed or sneezed, you touch something on which the saliva from that cough or sneeze landed less than two hours ago, and you’ve caught the disease. Measles is just that easy to catch.

Before these idiotic anti-vaxxers became a problem, measles was all but eradicated. It was extremely rare to hear of a case in the US. Why? BECAUSE PEOPLE HAD THEIR KIDS VACCINATED. Are you understanding this? Prior to the anti-vaxx movement, measles was GONE from the United States! Stupid people brought it back, though, and that’s a danger. Prior to the vaccine, approximately 3-4 million people got the disease each year. 48,000 were hospitalized. 400-500 DIED.

The numbers outside the US, however, where the measles vaccine isn’t available, get really ugly really fast. According to numbers released by the World Health Organization, the number of deaths on the continent of Africa in 2012 was 41,000.  Within the Eastern Mediterranean, 25,800. Southeast Asia was hit with 52,000 measles deaths. While the numbers here have yet to exceed a hundred, consider the fact that in the year 2000 there were ZERO deaths from Measles in the US. The fact that we have ANY now is directly attributable to the carelessness and selfishness of anti-vaxxers and the people dying ARE CHILDREN. Feel good about that, do you? Do you kick puppies, too?

Whooping Cough (Pertussis)

This one sneaks up on you. Another lung disease spread by being near someone who has the disease, the cough is the primary symptom. We all cough. Coughing is our body’s way of getting bad things out of our lungs. Perfectly healthy people cough. That’s why we don’t pay too much attention when someone starts coughing, even if it’s a baby. But then, the cough continues. Normal remedies don’t make it go away. Two weeks later the cough is still there and it is much worse. The hacking is so bad and so violent that it has caused people to break ribs. As it continues, the cough causes seizures, interrupts one’s ability to breathe.

Even at this point, the dangers for adults are not too severe, unless you have asthma. For infants less than a year old  the danger is very real, though. Babies lack the ability to get their breath back on their own. They cough. They choke. They stop breathing. THEY DIE.

Whooping cough is perhaps the greatest threat to mortality among infants. Even with the vaccine, there were still a handful of deaths every year. Most of those were because parents didn’t realize their child has something more than a normal cough until it was too late. Incidents of Whooping Cough have increased, however. In 2014, there were 20 pertussis-related deaths in the US, the most since 1955.  While the number may not sound large, consider that there haven’t been that many deaths since 1955! That’s  60 years ago! Anti-vaxxers are KILLING babies.

Flu

Flu numbers are scary even with the ever-changing immunizations. Some years, supplies of the vaccine run low or isn’t as accurate and we immediately see a spike in the number of flu-related deaths. Without the vaccine at all, though, those numbers would be significantly higher.

The flu is a viral infection of the nose, throat, and lungs. Once again, being around someone who has the disease and coughs is what spreads the germs. As the flu morphs and changes each year, our body’s natural immune system has difficulty keeping up. If it were the same ol’ flu every year, it might not be a problem. But it’s not. Every year, some 49,000 people in the US die from the flu. The very old and the very young are hardest hit. That’s with vaccinations.

What happens if no one takes the vaccination? By one estimate, an H5N1 avian influenza could affect 80 million people in the US. Assuming a 20 percent mortality rate, 16 million people would die.  Stop and think about that for a moment. Sixteen million people.  More than just a health crisis, this would be a homeland security crisis, an economic crisis. Not only would people in your family die, everyone around you would have someone in their family die. Are you beginning to see the problem?

Polio

THIS DISEASE SHOULD BE GONE ALREADY! This is the disease that proved vaccines work. Throughout the early part of the 20th century, polio was the scourge of the United States. In the summer of 1916, it took the lives of 2,700 children in New York alone. An interesting thing happened, though. The vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk was approved in 1955 and you’ll never believe what happened: THE DISEASE WENT AWAY! Are you understanding the relevance here? People who got the polio vaccine DID NOT GET POLIO!

Not only did the polio vaccine work, it worked quickly. By the year 2000, all of North America was polio free! NO ONE IN NORTH AMERICA HAD POLIO! Then, along came anti-vaxxers who refused to give their children one of the most vital immunizations in human history. Care to guess what happened? POLIO IS BACK. Sure, the numbers aren’t big, yet, but the fact that a disease that had been eradicated from the entire continent has returned is reason enough for alarm.

Understand, you can get polio at any time in your life. 90% of people carrying the disease show no symptoms. While the disease can be stopped with the vaccine, once you get it, there is no cure! YOU WILL DIE and not nearly as quickly as you would like. There will be pain. There will be suffering. The World Health Organization considers a single case of polio an epidemic, it is just that frightening. Almost everyone reading this is too young to remember scenes like this:

10 horrible deaths awaiting children of anti-vaxxers

In the 1940s and 1950s, people with bulbar polio were immobilized inside “iron lungs” – huge metal cylinders that operated like a pair of bellows to regulate their breathing and keep them alive.

So yeah, skip this vaccine and you’re dooming your child to, at the least, a very miserable life, and in the end one of the most painful deaths ever. Happy now?

Pneumococcal Disease

The doctor tells you that you have pneumonia. Not a big deal, right? Stay home, drink plenty of fluids, maybe take a few doses of penicillin. Unless you don’t take the medicine and haven’t been vaccinated. With pneumococcal disease, pneumonia might be the least of your worries. Only 5 out of 100 die of pneumococcal pneumonia. The same bacteria, however, causes Bacteremia, a blood disease that is especially fatal in children under age 5. 1 out of 100 children who contract pneumococcal bacteremia die from the disease.

Then, there’s meningitis. I should mention that we’re going to see meningitis pop up more than once because there is more than one bacteria that can cause the disease. Pneumococcal meningitis kills 1 in 15 children under the age of 5. ONE IN FIFTEEN CHILDREN DIE. Even those who don’t die are likely to have life-long limitations such as hearing loss and learning disabilities. The mortality numbers run even higher among the elderly. That’s right, your vaccination decision can kill your great-grandmother.

Isn’t it wonderful to give a breeding ground to a bacteria that has THREE DIFFERENT WAYS TO KILL PEOPLE? There are vaccines available that can kill the pneumococcal bacteria quickly and easily. There’s no need for ANY child to ever suffer through this kind of death, with high fever, pain, and stiffness. Yet, when parents refuse to have their children vaccinated, this is yet another easily contracted way for children to die. None of this is necessary. All of it can be prevented. Unfortunately, anti-vaxxers are TOO FUCKING STUPID TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT.

Tetanus

When I was a child, perhaps one of the most frequently ignored dangers in our region of Oklahoma was rusty barbed wire. The stuff was everywhere and was we would be running and playing and crawling through fences, getting a scratch and tearing our clothes was inevitable. Most the time, the biggest danger was Mom finding out you’d torn another pair of jeans. Every once in a while, though, someone would get a really bad cut on the barbed wire, or step on a rusty nail in an old barn. Our parents never hesitated a second. Off to the hospital we’d go for a tetanus shot, unless we’d just had one, in which case we were still good.

Tetanus shots today are good for ten years. I remember my last one clearly, just over three years ago. Yes, those suckers hurt a bit. This is not a fun shot to get. Yet, the vaccine is infinitely better than the symptoms that come with tetanus. Get a load of this:

  • Headache
  • Jaw cramping (lockjaw)
  • Sudden, involuntary muscle tightening – often in the stomach (muscle spasms)
  • Painful muscle stiffness all over the body
  • Trouble swallowing
  • Jerking or staring (seizures)
  • Fever and sweating
  • High blood pressure and fast heart rate

Oh, and did I forget to mention that, at the end of all that suffering, YOU CAN DIE? 10-20% of tetanus cases are fatal. WOULD YOU REALLY DO THAT TO YOUR CHILD? If you would, you deserve to have very bad things happen to you.

Meningococcal Disease

Remember a few hundred words back when I said we would see meningitis pop up again? Well, here it is. In this form, it is most commonly known as “the kissing disease” because the bacteria lives in the back of the throat and is easily spread through kissing. Public schools are frequently affected. Once the disease is present, the natural amorous activities of teenagers do a frighteningly good job of spreading the disease.

Oh, but you don’t have to kiss someone to get meningitis. All you have to do is live with someone who has it. This disease is highly communicable to the point of often requiring whole families to be quarantined. There are three primary strains of meningococcal disease, referred to as serogroups B, C, and Y and there are vaccines readily available to treat all three groups. This is a reportable disease and outbreaks are frequently listed on the CDC website.

If you have an 11-12-year-old child, they need this vaccine. If you are a first-year college student living in a dormitory, you need this vaccine. If you are a military recruit, you probably weren’t given a choice. You’ve had this vaccine. There are only two reasons for not getting the appropriate meningococcal vaccine: 1. you’re pregnant, which is generally a bad time to be getting vaccinated at all. 2. You have severe allergies. If you’re concerned that you might be allergic to some of the vaccine’s ingredients, consult your doctor. Latex allergies seem to present a common problem.

However, if  you are neither pregnant nor allergic, then GET THE DAMN VACCINE. THIS DISEASE KILLS STUPID PEOPLE. Or the children of stupid people. Don’t be stupid.

Hepatitis B

Hey, here’s a nice disease you’ve heard about because there are plenty of sleazy celebrities running around with this Hepatitis B and they’re not dead yet, so it much not be all that bad, right?

Hey, stupid, those celebrities aren’t dead because they’re taking more drugs than are available at your local CVS. Had they not taken all the shots and the medicine their doctors prescribed, we wouldn’t be subjected to their continual parades of nonsense in the press.

Here’s what you need to know: Hepatitis B is 100 times more infectious than HIV, the disease that causes AIDS. While the most common means of transmission are through sex or sharing a needle, it is also very possible for a pregnant woman who has the disease to pass it on to her baby.

Hepatitis B attacks the liver. Chronic conditions (those lasting more than six months) may cause cirrhosis and lead to liver failure. Some people might qualify for liver transplant, but not everyone will. Because this is a disease that spreads primarily through voluntary risky behavior, don’t expect a lot of sympathy if you get it. The vaccine that can reduce the effect of some of the worst symptoms must be received within 24 hours of coming into contact with the disease. Next month doesn’t help you any.

Mothers who pass the disease along to their children start them off in life with a severe handicap. DO NOT DENY THESE CHILDREN VACCINATIONS. You’ve already fucked up by giving them Hepatitis B. Don’t make the situation any worse.

Mumps

I had the mumps as a child. It would seem that I survived. The first mumps vaccine wasn’t available until I was already in school. By then, I’d had the disease and was doing well. I was fortunate, though. My case wasn’t all that severe. A couple of weeks of careful care from our family doctor (I remember more than one shot being involved) and a liquid diet left me cranky but alive.

The danger of mumps is not just the only cause of parotitis, which is bad enough on its own, just look at this wonderful list of other diseases it can cause:

  • Aseptic meningitis/encephalitis
  • Sensorineural hearing loss/deafness
  • Transverse myelitis
  • Polyneuritis
  • Guillain-Barré syndrome
  • Cerebellar ataxia (with encephalitis)
  • Keratouveitis
  • Thyroiditis
  • Myocarditis
  • Mastitis
  • Pneumonia
  • Pancreatitis
  • Nephritis
  • Orchitis
  • Oophoritis
  • Arthritis
  • Thrombocytopenia purpura

Oh, and if that’s not enough, it can make adolescent boys sterile for the rest of their lives. Sounds fun, doesn’t it? So many different horrible ways to DIE all wrapped up in what too many people think of as a harmless childhood disease. Still want to put  off getting those shots?

Hib (Haemophilus Influenzae Type B)

There is a very good chance you’ve never heard of Hib. Know why? Since the development of a vaccine, incidents of Hib dropped 99%. It’s not quite completely gone, but almost. The only reason it hasn’t disappeared is anti-vaxxers.  Since they don’t see it occurring often in the general population, they don’t consider Hib a threat.

However, prior to the development of the vaccine, Hib was the number one cause of bacterial meningitis (yeah, that lovely disease again) among children under the age of 5. Before the vaccine, Hib infected approximately 20,000 children in the US each year. Of those, roughly 1,200 of them DIED.   That means this vaccine is saving the lives of approximately 1,200 children a year. Because of this vaccine, more children live to start kindergarten, learn to read, tell silly jokes, and give us snaggle-toothed smiles when their baby teeth fall out.

People who don’t vaccinate their children run the risk of missing all that. Without this vaccination, the incidence of Hib will increase. As we see the disease increase, so will the deaths. Who is responsible for those deaths? THE IDIOTIC PARENTS WHO DIDN’T GET THEIR KIDS VACCINATED!

Manslaughter Is Too Nice A Word

There you go: ten horrible ways to die. We shouldn’t have to worry about any of them because WE HAVE VACCINES THAT PREVENT THESE DISEASES! There is absolutely no excuse at all for not vaccinating your children. This isn’t a choice you’re giving them like whether to go to church or believe in a deity or what flavor of ice cream to have after dinner. No, when you refuse to have your children vaccinated, you leave them vulnerable. Even worse, you’re not leaving them vulnerable to one disease, you’re leaving them wide open TO ALL TEN DEADLY DISEASES. Every last one of them. YOUR child could get Whooping Cough AND the flu AND meningitis AND polio all in one fell swoop! Their little bodies were never meant to have immune systems developed enough to stop all these diseases. GIVE THEM THE FUCKING SHOTS ALREADY!

You know as well as I do that there is a lot of horseshit on the Internet. Unfortunately, there are a lot of really stupid people who believe everything that comes from the mouth of anyone who is on television, or used to be on television, or looks like they could be on television, or might possibly own a television. People who can look past the MOUNTAINS of prevailing evidence, scientific and medical research, clinical studies by REPUTABLE doctors with THOUSANDS of subjects (not just 12), and still choose to believe the OUTRIGHT LIES that come from the anti-vaccination community ARE COMPLETE MORONS.

I want you to get this straight because I’m tired of hearing it come out of your filthy little mouths or seeing it typed by your filthy little fingers:

VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM!

NICO LaHOOD IS STILL WRONG!

Both of those headlines are links. Click them and pay attention to the evidence for once in your miserable life!

People who do not vaccinate their children are a threat to national security. When your children become ill with one of the ten diseases we’ve listed, they weaken the herd immunity of the entire country. A nation that loses its immunity against infectious and fatal disease is not a secure nation. We all are at risk because of YOUR behavior.

ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?

YOUR behavior has ramifications well outside yourself. That’s why you don’t get to make this choice. No, it’s not yours to make. You don’t get to make a choice that puts me and my children, and the children in our neighborhood, and the children in the school my children attend, all at risk because YOUR ARE A FUCKING MORON WHO DOESN’T WANT TO BELIEVE THE  SCIENCE RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE.

Yes, I’m yelling at you because you’re fucking stupid. You are a danger to humanity and a direct threat to the safety and well-being of your own children. Should any of your children die from one of the horrible diseases we’ve listed here, you are not merely guilty of neglect or manslaughter. You are guilty of PREMEDITATED MURDER because you willfully choose to make the WRONG choice and PUT YOUR CHILDREN AT RISK despite the preponderance of evidence literally being shoved in your face.

I have no patience with nor sympathy for those who are so incredibly ignorant as to continue down this path of anti-vaccination. I don’t care if what I say hurts your feelings. Your feelings are not the issue. The issue is the safety and longevity of children, WHICH YOU ARE PUTTING IN DANGER BECAUSE YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO GET THEM THEIR VACCINATIONS. THEIR DEATHS ARE YOUR FAULT!

There Are Two Solutions To This  Problem

Obviously, were everyone to decide to stop being stupid and have their children immunized, this whole problem goes away and everyone has a chance to live a reasonably happy life.

Yeah, that’s not going to happen.

So, let’s do this: everyone who doesn’t want to live in a vaccinated world gets to move to a lovely island somewhere in the South Pacific where there isn’t anyone else around for you to infect. You and your family get to move there, away from all the GMOs and the HMOs and the Oreos, and live completely natural lives without any interruption from anyone else. You stay there, where you can’t infect the rest of us. In 20 years, we’ll send out some folks wearing hazmat suits to collect and respectfully dispose of your remains in a manner that prevents any lingering disease from contaminating the rest of us.  You get to live the way you want, and the rest of us get to live.

How does that sound? We don’t expect anything from you. You sit there on your island, soaking up the sun, enjoying the waves, the  jellyfish stings, the spider bites, the infected fruit, maybe a wild animal or two. We won’t bother you with our modern medicine and vaccinations. You get to live your life all natural. Your deaths will be on your own terms: all natural—and likely painful.

I can get behind that idea. I’d even offer to help you pack but I’m afraid I might catch something.

So, good-bye,. Good riddance. Get the fuck out of here.

Let us know when you come to your senses. You’ll understand if I don’t hold my breath.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  Fashion  /  PotD  /  science
Searching For Something Good
September 23, 2016
charles i. letbetter -searching for something good

It’s so easy today to get swept up in celebrity fixation and materialism and searching for some validation outside of yourself when we know it’s really found within and through meaningful connections with other people. —Geoffrey S. Fletcher

 

charles i. letbetter - Searching for good news

Weeks so full of disappointment leave us searching for good news in hopes that , maybe, there might be some left.

My body didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. This week has seen more disappointments than I care to enumerate. Searching for even a moment’s rest has too often proven futile. I don’t like much that has happened this week. Neither do I care for most of the reactions to what has happened this week. I expect better from the world and that just hasn’t happened.

Every morning I wake up and start searching all available media sources to see what if I missed anything important while trying to sleep. I fear that one day I might wake up and find half the world has been blown away and, somehow, I managed to sleep through it. As I read through the headlines, I wonder what their long-term effect might be. I see a world changing around me and, at times, wonder if we are dooming ourselves.

Searching this morning, I desperately wanted to see something good, something that didn’t involve anyone getting killed, something that doesn’t reak of humanitarian or financial disaster. I found three things that I think are worth sharing. I consider them good. You, perhaps, may not because they each have the potential to change your world. If they do, though, that change is for the better. We need something good in our lives. Perhaps one of these stories works for you.

Changing The Common Language

Pronouns. If you went to public school in the United States, you were probably taught what they are and how to use them in the first grade. When referring to boys, we use the pronoun “he.” When referring to girls, we use the pronoun “she.” When referring to more than one person, we use the pronoun “they.” We’re all comfortable with that, aren’t we? Perhaps not for much longer.

You see, the pronouns “he” and “she” are problematic at times because they inherently assign a certain gender. We assume that the person we see who dresses masculine is a “he.” We assume that the person who dresses and styles themselves effeminately is a “she.” Chances are high that we don’t realize how often we are wrong.

A couple of the nation’s leading newspapers, the San Francisco Examiner and the Washington Post, have adopted use of the singular “they.” In the case of the Examiner, they have instructed their reporters to ask a subject whether they prefer to be referred to as “he,” “she,” or, “they.” Reporters are to make no assumptions and give the individual the right to be identified by whichever gender, or no gender, with which they are most comfortable.

Michael Howerton writes for the Examiner:

Our intention is to celebrate, dignify and respect the affirmations people make about their identities. We want to honor the identities of those we write about, not enforce gender binary language or diminish anyone’s right to their own. 

As we are searching for ways to be more inclusive in our daily involvement with people, using the singular “they” might be a start. The challenge: getting English teachers and school curriculum to go along. What we learn first is what sticks with us the longest.

See-Now Buy-Now Might Be Working

The early numbers are in for Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Rebecca Minkoff and Burberry and other designers are going to want to take notice: the new see-now, buy-now strategy seems to have worked. Looking at sales figures, especially online sales, for merchandise purchased immediately after a runway presentation and the labels involved are reporting some of their highest sales ever. According to an article on Business of Fashion this morning, Tom Ford reported their biggest sales day of the year. Burberry has already sold out of three items. The Rebecca Minkoff flagship store in New York reported its best day ever by more than 25 percent  despite only being open half the day.

 

None of the labels reported a downturn and most department stores, such as Bergdorf Goodman and the Neiman Marcus Group, all reported significant increases in sales around the labels that had just shown their lines. What may be even more interesting is what people are buying. As of the article’s writing this morning, Ralph Lauren only had one remaining SKU for it’s $15,000 “Houston” overcoat. Burberry’s $5,249 Cavalry jacket — a deep red wool jacket with military-style braided stylings, was the brand’s top seller, surprising even chief creative officer Christopher Bailey.

The time to declare complete victory for the marketing shift is still several months away. If there are not new pieces coming into stores, if brands are unable to replenish looks that sell out early, then sales may not hold and could potentially lead to a downturn in lagging months. The fact that we’re going into the holiday season helps, though, and even if January sales are not stellar, chance are pretty strong we’ll see more labels switching to this approach next year.

We Really Are Family

We’ve known for some time that all humans migrated from Africa. What has been more of a mystery has been the timeline for that migration. While paleontologists have claimed to find skulls, skeletons, and tools scattered across Europe and Asia dating back over 100,000 years, it has been difficult to establish enough evidence to support the concept of any migration that old. While there is evidence of group splintering and separation within the African continent and the development of language as much as 200,000 years ago, there has not been a DNA study that supported a specific migration period. Until now.

Actually, what we’re looking at is three separate studies from three different sets of universities, that all came to roughly the same conclusion: We all left Africa about the same time, some 50-,000 to 80,000 years ago. Changes in climate and the search for food seem to be the primary reason for the exodus. What’s interesting, though, is that everyone, including aboriginal populations once thought to have migrated separately, left Africa at the same time.

Center to this hypothesis is the testing of indigenous groups of people around the world, something that had not happened before. Prior to these three studies, most DNA sampling had occurred among Africans and Europeans. Researchers expected that studying indigenous people would provide deeper insight into migration patterns. What they didn’t expect was evidence that everyone pretty much up and left at about the same time.

This research also shows that we are even more interconnected as a species than we ever thought. We are one race. We all descended from one people. We are all part of a family. We left Africa together and scattered ourselves across the globe in search for the resources we need to live and to grow. From there, we simply adapted to our environments. There is no race that we have not concocted of our own doing. We are one.

Searching For Something Good

Our searching this morning came up with some very interesting topics for discussion. They are good topics, I believe. We are improving how we treat each other, how we do things, and how we view the world. Despite frequent evidence to the contrary, on the whole we are moving in a positive direction.

It’s Friday. Take this information into the weekend with you and continue searching. There are good things out there. Embrace them. Enjoy them. Learn something.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  Mythology  /  PotD
Hiding From The Glare Of Our Own Sins
September 22, 2016
charles i. letbetter - hiding from the glare of our sins

Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another. —Homer

charles i. letbetter - hiding from the glare of our own sins

We’re quick to find fault in others, but we are hiding from the truth

 

An  entire professional sports team took a knee during the national anthem last night. Notice, as often as we’ve seen people using the national anthem as a means of protest, it’s always been limited to a few members here and there. This was the entire Indiana Fever WNBA team, on a knee. Why? Because they’re tired of us hiding the prevalence of institutionalized violence against black people.

Charlotte, North Carolina is still rioting this morning. The governor of that state has called out the National Guard. Hiding the systemic hate and violence against black people in that state is no longer an option. The sins of the state and its cities have come out of the shadows where they have existed for the past 160 years and good folks down there are taking to the streets to end the nonsense.

Meanwhile, the Republican nominee told supporters at a rally yesterday that he supports a stop-and-frisk policy, illegally detaining people simply because a police officer doesn’t like the way they look, or the way they walk, or the color of their skin. Only one person walked out. The room should have been empty, but we’re still foolishly trying to hide our racism.

We, Americans, have become quite talented at hiding our sins, especially those we commit toward people groups that are different from us. We have created institutions to perpetuate those sins and even ingrain them in our educational methods that ignore the presence and contributions of marginalized people. As the light dawns, however, those sins become far too clear.

Hiding Behind Tradition

“We’ve done things this way for years and no one’s every complained before.”

Maurice Maeterlinck, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911, wisely said: “At every crossroads on the path that leads to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men to guard the past.” We don’t give up on tradition easily, no matter how horribly flawed we know it to be. We hang on to these “sins of our fathers” as though they were some kind of sick birthright to which we have no choice but to uphold.

Hiding behind tradition is a lazy excuse, though. We dump tradition in a heart beat when it suits us. When we say, “It’s always been that way,” what we are in fact saying is that we want it to always stay that way. We invoke tradition because we are comfortable with our sins. The traditions are so much a part of us that we even try to claim them as part of our culture and heritage. Yet, we know damn good and well we’re wrong.

Remember this song by Bruce Hornsby and The Range from 1986? Even then, as the song pointed out the sins we are trying to hide by saying, “That’s just the way it is,” we listened to the song and just dug ourselves in deeper. Here, let me refresh your memory.

Hiding Behind Religion

Talked about entrenched. When people have been misinterpreting a writing they’ve declared holy, whether intentionally or through ignorance, the shadows created for hiding our sins run deep. We find it all too easy to excuse our behavior, and often our indignation and intolerance, with the simple phrase,”The Bible tells me so.”  Conveniently, there are plenty of places throughout the holy texts of multiple religions where deity instructs us, or someone eons before us, to behave like complete assholes. That whole “go here and kill those people who don’t believe in me” concept is something we’ve translated into an excuse for hate, discrimination, abuse, imprisonment, wars, and other atrocities too horrible to mention.

Ironically, while providing these deep shadows for hiding our sins, religion simultaneously tells us we are supposed to love each other, to be tolerant of the strangers and foreigners among us, to embrace those who are different. This is the message that makes us feel good on a Sunday morning. We look around the congregation at the end of the service and proclaim, “I just love everybody.” Yet, before you’re even out the door you’re casting side glances at old Mrs. Talkstoomuch so you don’t get stuck listening about a lonely old widow’s aches and pains. You drive past 15 perfectly good restaurants to get to the one whose wait staff has the right color skin. Then, after dinner, you sit in your easy chair to watch a ball game and complain about how “those people” are ruining the game. Tell me again, please, just exactly who it is your religion told you to love?

Hiding behind religion is inexcusable. If you think your religion tells you that some people are inherently worse than others, you need a new religion. No holy book covers your sins. You’re guilty and you know it. You want to clap your hands about that?

Hiding Behind Ignorance

One of the greatest sins of my generation is that we have intentionally institutionalized hate by only teaching history from the perspective of a white, anglo-saxon protestant existence that was never more than horseshit in the first place. For far too long, everything we taught in school was based on a white-washed, brain-washed, hand-sanitized view of the world designed to marginalize, criminalize, and oppress anyone who wasn’t white and middle class. While the textbooks have changed in some places, there are still plenty of instances where the secession of Confederate states is justified, where the holding of slaves is taught as an economic necessity, and the Ku Klux Klan is referred to as a religious civic organization.

We were raised with readers that only contained illustrations of white children with names like Dick and Jane. We were taught that the extermination of native peoples was necessary to “advance the frontier.” Even in television programming and movies taught us that the “indians” were always the bad guys, nothing more than blood-thirsty savages. With such ignorance being taught in schools is it any wonder we’re now faced with situations such as the Dakota Access Pipeline where far too many people don’t seem to have any problem with polluting tribal water or desecrating tribal land? We justify our sins with the claim that, “we didn’t know,” or even worse, “I don’t understand why they’re so upset.”

One member of the Oglala Lakota Nation said yesterday:

“We’re not just some hashtag out there just making a scene. We want to be heard. We want you guys to understand that we are fighting for our lives, for our children, for our people, the way we have, our culture, our identity.”

There is no excuse for our ignorance and that shadow is insufficient to hide our sins.

We Are In The Wrong

Let’s get real: If you can justify police murdering an unarmed man in Tulsa, you are wrong.

If you think that police have a reason to be afraid of a person just because of the color of their skin or the neighborhood in which they live, you are wrong.

If you think it is okay to take away the land and culture of an entire tribe in the name of profit, you are wrong.

If you think that it’s acceptable to spit at, hurl insults toward, or even commit acts of violence against someone because they are gay, lesbian, bi, or transgendered, you are wrong.

If you think that people who profess a religion different from yours should be barred, banned, or given a different set of rules, you are wrong.

These are the sins that justify the protests in Charlotte. These are the sins that have thousands camping and protesting at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. These are the sins that, if allowed to linger in the shadows, will most certainly become the justification for an uprising of marginalized people who just aren’t going to take our horseshit anymore.

Maybe we should step out of the shadows, confess our sins somewhere other than a fucking closet, and change the situation. Don’t wait for anyone else. We must be our own leaders.

End this nonsense now.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  Photography  /  PotD
Photography Creates Our Vision Of The World
September 21, 2016

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand. —Woodrow Wilson

 

charles i. letbetter - photography creates the vision of the world

As more people simply scan articles rather than read, photographs are more important in creating the vision through which people see the world

I never thought I’d have reason to use this picture. It was taken in 2005 as Indianapolis Police were conducting what I would consider an illegal search of my assistant’s car. The entire stop was illegal, but we were standing downtown, at 2:00 in the morning, across from City Hall, with my camera on a tripod. The officer felt like that was sufficient reason to create a scene. I never had any reason to use the photo, though, because, after 30 minutes, he let us go. Never mind the fact that the conceal carry permit for the gun my assistant was carrying had expired. We were all white. They let us go.

This morning, I was up at 2:00 AM again, this time getting ready for the first fashion show in Milan. As I sit at my computer, this is the first picture I see:

Police are in riot gear because, at 2:00 AM, Charlotte, North Carolina is rioting. Charlotte, Noth Carolina is rioting because police saw fit to murder a man who was sitting in his car, waiting on his daughter’s bus. You may have difficulty remembering the name Keith Lamont Scott, but you will remember this photograph.

Photographs don’t change our vision, they create it

That photograph spurred some type  of response in you just now. All the photographs surrounding this murder as well as that of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, are all you have in establishing your vision of what happened. By the way, we checked and credit for the picture above goes to Adam Rhew at Charlotte magazine. You may not remember Rhew’s name, but you’ll remember his photograph. You may not remember Terrence Crutcher’s name, but you’ll remember that police helicopter photo of him standing in the middle of the road, unarmed and with his hands above his head when he was murdered.

Remember this picture?

charles i. letbetter - photographs create our vision of the world

Regardless of how you feel about the subject itself, it was the photograph, a still taken from live video feed, that created your vision. This is how you see any number of related topics, from the right to protest, to patriotism, to racism, to football, and any other number of topics that one might choose to associate with the image. Had you not seen this picture, or one similar to it (there are multiple different crops floating around), you would have a concept of the issue, but you wouldn’t have a vision in your mind of how that concept looks.

Our vision, how we see the world, is immensely important. There is very little that we actually get to experience up close and in person. With a lot of news, we don’t want to be up close and in person. If photographers were not present, capturing these issues, giving us a vision where we otherwise would have none, our opinions and responses to these situations might likely be very different. Photographs give us eyes, though, and once we’ve seen pictures like this, we can’t un-see them.

Some Prefer To Be Blind

Strangely enough, not everyone likes having such vision thrust upon them; they’d  rather stay blind. When we see pictures like these, we are put in the position of having to create an opinion, take a side, maybe even take a stand. Not everyone is comfortable having to do those things.

Plenty of people prefer that you not have any vision or opinion. The Republican nominee for President became rather upset last week when there was photographic evidence of a supporter punching a woman in the face. The matter was easy enough to deny, sweep under the covers, until video popped up of the assault actually happening. Pictures kept the crime from going away and demanded that the nominee respond. He wasn’t happy and more than once during his campaign he has been disparaging against photographers.

He’s not the only one, though. Around the world, leaders would rather we not take pictures of people starving, living in squalid conditions, existing in sub-par refugee camps, homeless on the street, long lines of unemployed. Politicians prefer the Chamber of Commerce photos that show everything bright, cheery, and perfect for your next visit. They would rather no one see the downside, the number of homicides so far this year, deteriorating road conditions, urban blight, or suburban decay.

Yet, pictures that show what no one likes to see are the photographs that motivate change. With a clear vision, we see what needs to be improved, what and who needs to be replaced, and just maybe how our own attitudes need to change. If photographers are not out there taking those pictures, who knows that there is a problem? Words can only convey so much at their best, and in today’s society, fewer people are actually reading those words. We scan headlines and look at pictures.

Creating A Balanced Vision

Photographers have a lot of power when it comes to creating a vision. We decide where we’re going to be and when we’re going to snap the shutter. If we choose to look away, if we don’t take a picture of a crime being committed, then we are complicit in the very act itself. We have a responsibility to take those shots when we see them.

At the same time, however, we have a responsibility to show more than one side of a situation whenever possible. Creating a false vision is reprehensible and does greater harm than if we’d taken no photograph at all. For all the legitimate reasons there are to photograph protests against police, if that’s the only view of law enforcement we provide we fuel anarchy and greater unrest. We have to find the balance, look for the good, and give it at least an opportunity to make a difference.  Pictures of good can be just as powerful as pictures of the bad, but we have to put just as much effort into getting those shots as we do those of unrest.

Our job as photographers is not to be apologists for anyone. Our job is to photograph the truth. All of it. Even the portions we find distasteful, even those elements with which we disagree. We do more than provide a record for future generations. We provide this generation with a vision. The job of the photographer is to make sure that vision is accurate.

And shame on those of us who sit on the sidelines and do nothing.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  Fashion  /  PotD
Fashioning A Future Of Our Own
September 18, 2016
charles i. letbetter - fashioning a future

I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it. —Ray Bradbury

 

charles i. letbetter - fashioning a future of our own

What we do now, the things we believe, the acts we commit, all participate in the shaping of our own future

The future is a difficult topic when today has a strange and different feeling to it. Shortly after 3 AM, five cars rolled up at our next door neighbor’s, apparently bringing home the party that started at a local club. An hour later, the dog and I went for our morning stroll. We couldn’t help noticing lights on where normally there are none, an absence of cars where there normally are some, and then, there was the couple who decided to leave the light on and the window open as they had sex. The dog was curious.

Of course, I woke up to the news of the bombing in Chelsea (New York) this morning. At this point, it is still far too soon to know the intent or purpose of the act. Chelsea is a very active area at night. That no one was killed is nothing short of amazing. That hours have passed and the topic is not trending, however, is frightening. We have become comfortable with acts of terrorism.

All of these experiences, from the neighbor’s party to the bombing in Chelsea, become part of how we shape our future. We respond to these events, even if they don’t directly affect us, in ways that, in turn, affect how we respond to other events that have not yet happened. With everything that we do, everything we see, everything that enters our conscience becomes part of what we do next. Do we run? Do we hide? Do we go back to bed? The interconnectedness of it all is mind boggling.

How Children Imagine The Future

The folks over at Hasbro, you know, the place where making sure your kids are well-occupied is a business, decided to ask children to imagine life in the year 2076—60 years from now. Looking into the future is fun when one has their entire future in front of them. At my age, it starts to get a bit frightening.  The answers kids gave back, though, weren’t too surprising: flying cars, flying shoes, houses extending up into the clouds. You’ll be glad to know that we all get pet unicorns and stoves cook the food for us.

Oh, and the aliens are our friends at that point.

Hasbro took those answers and did something cool: imagined them in Play-Doh. The process was caught in time lapse photography. Here’s the future of fashion for you:

There are others, equally amusing. What I noticed, though, is that children did not see a future full of fear. We’re friends with aliens. We have unicorns. Everything is okay.

We All May Be Jerks

One of the articles I’m half-reading between fashion shows is  How To Tell If You’re A Jerk.  I’ll admit that I’ve not been overly enthused about completing the article. I didn’t have to read too far to realize that, yes, there are times I am totally a jerk. So are you. In fact, using the criteria set forth in the article, it would seem rather inevitable that we are all going to be jerks in one way or another.

What is likely more important  is whether, or when, we’re going to be jerks in the future. Notice how children see the future. Everything is innocent in their eyes. There are no jerks for them in the year 2076. While I wish we could make that reality come true, I doubt very seriously if we can help ourselves. In order to give today’s children a society free of jerks we would have to:

  • stop diminishing the humanity of others
  • accept criticism and realize we are all fallible
  • acquire an ability to actually listen to others
  • realize the amazing potential in others

I don’t doubt for a moment that we might want to adopt those traits and attitudes. Certainly, we would like others to treat us with such kindness. Yet, our ability to apply those qualities toward others is strained. We find ourselves in tense situations and our best intentions snap.

A Future Where We All Live

Another article that crossed my path this week comes from The Atlantic and sets a rather ominous tone with the title, The World Is A Thriving Slaughterhouse. My, isn’t that the cheeriest thing you’ve read all day? The author is an award-winning writer who has spent most of his career covering places of conflict, talking to refugees and those who somehow managed to survive the most audacious travesties of war. He points out the fact that over the length of his career, the killing has never stopped. Rather, it only changes locations.

My mind flashes back to New York. Most streets in the Chelsea district are open now. The second device has been defused. Mayor DeBlasio is calling the act “intentional” but still isn’t saying that it’s connected to a specific intent of terror. No one died this time. For that, we are thankful. Yet, the question in the back of my mind still asks, “Is it only a matter of time?”

Children don’t imagine a future where people are constantly dying. Why can’t we give them that? Why can we not make it our goal to create for them a future where, at the very least, humans aren’t killing humans. We may not be able to rid the world of all the horrible diseases. We certainly can’t prevent those acts of nature that wipe out thousands at a time. We can, however, stop intentionally killing each other. Why do we not do that? Why have we not done it before?

The Chance To Make Things Happen

No matter what we try, I don’t think we can make the unicorn thing come true. I’m sure we really want flying shoes, either; I see some potential danger there. There are other things we can do with our future, though. We can make it better than what we have right now. We can make tomorrow brighter. We can make nex week happier.Next month, we can all be in a better place.

What has to happen is we have to start changing our responses to the things that occur around us today. So the neighbor’s party is still going at 5:00 AM. Cool. Be glad they’re having a good time and that no one is getting hurt or driving home drunk. Worry less about what’s keeping others up late and more about we mgiht respond if/when they need help.

More than anything, how we fashion our future depends on us recognizing and valuing the humanity of other people. Even if they’re just as big a jerk as you are. We make a better future one thought, one response at a time. Start now.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  PotD
A Moment Of Silence Is Not What We Need
September 11, 2016
charles i. letbetter - a moment of silence is not what we need

Once you permit those who are convinced of their own superior rightness to censor and silence and suppress those who hold contrary opinions, just at that moment the citadel has been surrendered. —Archibald MacLeish

 

charles i. letbetter - a moment of silence is not what we need

The 2,753 people who died on this date do not benefit from our silence. We honor those who died by speaking out.

My youngest son, the 18-year-old, was only three when this date became noteworthy. He doesn’t have any real memory of that day. His mother had taken him to a play date and was unaware of what was happening. I called her after the first plane hit and told her she should probably grab the little guy and head home just to be safe, away from downtown Atlanta. I was stuck at the convention center, my car unretrievable from the CNN Center where I had parked. He has no memory of how tight I held him and his brothers that night. Neither is he able to understand just how frightened we all were in that moment.

For all the controversies about who knew what when and what actions were taken, the numbers from that day are concrete: 2,753 died. 1,402 were employees in tower one. 614 were employees in tower two. 115 nations were represented among the dead, not just Americans. Only 291 bodies were found “intact.” Fires continued to burn for nearly 100 days afterward. Approximately 3,051 children lost a parent.

Other numbers are important, too. 12, 962 civil rights complaints were opened at the Council on American-Islamic Relations nationwide from 2002 to 2008. The average benefit received by each NYPD and FDNY widow was $1 million, but some families of World Trade Center employees received less than $50,000. An estimated $600 million was spent on the cleanup, not including subway repairs that cost over $7 billion and an additional $970 million spent by FEMA.

Blindsided By Fear

Twenty-six days later, the US started bombing Afghanistan. 2,343 US troops died in Operation Enduring Freedom. Fear gripped the nation in ways not imagined by anyone since World War II. An estimated 1.4 million people changed their travel plans for that holiday season, choosing to drive rather than fly.  Applications to the CIA jumped a full 50 percent. Over 400,000 people still suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. What happened on this date shook us to our very core. Our collective response was to have a moment of silence, not as much out of respect as because we didn’t know what to say.

The problem is that scared people don’t always think rationally. Fear motivates us to do things that are unreasonable. We freeze when logic says to move. When we do move, we tend to turn in directions that ultimately put us in even greater danger. Acting on fear rarely works out to anyone’s advantage. That is why horror movies tend to have such a high body count. Fear makes us stupid.

Even worse, the fear turned us on each other. We started looking sideways at everyone. We enacted legislation that changed how we travel, how we come and go between countries, and even who can get a job. None of those things have proven to make us any safer, but we are still so scared fifteen years later that the majority of Americans oppose any kind of roll-back of post-9/11 laws. We have latched on to fear and refuse to let go.

Our Own Worst Enemy

Over the past fifteen years, we have allowed fear to turn us upon ourselves and upon humanity. We have tried to close our borders and when we were not able to do so we started hard-core discrimination against anyone who talks with an accent we find strange or looks remotely foreign. Every September 11, we have these moments of silence and the start yelling at each other about who is more American.

Since 2001, we have become more racially divided than we’ve been in 150 years. Blacks distrust whites (with good reason), Latinos distrust blacks, and anyone who looks to be of Middle Eastern decent had best be wearing body armor. Incidents of white privilege are more obvious than ever, but anyone who dares to say anything is bullied into silence. When a political party says that they’re going to “Make America Great Again,” what they’re saying is they want to make the US more white-centric, more pandering to the religious right, and basing even more of our actions on fear.

We have done more damage to our own country in the past 15 years than those three airplanes ever could. Our backs have been turned on the poor, the uneducated, the homeless. and even the veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom. We have become more selfish, more self-centered, and amazingly more intolerant of everyone who is not us. Together, we have torn our country limb from limb until all that remains are pieces. Millions of individual pieces too scared to consider doing anything cohesive.

Not A Time For Silence

Hundreds of thousands of people will take time today to observe a moment of silence. Even New York Fashion Week is observing a moment of silence. Who does that really benefit, though? Silence does not honor the dead if our actions on either side of that silence are committed to taking the lessons of that moment 15 years ago and improving. Unfortunately, we have been cowering in fear rather than learning anything. We don’t need silence, we need action.

We need people like Colin Kaepernick and Brandon Marshall who are willing to make some noise over continued racial injustice.

We need people who stand up and make noise, even in the face of tear gas and dog attacks, to stop oil companies from desecrating native tribal lands.

We need people who fight for the right of women who are never “asking for it,” who should always have complete control over what they do with their bodies, and whose rights have been stopped on by old white men for centuries.

We need people who refuse to be quiet about the economic injustice that leaves children without food and families without shelter for the winter.

We need people who yell, scream, and throw fits over the deplorable conditions of the American healthcare system.

We need people willing to go to the mat for veterans of our too-many wars, especially in regard to long-term mental health care.

We need people who are not silent in the face of illiteracy, discriminatory voting regulations, college debt, religious intolerance, our continuing rape culture, and elder abuse.

Mind you, every last one of these things existed prior to 9/11/2001.  What has happened in the past 15 years, though, is we let the fear that consumed us on that day to force us into silence. In that silence of fear, we let these problems become worse. In some cases, we deliberately made them worse.

We don’t need any more moments of silence. If we are going to honor those who died 15 years ago, we need moments of action.

And that action is going to make some noise.

(statistics courtesy New York Magazine)

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  Mythology  /  PotD  /  science
When Empires Fall, Dark Ages Follow
September 4, 2016
charles i. letbetter - when empires fall, dark ages follow

Everybody thinks that this civilization has lasted a very long time but it really does take very few grandfathers’ granddaughters to take us back to the dark ages. —Gertrude Stein

 

charles i. letbetter - when empires fall, dark ages follow

While politicians make claims of greatness the reality is that we are much closer to falling into return of the dark ages

Helping my 18-yr-old with his homework is bringing back some often painful memories. This week, his English class started studying Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. I saw the title and shuddered. I remember struggling with the old English and not doing terribly well. The allegory was easy enough to follow once it was explained, but trying to get through the particular challenges of a language that was still trying to emerge from the Dark Ages was a formidable challenge. Fortunately, he actually likes this stuff. He’s doing well without me.

Looking back at that time period, though, when few people read and “publishing” was still not yet a thing got me thinking about how desperate and hopeless the conditions were in the period following the fall of the Roman empire. The decimation of anything remotely resembling that government was so complete that calling that period the Dark Ages is almost an understatement. The late William Manchester studied and wrote about that frightening point in history extensively. In his 1992 book, A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age, Manchester makes the following observation:

Very little is clear about that dim era. Intellectual life had vanished from Europe. Even Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman emperor and greatest of all medieval rulers, was illiterate. Indeed, throughout the Middle Ages, which lasted some seven  centuries after Charlemagne, literacy was scorned; when a cardinal corrected the Latin of the emperor Sigismund, Charlemagne’s forty-seventh successor, Sigismund rudely replied, “ Ego sum Romanus et super grammatica”— as “King of Rome,” he was “above grammar.” Nevertheless, if value judgments are made, it is undeniable that most of what is known about that period is unlovely. After the extant fragments have been fitted together, the portrait that emerges is a mèlange of incessant warfare, corruption, lawlessness, obsession with strange myths, and an almost impenetrable mindlessness.

His last sentence is what frightens me. Compare the qualities with which he defines the Dark Ages to our conditions today and the parallels should shake us to our core. Perhaps we should be concerned. Let’s take a look at each area.

Incessant Warfare

For all the talk about peace, the United States hardly knows what the word even means. I talked briefly with my middle son, the Marine, last night and briefly discussed how tensions over the South China Sea keep everyone on the base in Okinawa in a constant state of preparedness. There is no real relaxing even when they appear to be celebrating the long weekend.

The US military doesn’t know how to relax. We don’t want them to relax. If we look at the list of military conflicts in which the US has been involved, we don’t just see the major activities such as world wars, but an ongoing litany of one engagement right after another. Most of these have slipped our memory. Some were even ignored by the public in general. Yet, our taste for incessant warfare dirties our history from its inception. Consider this list, compiled by The House Committee on Foreign Affairs, for the decade from 2000-2009. How many of these do you remember?

  • 2000 – Sierra Leone: On May 12, 2000, a U.S. Navy patrol craft deployed to Sierra Leone to support evacuation operations from that country if needed.[RL30172]
  • 2000 – Nigeria: Special Forces troops are sent to Nigeria to lead a training mission in the country.[10]
  • 2000 – Yemen: On October 12, 2000, after the USS Cole attack in the port of Aden, Yemen, military personnel were deployed to Aden.[RL30172]
  • 2000 – East Timor: On February 25, 2000, a small number of U.S. military personnel were deployed to support the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET). [RL30172]
  • 2001 – On April 1, 2001, a mid-air collision between a United States Navy EP-3E ARIES II signals surveillance aircraft and a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) J-8II interceptor fighter jet resulted in an international dispute between the United States and the People’s Republic of China called the Hainan Island incident.
  • 2001–2014 – War in Afghanistan: The War on Terror begins with Operation Enduring Freedom. On October 7, 2001, U.S. Armed Forces invade Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks and “begin combat action in Afghanistan against Al Qaeda terrorists and their Taliban supporters.”[RL30172]
  • 2002 – Yemen: On November 3, 2002, an American MQ-1 Predator fired a Hellfire missile at a car in Yemen killing Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, an al-Qaeda leader thought to be responsible for the USS Cole bombing.[RL30172]
  • 2002 – Philippines: OEF-Philippines, As of January, U.S. “combat-equipped and combat support forces” have been deployed to the Philippines to train with, assist and advise the Philippines’ Armed Forces in enhancing their “counterterrorist capabilities.”[RL30172]
  • 2002 – Côte d’Ivoire: On September 25, 2002, in response to a rebellion in Côte d’Ivoire, U.S. military personnel went into Côte d’Ivoire to assist in the evacuation of American citizens from Bouaké.[11][RL30172]
  • 2003–2011 – War in Iraq: Operation Iraqi Freedom, March 20, 2003, The United States leads a coalition that includes the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland to invade Iraq with the stated goal being “to disarm Iraq in pursuit of peace, stability, and security both in the Gulf region and in the United States.”[RL30172]
  • 2003 – Liberia: Second Liberian Civil War, On June 9, 2003, President Bush reported that on June 8 he had sent about 35 U.S. Marines into Monrovia, Liberia, to help secure the U.S. Embassy in Nouakchott, Mauritania, and to aid in any necessary evacuation from either Liberia or Mauritania.[RL30172]
  • 2003 – Georgia and Djibouti: “US combat equipped and support forces” had been deployed to Georgia and Djibouti to help in enhancing their “counterterrorist capabilities.”[12]
  • 2004 – Haiti: 2004 Haitian coup d’état occurs, The US first sent 55 combat equipped military personnel to augment the U.S. Embassy security forces there and to protect American citizens and property in light. Later 200 additional US combat-equipped, military personnel were sent to prepare the way for a UN Multinational Interim Force, MINUSTAH.[RL30172]
  • 2004 – War on Terror: U.S. anti-terror related activities were underway in Georgia, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Eritrea.[13]
  • 2004–present: The U.S deploys drone strikes to aid in the War in North-West Pakistan
  • 2005–06 – Pakistan: President Bush deploys troops from US Army Air Cav Brigades to provide Humanitarian relief to far remote villages in the Kashmir mountain ranges of Pakistan stricken by a massive earthquake.
  • 2006 – Lebanon: part of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit[14] begins evacuation of U.S. citizens willing to leave the country in the face of a likely ground invasion by Israel and continued fighting between Hezbollah and the Israeli military.[14][15]
  • 2007 – The Mogadishu Encounter, on November 4, 2007, Somali Pirate‘s boarded and attacked a North Korean merchant vessel. Passing U.S. Navy Ships and a helicopter that were patrolling at the time responded to the attack. Once the ship was freed from the pirates, the American forces were given permission to board and assist the wounded crew and handle surviving pirates.
  • 2007 – Somalia: Battle of Ras Kamboni, On January 8, 2007, while the conflict between the Islamic Courts Union and the Transitional Federal Government continues, an AC-130 gunship conducts an aerial strike on a suspected al-Qaeda operative, along with other Islamist fighters, on Badmadow Island near Ras Kamboni in southern Somalia.[16]
  • 2008 – South Ossetia, Georgia: Helped Georgia humanitarian aid,[17] helped to transport Georgian forces from Iraq during the conflict. In the past, the US has provided training and weapons to Georgia.

The Roman empire made the same mistake that we’re making: trying to secure the whole world on their own. Granted, the “world” of the Roman empire was actually just most of one continent, but given capabilities and geographic knowledge of the time the comparison is still apt. When the Romans proved to be stretched too thin, the Huns breached the Northern borders, opening the doors to every other barbarous tribe that wanted a piece of the action. The once great Roman army fell with surprising speed.

With the fall of Rome, wars between the invading tribes were non-stop. The constant battles sucked up every last ounce of resources leaving nothing for even basic items such as the maintenance of roads. By the time of Chaucer, only the best of the ancient Roman roads were still passable. Most were muddy, rutted, paths barely suitable for foot traffic.

Today, the US military spend $829.1 billion annually. Only health care takes a larger portion of the US budget and many in Congress would dearly love to dismantle those programs. Of that $829 billion, the vast majority goes not to equipment or veteran’s care or personnel, but the direct cost of involving our troops in constant rotating areas of conflict.

Could we be making the same mistake that Rome once did? Could we be taking steps toward our own Dark Ages? Military activity on its own is not enough of a precursor. Let’s continue.

Corruption

Where would you like to start, the Democratic presidential candidate’s private email server or the Republican presidential candidate’s ties with the Russian oligarchy? I’m not sure there is anyone within the borders of the United States who would deny that our government is rife with corruption from one end to the other. Even officials such as town councilpersons and county sheriffs have been convicted of things such as bribery and influence peddling.

What we often overlook, though, are the devastating effects of corporate corruption. It was the illegal dealings of traders on Wall Street and large banks, not the government, that led to the economic depression of 2008. Whistleblowing organizations such as Wikileaks are inundated daily with a constant stream of corruption accusations from around the world. Courts are full of lawsuits never fully heard as both corporate executives and the average Joe next door look for ways to exploit the system.

The effect of so much constant and thorough corruption is to destabilize all of society. We have, in just the past twelve years, seen the complete elimination of anything we once considered the Middle Class. Both legal and illegal corruption bring us constantly closer to that Medieval class system where one is either born rich, serves in the military, or exists in poverty as a serf with no hope of ever changing one’s station in life. As we refuse to reign in such rampant corruption, our march toward the next Dark Ages grows every closer.

Lawlessness

Remember when we were growing up and our parents and teachers taught us that the police were our friends? We naively believed them as they  protected us from the violence that was going on right under our noses. I can sit here and see now that such an attitude toward law enforcement is a benefit of white privilege. Sure, for me and my family, the police are our friends. I can flag down a police officer as he patrols the neighborhood and know that they are going to respond to the best of his/her ability. To them, we appear like a normal, law-abiding, Caucasian family. I’ve never had any reason to fear them.

Too many people cannot say the same thing, though. Even as you are reading this, Native peoples fighting against a pipeline that would destroy their only water source (thanks to more corruption) are being attacked with dogs and tear gas. Here’s the video from yesterday’s activity:

At the same time, police in Santa Clara, California threaten to not do their sworn jobs, to protect and keep peace, because a black quarterback is protesting the brutality of law enforcement against people of color.

Over the past several years, we’ve seen violence erupt across the nation in direct response to the lawlessness perpetrated against people based on racial and religious grounds.  Law enforcement has  too often decided that they get to pick and choose whom they get to protect. Courts have followed suit, repeatedly giving reduced or no sentence at all to white offenders while filling prisons with black and Latino citizens. Our concept of justice has been warped to serve the opinions of whichever political ideology happens to be popular at the moment.

Lawlessness may be the one area where we are already as bad as the Dark Ages. When people mysteriously die on their way to jail and spend countless months imprisoned without a trial we cannot call our society enlightened. Do you feel the darkness closing in yet?

Obsession With Strange Myths

Today is a Sunday. How many people are making their weekly pilgrimage to a place of worship where they will bow in honor to a deity and belief system they don’t really understand? Our propensity to believe in, and obsess over, strange myths is greater now than it has ever been. In fact, the citizens of the Dark Ages would be confused and probably even frightened by some of the religions that prosper in the United States. With over 600 denominations of Christian sects alone, our country’s somewhat dubious guarantee of freedom of religion has given rise to a plethora of belief systems that range from the ancient and honored to the recent and ridiculous.

What pushes us ever closer to a  Dark Ages-style of existence is that what one believes can affect their place in society. I have watched with interest this weekend as the Republican candidate for president has capitulated to church leaders of questionable legitimacy. Desperate to appeal to a wider group of voters, the candidate is pandering along religious lines offering preference in exchange for votes.

Where the poverty-stricken and uneducated Medieval masses were committed to what we would call superstition and legend, we have organized our mythologies so as to give them some sense of legitimacy. Yet, the ferociousness with which we defend these legends of deities that raise from the dead and so-called prophets and saints who miraculously heal select people (but never a whole hospital) ends up sounding every bit like a populous that was illiterate and ignorant of science.

Impenetrable Mindlessness

We easily dismiss illiteracy in the Dark Ages because the printing press had yet to be invented. Access to books and scrolls was limited to those in power, and as we’ve already mentioned not even emperors were especially well educated. We, however, are supposed to be different. The United States is supposed to be the smartest, most well-educated, most intelligent country in the world. At least, that’s what we like to keep telling ourselves. Reality, however, is considerably different.

Statistics from the Literacy Project Foundation show that 44 million adults in the US are unable to read even a simple story. 44% of Americans do not read a book of any kind over the course of a year. Over three million students drop out of high school each year. Those who do graduate are unable to complete any form of higher education because of insurmountable costs that require incomprehensible debt.

Combine those statistics with an anti-intelligence attitude in government that rivals that of Sigismund and we are creating an atmosphere sending us hurtling toward the Dark Ages. Medieval citizens at least had the excuse that modern science did not yet exist. Copernicus wasn’t even born until 1473 and even then his views were considered so heretical that the Church prohibited them from being discussed.  We have every benefit of science imaginable and still there are people who discard such knowledge and information as unsubstantiated rumor not worthy of discussion.

I’m not the first person to notice that we have the wealth of the world’s knowledge  literally at our fingertips and yet we choose to remain ignorant. This, perhaps more than anything else, spells most certain doom for the whole of society.

No One Is Listening

As I sit here near the completion of this missive, hours of research and work poured into it, I wonder how many people will even read these last few lines. We don’t like being told that we are destroying our own civilization. We know that we know better. Yet, our actions continually push toward an edge that, once crossed, could take centuries before there is any recovery.

I wish you would listen. I wish you would share this article. I would love to see people insisting that we take these problems seriously.

There is some comfort in knowing I’ll likely be dead before we really see a return to the Dark Ages. What hurts is knowing that we have gone there with full knowledge of what we are doing. We are turning our back on advancing  civilization and choosing ignorance. History has no choice but to look back on us with shame.

Continue Reading

Advertising  /  Current Issues  /  PotD
Sexy and Porn: Who Knows The Difference?
September 3, 2016
charles i. letbetter - sexy or porn: who can tell the difference

I’m not trying to be sexy. It’s just my way of expressing myself when I move around. —Elvis Presley

 

charles i. letbetter - The Difference Between Being Sexy And Porn

If there’s too fine a line between what’s sexy and what’s porn, it’s because we fail to understand the difference

I was awakened early this morning by the sound of gunshots. Three of them. Within a block of the house. Money is tight. None of the kids are doing as well in school as I’d like (though, the six-year-old reading at a third-grade level is nice). New York Fashion Week starts on Thursday. Of all the things I have to worry about, being sexy isn’t one of them. I’m an old man. I gave up trying to be sexy a long time ago.

Some people do accuse me of shooting porn, though. The image above probably doesn’t help that reputation any. There’s a partial view of a penis in that picture. Exposed breasts are artistic but a penis is pornographic. I’ve been trying to figure out that illogical double-standard for years. We think we know what is sexy, but we have no real concept of when something crosses the line between what is sexy and what is porn. Our publicly stated opinions tend to be rather insincere compared to our personal actions.

Being sexy is a marketing tactic, whether corporate or personal. Sexy is what one uses to get people to notice something or someone. Being flirtatious and suggestive is an advertising campaign that promises something it probably won’t deliver. At least, not to you. Porn takes something sexy and pushes it past our comfort level for public consumption. Anything that makes us uncomfortable must be wrong. But wait, we want to see more. We are so very messed up.

Lingerie Is Sexy, Not Porn

I am not a fan of advertising review boards. The US doesn’t exactly have one, though the FCC’s broadcast standards and a handful of laws tend to act in that capacity. Several European countries have such entities, though, as does Australia, and they frequently have difficulty discerning between what is publicly acceptable (sexy), and what is not (porn). These committees tend to make a lot of mistakes. We’re guessing they can’t tell their ass from a hole in the ground. The latest piece of insanity comes from Australia where the Australian Advertising Standards Bureau banned an ad for Australian lingerie brand Bras N Things. They consider the ad pornographic. Here, take a look:

Here’s a sample of what the board had to say about the ad:

“They were not merely modeling the underwear, they were moving suggestively, gyrating and looking lasciviously at the camera—like a very amateur porn movie. It was a demeaning and embarrassing display. It was vulgar, unsuitable for the young and simply demeaning for any woman walking past.”

You know, I think they said the exact same thing about Elvis Presley back in the 1950s. That gyrating. That snarl thing he did with his lip. Lord knows his moves were much too suggestive. His music must have been vulgar, unsuitable for the young. Funny how that turned into him being a legend by the time he died in 1974.

Just because something causes one to feel a little tingle in their pants doesn’t make it wrong and certainly is no reason to label it pornography. When something stirs the pleasure senses in your body, perhaps one would do well to go with it rather than pull out the chastening rod.

One Model’s Opinion

The model in the Bras N Things ad is Simone Holtznagel, a former Australia’s Next Top Model contestant. I don’t know if she had any financial stake in the company, but she didn’t take kindly to the censorship of her ad. In fact, she took it rather personally. Her rant on Instagram is a little difficult to decipher if one doesn’t read emoji well, but here’s the full thing:

The best part comes right smack in the middle of the tirade:

Do not impress your insecurities on me, whether physical or sexual. But by saying my body, just comfortably being my body, is somehow ‘wrong’ or ‘dirty’ you are insulting and potentially damaging any woman who may identify with me. Keep your neuroses off my body and go watch some REAL porn, you might be less uptight.

I have to agree with her. Watching porn might make a lot of people less uptight. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they would at least try?

A Different Model’s Opinion

At the same time, a different model was writing an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal (paywall) with the assistance of her rabbi, decrying everything that made her famous in the first place. This piece of sanctimoniously self-righteous vomit is about as disingenuous as anything I’ve ever read. The model wants everyone to “stop indulging porn” because disgraced politician Anthony Wiener can’t keep Oscar Meyer in his pants.

Mind you, this model, who appeared 15 times on the cover of Playboy and is practically unrecognizable wearing anything other than a swimsuit, has made some decisions in her life that are quite likely haunting her. She has hepatitis B, among other things, contracted through her own personal actions; choices she made. She has had multiple cosmetic surgeries, not all of which have gone well. Her use of illicit drugs and alcohol is legendary. Now that she’s no longer in demand, over 60, and facing mortality, she wants to recant. So, she’s blaming porn.

I’m sorry, but Ms. Anderson’s problems, and those of Mr. Wiener, are not the fault of porn any more than the Bras N Things ad is too sexy. Blaming porn for one’s own personal actions, choices one makes with full knowledge and awareness of the consequences, is rather like blaming arson on the existence of matches. Bashing porn doesn’t make one sexy. Or interesting. Or morally righteous.

Knowing The Difference

There is a difference between something that’s sexy and something that’s porn. Sexy is an attitude, it’s a part of someone’s demeanor, a level of confidence that is comfortable not only with their sexuality but with the concept of sex as a  whole. People who are sexy understand that the pleasure starts the moment one sees the other, even when one is untouchable and unobtainable. Being sexy facilitates desire.

Pornography, by contrast, is a sexually explicit act not done so much for one’s own pleasure but more for the pleasure of others. Titillating is the word some like to use, though that term is not necessarily accurate. People involved in porn understand that the pleasure does not involve the person as much as it does the activity. Porn doesn’t have to be sexy, it simply has to achieve the desired result. Porn facilitates fulfillment of a physical need.

Sure, sometimes the line between the two can get a bit thin, but it’s not invisible and one certainly knows when one is crossing it.

And we really need to get over this idea that either is inherently wrong. Everything has the potential to be used incorrectly. Even peas.  Two-year-olds and peas are a deadly combination.

We have a lot more important things to worry about.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  PotD
American-Branded Hate Dominates
September 2, 2016
charles i. letbetter - amerocan-branded hate dominates

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. —Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

charles i. letbetter - American-branded hate dominates

There’s more hate speech from American sources than anyone in the Middle East

Today’s pictures are only there to get your attention. They have nothing to do with the topic.

Okay, that statement’s not completely accurate. We have a picture of an ass. If you are a racist, bigoted, xenophobe who spreads hate, then you are an ass. So, I guess there is a distant relationship to the topic. Sort of.

Nonetheless, it appears that America is number one in yet another area of distinction: spreading hate online, specifically on Twitter. The research done by George Washington University’s Program on Extremism was released yesterday. I had planned to write this article then and was too ill to do so. This much hate makes me sick to my stomach.

We’re not especially surprised by the outcome of the study. At least, we’re not surprised that Americans spew more extremist views than anyone else. We’ve been watching the mountains of filth grow from the moment President Obama was elected to office in 2008. Every neanderthal in the country suddenly felt a need to go online and express their rage, ignorance, and outright stupidity. Half the time the statements don’t even make sense.

The numbers are higher than we expected, though. Much higher. Even that Mid-East terror fountain we refer to as Daesh (because it’s insulting and they really have nothing to do with Islam) doesn’t put as much hate online as do Americans.

Numbers Difficult To Count

Just how proliferate is the extremism we’re talking about?

“White nationalists and Nazis outperformed [Daesh] in average friend and follower counts by a substantial margin. Nazis had a median follower count almost eight times greater than [Daesh] supporters, and a mean count more than 22 times greater.”

Concrete numbers are difficult to come by because Twitter, which the report specifically targets, is constantly doing its best to eliminate accounts known for producing hate speech or content that incites or encourages violence. However, that effort has been very  lopsided. While the social media company has shut down, by its own account, over 360,000 accounts “for threatening or promoting what it defined as terrorist acts,” those efforts have been directed specifically toward Daesh. Nazis and white supremacists, on the other hand, have gotten by with saying just about anything they want.

What’s important to realize is that it’s not just the number of accounts but the number of followers that matter. A group might post a racist statement and be largely ignored if they have a low follower count. But when one has a following the size of the white nationalists and Nazis studied for the report, nothing gets ignored. Instead, the hate gets liked and retweeted over and over, spreading its vile poison around the globe. The final reach by these mostly American-based hate groups is in the millions.

Everyone Gets A Chance To Speak

Remember that point in Plato’s Republic, along about Book VII I believe, where he uses the allegory to describe why Democracy fails? He might as well have been looking right at us when he wrote that passage. For democracy to work, there must be learning, understanding, and reasoning across the board. Everyone must have a base level of intelligence if everyone is going to get a vote. Otherwise, the system fails.

The great promise of the Internet was that it would “level the playing field” by giving everyone a voice. Sure, the big corporations would have the biggest and flashiest websites, but that wouldn’t prevent Joe Redneck over there from creating his own website as well. Freedom of Speech. First Amendment. Rah, rah, rah. We were so convinced this w as a good thing and in many ways it has been. Then, along comes social media like Twitter and its ability to amplify all those millions of voices. Everyone gets 146 characters, no matter who you are. Equal footing for everyone. Sounds great.

And then the hate begins. Small at first, more of an annoyance than anything. But the hate grows. People start following the hate. They start retweeting the hate. Suddenly, extremists groups we thought had all but disappeared are popping up with huge audiences. They play to the fears and the lies and the misinformation of an under-educated and largely ignorant populace. The extremism spreads from Twitter to real life as the number of Klan and Nazi rallies increase. The next thing we know, not only is hate back stronger than ever, but it’s running for President!

Shutting The Barn Door

Ask the good folks at Twitter what they’re doing about the problem of extremist hate speech and they’ll direct you to their terms of service. They try to emphasize the parts that “prohibit promoting terrorism, threatening abuse and hateful conduct such as attacking or threatening a person on the basis of race or ethnicity.” The rules are there. The problem is getting anyone to follow them. Twitter, like Facebook and other companies. relies on users to report inappropriate activity. However, one cannot report activity they don’t see.

There has been a lot of discussion over the past few years as to how we create “echo chambers” with our social media accounts. We like, friend, and follow those people and organizations that hold values similar to our own.  When someone repeatedly makes statements that we don’t like, things that we find offensive,  we unfriend or unfollow them. Problem solved, right?

Not exactly. If offensive hate-filled behavior isn’t reported, then it continues whether we see it or not. When everyone following a hate group agrees with that point of view, nothing gets reported. Instead, the hate is shared, re-distributed, turned into a meme and shared again. The very systems that allow us to choose what we see and who we follow end up allowing the hate and the extremism to grow.

Complicating matters even further is the fact that, unlike Daesh, American-branded extremism isn’t cohesively organized and planned. Individuals are as likely to make offensive statements as are known  hate groups. Shutting everyone down becomes difficult.

Finding A Solution

The report states that its data represents only a subset of all the extremists and hate-based groups on the Internet. They are legion.

Where we begin turning the tide against hate is first by filling Twitter and other social media with more love. Support those who fight against injustice. Demand equality for your Muslim neighbor, your Latino neighbor,  your black neighbor. Fill your life, and your friends list, with those who are the targets of hate. Show more kindness and generosity toward those most likely to be the subject of online trolls and bullies.

Then, when you see injustice and hate, put it down. Don’t merely unfriend someone. If what someone is saying threatens another person or group, speak up. Report them. No, you’re not being mean or vindictive. You’re sending a message that hate and extremism are not tolerated.

Hate kills. No one has a right to kill. Stop the hate. Embrace your brother and sister. Spread the love.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  Music
Replacing The National Anthem
August 31, 2016
charles i. letbetter - change the national anthem

If you forget the words to your own song, you can always claim artistic license. Forget the words to the national anthem, and you’re screwed. —Lyle Lovett

 

charles i. letbetter - change the national anthem

The National Anthem is difficult to sing, is fraught with negative connotations, and fails to fully represent our country. So why do we still use it?

I’m looking at recent headlines and having an incredible sense of having been here before. Once again, we’re arguing about the National Anthem. This instance happens to be the result of some random football player exercising his right to sit during the pre-game ritual. This isn’t the first time someone has done that. It won’t be the last. This whole incident has been played out multiple times during my life. Yet, for all the talk, nothing has actually changed.

I’ll admit that, as a musician, I rather like the music portion of The Star-Spangled Banner. I like that not just anyone can sing the song well. The song harmonizes well when arranged correctly. The melody is open to a lot of personal interpretation. As a piece of music, The Star-Spangled Banner works well for me.

However, as a national anthem, the song sucks. The language is stilted and the entire third verse is offensive. Textually, the song doesn’t so much say, “Hooray for the United States,” as it says, “Hey, we didn’t get beaten this time.” As a nation, we have been divided over the anthem since the middle of the 19th century. Continuing to force it upon generation after generation just for the sake of tradition removes any real meaning. What we sing at the beginning of ballgames and political events today does not represent us. We need a national anthem that speaks for us all.

Why Have A National Anthem?

If we’re going to get all riled up about the issue of a national anthem, we first must consider why we have an anthem in the first place. Why is it an anthem and not just a national song? I don’t find it unrealistic should we just have a national jingle. After all, we are one of the most commercially driven and materialistic people on the planet. Perhaps an anthem isn’t what we need at all.

Most music dictionaries define an anthem as a song that identifies the ideals and values of a specific group of people. For example, when our friends directly to the North of us sing Oh, Canada it’s pretty obvious from the start what the song is about and who it represents. Russia’s national anthem (which is not without similar controversies itself) is also highly recognizeable. That one starts out:

Russia – our sacred homeland,
Russia – our beloved country.
A mighty will, a great glory –
These are your heritage for all time!

Sort of. The translation is a little rough, but the general sentiment is there. My point is that an anthem makes it clear that it holds a relationship with a specific group of people.

The Star-Spangled Banner doesn’t exactly fit that definition. People only relate the song to the country because we keep playing it every time we decide to get sweaty or have an election. The song does not contain the name of the country. The song does not represent our ideals. Our song is about a flag not getting blown to smithereens. That’s it. So, it fails in the definition of an anthem.

A National Anthem Should Be Inclusive

Singer/songwriter John Legend, who I respect, went on record yesterday as saying he believes we should change the national anthem to America The Beautiful. A lot of people have made the argument for Katherine Lee Bates’ song before. At the very least, it is certainly more descriptive of the country and contains the word “America.” That’s more than the current anthem does. Plus, it is easier to sing and is already well-known. There’s just one little problem in the chorus:

America, America,
God shed his grace on thee.

Uhm, yeah, there are going to be a lot of people have a problem with that reference to a specific deity. The case isn’t made any stronger by the fact that the original poem has at least eight verses, one of which contains a phrase some might find a bit frightening:

America, America,
God shed his grace on thee;
‘Til nobler men keep once again
Thy whiter jubilee!

What the fuck? Okay, if we give Miss Bates the benefit of the doubt, she might have meant “whiter” in the sense of more heavenly, maybe. Still, the inference here is totally unacceptable in a national anthem. The same is true for God Bless America and I’m Proud To Be An American. The religious references divide us, not unite us.

Some (Slightly) Better Suggestions

We have some existing songs within the American catalog of music that have the potential for being a great national anthem. If we’re going to get all caught up in the flag thing, then perhaps the late George M. Cohan has the answer:

You’re a grand old flag
You’re a high-flying flag
And forever in peace may you wave.
You’re the emblem of
The land I love,
The home of the free and the brave.
Ev’ry heart beats true
‘Neath the Red, White and Blue,
Where there’s never a boast or brag.
But should auld acquaintance be forgot,
Keep your eye on the grand old flag.

The song only works, however, if we just adopt the chorus. The first verse has an uncomfortable reference to, “Way down yonder in the land of cotton.” I can understand a lot of people not being particularly fond of that little element.

Perhaps we just do away with lyrics altogether. After all, that seems to be what largely upsets folks about any of the songs. Maybe John Philip Sousa’s The Stars and Stripes Forever, which is already our national march, could fit the bill. We like singing, though, and again, it doesn’t match the definition of an anthem.

Time To Write Our Own

We need a new national anthem. We need a song that is singable, one that unites us  rather than divides us. The United States deserves a national anthem that actually contains the name of the country in its text. A song that can be sung by little children or mass choirs should be the goal of our effort. Any anthem representing our country needs to reflect all of us, not just the privileged few. To have a song that marginalizes so many of our own people is unacceptable.

We have too many wonderful and talented composers in our country for us to not have one kick-ass national anthem. We need to get behind the concept and tell Congress, who ordains such things, that we demand a new song. Maybe have John Legend write it, or maybe Beyoncé and Taylor Swift could team up. Anyone accept Kanye. Please, don’t let that idiot near our national anthem.

For too long, we have argued and fussed over a national anthem that fails to represent us well. We need to get over the whole aspect of tradition and write something new; something  that gives us all a reason to stand with pride and sing.

Or maybe we just need a jingle.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  Mythology  /  PotD
Dear World: Your Actions Are Unacceptable
August 27, 2016
charles i. letbetter - dear world your actions are unacceptable

I’m not sure I’m trying to communicate a message. I’m just trying to be part of the movement away from the unacceptable present. —Wole Soyinka

 

charles i. letbetrer - dear world you actions are unacceptable

The world gets a giant middle finger for all the nonsense it has generated as well as a shit load of unnecessary pain.

I am not a happy camper. In addition to dealing with eight tornadoes hitting the area on Wednesday and flooding in our own yard yesterday, most of the rest of the world seems to have come off its hinges with actions and events that are wholly unacceptable. Making matters worse, the biggest failures of the week are not merely unacceptable for their own anti-human deviance but are indicative and symptomatic of much larger problems that we’ve attempted to address before.

Maybe I should just stay away from the news. Reading through my feed every morning makes my blood pressure soar even before the normal frustrations have a chance to piss me off. I find that too often I’m already in a terrifying mood before I get to my second cup of coffee. That situation on its own should be unacceptable, but it is becoming a daily ritual: Drink coffee, read news, lose temper, make more coffee. I swear, if it weren’t for the coffee I might do something dangerous.

Instead of directly endangering lives, though, what I’m doing this morning is attempting to exorcise these demons of society by exposing their unacceptable behavior loudly and publicly. We’ve seen more than once this week where social media backlash can turn into genuine dissent that results in positive action. We need more of that. If yelling and screaming make a difference, then I’m ready to participate. Here are the most unacceptable issues.

Complete Ignorance

Offender: Michelle Backman. Why anyone still puts a microphone in front of this woman’s face is beyond me. The pandering crackheads over at Breitbart News (a misnomer from the beginning) are responsible for the latest tirade. The level of ignorance shown is unacceptable on its own. What’s scary is that there are millions of people who actually believe this nonsense. Here’s what she had to say this time:

“I don’t think all of the suffering of African-Americans during the period of slavery can ever equate to what’s been done to white conservative Americans in the past 8 years …”

Yes, she actually said that. She is of the opinion that giving everyone else in America what white people already had is somehow oppressing white people. You and I both know that’s a goddamn lie, but it’s one that keeps being repeated over and over and over. White people are not victims. They probably deserve to be, but they’re not. It’s time to push back against this claptrap and put an end to such unacceptable behavior.

Religious Criminality

Offender: Bishop Ken Adkins. Like so many right-wing pastors, Adkins has been very vocal against LGBT rights. He is on record as saying that Orlando PULSE victims “got what they deserved.” That right there tells you this is not a good person, despite his self-anointed title. What we found out this week, though, is that the Bishop has a thing for molesting children. The press release from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was tweeted by a Jacksonville news outlet:


In addition to the Bishop’s actions and words being unacceptable, what gets my goat is that THIS KEEPS HAPPENING and no one is doing anything about it! How many more times are we going to endure headlines like this before we start looking more carefully at the men behind the pulpit (and yes, it is exclusively men who have been the problem)? Sure, it’s only a few bad apples, but those apples keep poisoning barrel after barrel of innocent children. While the Catholic church has its own mechanism through which such behavior is supposedly handled (though there are plenty of questions there, jackasses such as Adkins have no oversight, no one to whom they are accountable. This is unacceptable. PASTORS MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS! We cannot allow more children to be placed at risk.

Male Domination

Offender (this time): France. France’s prohibition against women wearing the burkini on public beaches is an example of how social media can actually do some good. After more than a week of pressure, France’s Supreme Court overturned the anti-burkini laws that were in place. The problem is that the attitude behind those laws hasn’t changed. In fact, Nicolas Sarkozy announced his bid for President yesterday by insisting on a national ban on the garment.

While the attitude of male domination is unacceptable in of itself, the whole thing about men trying to tell women what to wear, and then turning around and shaming them, has gotten out of hand. We’ve been putting up with this nonsense far too long and it’s time that men, again, were called out on their behavior. I’ll be honest, women have been saying something for a long time. What we need are more men standing up and calling each other out in this shit. I find this behavior offensive and any man who has an ounce of respect for women should not tolerate it.

Editorial cartoonist Anna Telnaes of the Washington Post has been all over this issue for a while and no one has been paying attention. Yesterday, the Post published several of her cartoons on the subject to Twitter. Here are a couple that really define the problem:


Women have been saying something for over 100 years. It’s time men not only started listening but started changing.

A Preference For War

Offenders: the United States and Russia. Let’s be honest: the two super-powers started the mess in the Middle East by interfering with their politics back in the 1950s. They have done a good job of keeping that region in turmoil ever since.  This week, they had a chance to stop the nonsense. They didn’t. That is unacceptable. After all this time, leaders of both countries are afraid to do anything that might put the other in a positive light. The US belittles Russia. Russia degrades the US. They could end the violence in Syria. They could keep refugees from having to flee. But they’re not. Instead, we get quotes like this one from US Secretary of State John Kerry:

“We don’t want to have a deal for the sake of the deal. We want to have something done that is effective and that works for the people of Syria, that makes the region more stable and secure, and that brings us to the table here in Geneva to find a political solution.”

Anyone else want to call horseshit on this? They’re not interested in lives. They’re not interested in war. Instead, both countries are trying to make themselves look good to their allies. There is absolutely no concern for humanity in anything either leader has said. This is unacceptable and we need to make a LOT of noise to get the nonsense to stop.

Using Children For Terror

Offender: Daesh.  First, they sent a child to a wedding with a bomb strapped to his chest. 50 were killed, mostly other children. This week, the band of idiots released a video showing children executing hostages.  No, I’m not linking to the video. No one should. This nonsense is unacceptable at the very highest order. As unacceptable as terrorism is on any level, using children to commit their despicable acts is beyond inexcusable.

Here’s the thing: bombing Daesh back to the stone age, as some of our own right-wing radicals have suggested, doesn’t solve the problem. If we want to stop Daesh, we have to stop giving people a reason to want to join them. We have to stop marginalizing Muslims both here and around the world. Daesh is already using the rhetoric of the Republican presidential candidate in their recruiting efforts. They see the world as us against them, that we are trying to eliminate their culture and replace it with ours. They look at our 60+ years of constant interference in the region as an imperialistic power grab.

As much as we abhor their tactics, we cannot fire with fire in this instance. At least, not yet. When we bring Muslims into the Western mainstream with acceptance and inclusion, we take away Daesh’s power. When we support real Muslims, not the wannabes who strap bombs to children, we give them strength to stand up and fight against those who usurp their religion. There are enough moderate, peace-loving Muslims in the Middle East to drive out radical terrorism completely. We must support them, not just with weapons, but by welcoming to participate in the world alongside us. Until we do, more unacceptable acts will happen.

Speak Up

I’ve had my turn at yelling and screaming.   Now it’s your turn. We’ve seen that mass public pressure can have a positive effect on world events. You have to say something. Share this article. Tweet your displeasure. Make your voice heard. Your options are many. Find a way.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  Fashion
Is Fashion Week Flying Off The Rails?
August 26, 2016

You really do have the license during fashion week to wear the things that you wouldn’t necessarily wear to dinner, because it really is a fashion parade. —Brad Goreski

 

charles i. letbetter - is fashion week flying off the rails

With Fashion Week less than two weeks away, the traditions surrounding the month-long event seem to be disappearing

We’re now less than two weeks from the start of New York Fashion Week and I’m not sure at this point whether to bother consulting the schedule or not. Normally, shows would be pretty much locked down by now. We would have a good sense of the schedule and could begin preparing for where we need to be at any given moment. Not this season. At least, not yet. I suspect the calendar will straighten itself out eventually, but there are some big names still missing and some will stay that way.

Fashion week as we knew it a year ago no longer exists. Everything is in a state of flux and it is this season that is seeing a lot of the transition that is likely to become the norm for coming years. Digital media and online buying having taken over. With that comes a complete change of attitude, strategy, and availability. What we once expected from a fashion week just doesn’t happen any more. This is the season we start making that shift and it’s making more than a few people uncomfortable.

What We Know

Without going into any boring detail at this point, here are some of the changes we are aware of:

The waves of change are  all over. Even how sets are constructed and shows are structured is changing. We’re expecting far fewer traditional runway shows this season. Who gets invitations and who doesn’t, who sits where, and what is allowed into a venue is all different than it was last season. Very little of what one expects from fashion week is staying the same.

Consumers Want Current Season

Folks in Italy may have to do some backtracking on their February statements against current-season show strategies. They came our pretty strong against the concept last season and Italian designers seemed to largely agree that shows needed to stay a season ahead of retail. Consumers, however, seem to have other ideas.

A report was released this week by Verdict Retail showing exactly the opposite of what the Italian Fashion Council wants. 85.6% of shoppers say they want to shop current season and support a see-now, buy-now strategy. 85% is a scale-tipping number. Labels can either get with the program or suffer the consequences of continually declining sales.

Unpredictable weather and social media are the primary culprits behind this change in consumer expectations. When everyone around the world can see a collection the instant it walks, the demand to have that collection now increases significantly. With weather often blurring the lines between seasons, a heavy coat is appropriate for summer as much as s short shorts are part of the winter collection.

Discounters Rule

The other aspect that is spurring changes on fashion runways is the fact that luxury labels are having difficulty keeping up with discounters and outlet stores that are digging into their profits.  Large department stores such as Macy’s and Nordstrom are having to run sales 50% and even 75% off in order to compete with the likes of H&M. This leaves designers increasingly narrow margins and effects how they approach fashion week.

Even discounters, though, may soon face declining sales. A Moody’s retail analyst told Bloomberg TV this week that consumers make $80 billion in interest payments on student debt each year, leaving them with increasingly less expendable cash during that time of their lives when they should have the most money available to spend. Gen-X and older Millennial shoppers are having to adopt a more frugal spending plan. Historial studies show that once such a mindset is established, consumers typically don’t change habits even when they do have more money

This leaves luxury labels looking for new ways to entice cash- and credit-strapped shoppers. Traditional runways are not selling the clothes as effectively. Fashion week is, in some cases, too old school to hold the effectiveness it once did. Labels are actively seeking alternatives.

Hang On For A Wild Ride

We’re expecting even more shifts and changes as we get closer to the September 8 start date of the season. We’ll do our best to keep up with the most important. Stay with us.

Continue Reading

Current Issues  /  PotD
Everyone Gets To Weather A Storm
August 25, 2016
charles i. letbetter - everyone gets to weather a storm

Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storm. —Laurence Olivier

 

charles i. letbetter - everyone gets to weather a storm

Indiana cowered as storms passed over, but we were not alone. Everyone gets to endure a storm.

Skies above were clear and the air was humid as I stepped out the door to take the dog on his early morning walk. The last of the rain moved out around 3:00 AM. Computer models aren’t predicting any new storms for today, but WTHR’s Chuck Lofton isn’t convinced. Conditions this morning are too similar to yesterday morning. As the dog and I make the last turn toward home, I see lightning to the North.

Yesterday wasn’t a pleasant weather day for anyone in central Indiana. The first siren sounded here shortly after 3:00 PM. By that time, a Starbucks up in Kokomo (about a 90-minute drive North) had already been flattened by an F3 tornado. I grabbed my hat and phone and headed outside. A neighbor met me on the corner and we watched one lightning strike after another.

“You don’t think that’s headed this way, do you?” he asked, the worry showing on his face. Yesterday was his birthday and he wasn’t having a good one.

“No,” I answered. “But it’s too close for comfort. That’s hitting right around 38th street. Just about where the kids’ school is.”

The lightning passed, then came the bulk of the storm. Clouds and wind shifted direction repeatedly. We never saw a funnel. We wouldn’t have in all that rain. The system moved on East and caused more trouble in the central and Eastern parts of  town. Only two twisters have been confirmed, but there were many more funnels spotted. Buildings damaged. Power out. Children scared as they hunkered down at school. Not a fun day to be in Indiana.

It’s Not Always Like This

Tornado sirens went off five different times yesterday afternoon, prompting my 18-year-old, who just moved up here, to ask whether the weather was like this all the time. This is the second time since he’s been here that sirens have sounded. This isn’t what we might consider traditional Indiana weather, especially for this time of year. Research out of Purdue University in Lafayette suggests that warmer temperatures might be pushing “tornado alley” into the state. Days like yesterday may become the new normal for Indiana.

When a storm like this hits an area, everyone is momentarily jarred. Weather is one of those areas in life over which we have absolutely no control. When the weather starts getting nasty, our senses revert to an inherent sense of fear. We instinctually recognize the danger. Our blood pressure increases to facilitate a run to cover. Our ears go on high alert, listening for the approaching storm. Eyes become more focused, even to the point of increasing our ability to see in the dark. As the storm passes, we exhale, feel a sense of relief in still being alive. We survived another one. Yay us.

Storms like yesterday are small, though.  Just ask anyone in Louisiana who is still wading through several feet of water, unable to return to their homes. No one totally escapes the storms that life throws at us. As frightening as yesterday might have been for some, those storms were light compared to what others are enduring.

A Death Toll Rises

Earthquakes hit central Italy last week, completely leveling many ancient towns. At first, the death toll seemed moderate. I think the first report I saw listed 14 casualties. When I went to bed last night, the count was at 159. This morning, the death toll sits at 247 and climbing.  Strong aftershocks continue, making rescues dangerous. The storms we endure are not always those associated with weather. They come at us from many different directions and many different forms. Compared to what is still happening in Italy, yesterday’s dance with tornadoes was a walk in the park.

In the Italian city of Amatrice, one of the worst-hit towns, a small hotel with 70 guests collapsed. Only seven bodies have been recovered so far. In Pescara del Tronto, rescuers were finally able to get to a 10-year-old girl who had lain in rubble for 17 hours. Over in Accumoli, however, two little boys, ages 8 months and 9 years, were buried along with their parents when their house fell in on them. Stories like these are repeated over and over and over across central Italy to the point one risks becoming numb to the tragedy. This storm was just as unexpected as yesterday’s tornadoes. No one could have predicted this.

Yet, to not expect storms in life is foolish. I sometimes think that we should teach storm survival skills as a course in high school. Students would learn skills to help them survive not only tornadoes, but earthquakes, floods, mudslides, volcanic activity and other forms of displacement and upheaval. Fire is an inevitability for everyone. Storms are inevitable. So, why are we not better equipped, both emotionally and tactically, to hand them?

#CantDoNothing

Since life’s storms are so inevitable, not only do we need to be prepared to handle the ones that directly affect us, but we also have a responsibility to respond to the tragedy of storms that displace others. Locally, the American Red Cross is leading efforts to assist those most directly impacted by yesterday’s storms. If you want to help, you can click here to give. Around the world, there are appropriate agencies to which one can give as to participate in providing relief to all the manners of storms that disable people around the world. Those who survive have a responsibility to humanity to step up and provide assistance.

Sometimes, though, storms are ongoing. Some of the most devastating events are not natural disasters but those initiated by the insanity of war and economic disasters. Refugees continue to pour from Syria and other war-torn countries. Their storm seems never ending. While it’s easy enough to sit here and say, “I feel sorry for those people,” what they really need is a more hands-on approach, people willing to volunteer on the ground in the places where refugees land and the places they wait.

Milana Vayntrub is probably best known to most of us as Lily from the AT&T commercials. She was vacationing in Greece earlier this year when she learned about the severity of the refugee situation there. Being a refugee herself, she felt compassion and took the steps to do something. She then used her phone to create a documentary about the situation. The portion here is 13 minutes. Please, take a moment to watch.

More Storms Coming

Some storms can be forecasted. Many others can’t. What we do know is that more storms are coming, both here in Indiana and around the world. With each storm, there are people adversely affected. We hope to not become victims ourselves. Where we don’t, however, we have an obligation to help those who are, not just here, but around the world.

Continue Reading

Page 19 of 23

  • Don't Miss A Thing!

    Enter your email address to subscribe now and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 345 other subscribers