relationships

Mythology  /  Social Commentary
Religions Against Progress
May 24, 2016
charlesi. letbetter - religion against progress

Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex. —Karl Marx

 

charles i. letbetter - religions against progress

Religions that attempt to control sexuality slow the progress of that society

Religion is bad for society. At least, that’s the correlation one finds when comparing the level of sexual oppression to the amount of control a religion, any of them, has on government. Where there is over-abundant religious control there is no sexual freedom and where there is no sexual freedom society, as a whole, takes a giant step backwards.

A lot of people have control issues, and a lot of those people try to hide their control issues by encoding them in a set of rules. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that major religions, which have more rules than any other organizations, might be full of control freaks. What’s especially bad about that, though, is in their attempt to maintain control, they are inhibiting the grown and progress of the societies of which they are a part.

I’m not going to bother linking to any of the three different stories I saw yesterday regarding some pastor or church leader being caught in a sex sting (two with underage children). At this point, we’ve seen those headline so many times I’m rather surprised that confidence in the clergy is holding together at all. While I know many pastors are genuinely good people, we are seeing headlines such as these almost every day now. For me, that’s a little unsettling and I question why it’s not that way for more people.

Then, there was this article in Sunday’s Daily Beast describing how Muslim women are mistreated if they dare show their hair. Specifically, there has been a crackdown on Instagram models from Iran who posted pictures with their hair uncovered. As repressive as Christianity can be, Islam can be even worse and the consequences can be severe, all as a means of control.

Hindu women are not much better off as 85% identify with a caste system in which women are not only subject to beating and abuse by the male members of the family, but are restricted by the constructs of the caste system with rules seeking better opportunities for themselves. Women are taught at an early age to not ask questions, to not expect better, and to obey their husbands.

While sexual oppression is common across all three of the world’s major religions, we have to realize that sexuality isn’t the problem. The problem is a desire for abject control and sexuality is the tool religions use for exerting that control. They tell you when sex is right (within very strict guidelines established by the church for the specific purpose of retaining its dominance) and when sex is wrong (which is anything the religious leaders can’t control). They define who can and who can’t have sex and then enforce those rules with laws that are cruel and often violent.

But the rules and laws against sexuality have nothing to do with devotion to a deity or set of deities. Sexual oppression, just like rape, is about control and patriarchal religions are not anxious to give that up, even when they know what they’re doing is wrong. Male theocrats across all three religions are the loudest voices in opposition of sexual openness and liberations. You can see it in the likes of Texas Senator and former presidential candidate Ted Cruz. You can see it in the election of Ahmad Jannati to Iran’s Assembly of Experts.  You can see it in just how close far right-wing candidate Norbert Hofer came to winning Austria’s presidential elections this week. You can see it in the political actions of India’s ultra-conservative Prime Minister Narendra Modi. All are looking for religious control and all are, to one degree or another, using sexual oppression as a means of getting it.

Increasingly, sexual freedom has become a sort of litmus test for whether a society is open and progressive or closed and regressive. To the extent that the most conservative elements of any religion have any voice or say in a government, the more closed and restrictive that society is likely to be and open displays of sexuality are punished. The more secular a government, the more open and sexually liberated is the society likely to be, which also correlates in social progressiveness in other areas.

This leaves us with the logical conclusion that religion, in its desire for complete control, is against any form of progress that might allow people, women especially, to be in control of their own bodies, their own thoughts, and their own actions. If we are to move forward, we must take more of a hard line against religion in government. Interestingly enough, the very first amendment of the United States Constitution addresses that need.

So, how does sexuality relate to a progressive society? Because where we are open to exploring the advancement of sexuality, we are also open to exploring the advancement of other things, such as food, art and creativity, literature, human development, intellectual disabilities, and a host of other areas. Our attitudes toward sexuality impact almost every other aspect of our lives. Progress does not come in just one area on its own, but as awareness and openness in one dimension of our lives impacts others and pushes us toward the improvement of those conditions. Interestingly enough, though, progress in all those areas comes without acknowledgement of or any connection to religion. Religious control in such fields as the arts and sciences would be limiting at best and destructive at its worst.

I know religious moderates will object to such a strong anti-religion stance. “Not all religions are dominating and controlling,” they will say. To some extent they are correct. More moderate to liberal theologies are open to multiple views of sexuality. However, none of those religions are attempting to control the conduct of entire countries, either. Moderate religions don’t even dominate religion. Those on the far right end of the religious spectrum are the ones with the control issues, and, much to the detriment of everyone else, we’ve allowed them to have increasing amounts of control to the point they use that power to deny us the most basic of freedoms.

Note: we’re not picking on any one religion here. Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism are all equally guilty. Together, they are attempting to hold back the progress of two-thirds of the world’s population and they are doing so by attempting to control matters of sexuality.

The struggle against religious control is not one of just LGBT rights, or feminism, or reproductive rights, or anything else affected by the control religions attempt to exert over society. The struggle against religious control is a fight for humanity, a fight for progress, and a fight for reason. We should be alarmed. We should be vocal. And as much as anything, we should support sexual freedom and exploration in every culture and civilization around the world.

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pop culture  /  PotD
Not A Food Fanatic In A City That Is
May 24, 2016
charles i. letbetter - not a food fanatic in a city that is

You don’t need a silver fork to eat good food. —Paul Prudhomme

 

charles i. letbetter - not a food fanatic in a city that is

Condé Nast Traveler says Indianapolis is “the most underrated food city in the US.” That’s nice, unless you’re not really a food fanatic.

[Update: This article went largely unnoticed until late evening, May 24. Apparently, someone posted a link on Facebook. Suddenly, our hit count exploded and currently, May 25, we’re having our highest visitor/hit count ever! Hooray! Apparently, Erin and her dear friends are offended. They (mistakenly) think we’re against good and diverse dining. One person was so incensed, she wants to punch me in the throat. Wow, who knew foodies could be so violent . While we do not apologize for the content, our intent was not to insult or in any way disparage any of the fine establishments mentioned. Condé Nast Traveler didn’t single them out with no reason. One restaurant owner even reached out and invited us to drop by his establishment, an invitation we will do our best to accept. Still, no matter how wonderful all these restaurants are, we are never going to eat out that often and when we do we’re more likely to choose something closer to home, a bit more child appropriate, and less likely to upset my overly-sensitive stomach. If you want to try them, please do. I’m sure you’ll have a pleasant experience. Be sure to leave them a nice review on Yelp! Thank you for visiting!]

One could almost hear the squeals of glee when Condé Nast Traveler updated its 2015 list of Best Places To Visit This Summer and decided to include Indianapolis in the #28 spot, right between Maui, Hawaii, and Camden, Maine. Indy is full of people who love eating out so much that their own kitchens feel neglected as they’re hardly even used for making coffee anymore. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me too much to see at least one of the new sets of condos going up downtown to eliminate stoves and ovens entirely, leaving only a refrigerator for storing doggie bags and a microwave for heating them up. That’s just how fanatical Indy’s food people are.

Food fanatics have cropped up everywhere in the past ten years. When I first moved here, the top-rated restaurant in town was St. Elmo’s. Everyone told me I need to eat there. Then, I saw their menu. No, thank you. I can cook my own steak for considerably less, get it exactly the way I like it, and not have to take out a small loan in the process. I do have a bottle of their cocktail sauce in the ‘fridge. We bought it at Costco. If premiere dining means overspending on everything, then I’ll have no part of it, thank you.

Over the ensuing years, though, a number of chefs have inexplicably chosen Indianapolis as the place to try out their new and innovative menus and, much to my surprise, people in Indy have actually responded favorably. Condé Nast specifically mentions Milktooth, Black Market, Rook, and Marrow but there are at least a dozen other places around town that are every bit as good and just as difficult to get a seat between 6-8 PM. Every one of them stays busy and on the rare occasion one goes out of business it is usually something other than the food that was at fault.

But guess what: I’ve not been to any of them. Not a one. Never mind the fact that the Black Market literally share’s a driveway with Kat’s dad and we’re down there all the time smelling the delicious aromas pouring out their back door. I’m not one to eat out that often and when I do it’s almost certainly to be an old favorite or, at least, someplace where I know that I’m likely to find something I like even if I find the majority of choices detestable.

Not that I never try new places, mind you. Just last week I stepped into Punch for lunch and had a wonderful time. The food was fantastic, the price was reasonable, the service friendly, and the portion on the waffle fries was huge. Punch was a pretty safe bet, though. It is the top-rated downtown burger joint on Yelp, and, obviously, it’s a burger joint. You can do a lot with burgers, but it’s pretty hard to fuck one up to the point it’s inedible. Stopping by Punch was about as adventurous from a food perspective as taking an alternate path home: you know where you’re going, you just go a different direction getting there.

Could I have just as easily eaten at one of those fancy places everyone talks about? Probably. But I am not a food fanatic. I have issues with trying some place new. Serious issues. As much as I enjoy eating, a food fanatic is not something I could ever be. Here’s why:

  • Nothing’s close. Almost all the hottest places to eat are downtown, Broad Ripple, or Fountain Square, none of which are anywhere close to our home. If I want to grab a nice lunch while everyone else is at school, I have to get on a bus, whose schedule and route isn’t always convenient to where I want to eat. If we’re talking about dinner, we’re talking about where to park as free parking isn’t exactly booming in this or any other city. Most days, that’s just too much trouble. I’ll stay home.
  • Children. All the cool places on the food lovers’ lists are less than appropriate for the two energetic and sometimes picky six- and seven-year-olds we have. The problem is not that children are forbidden in any of these places, but the menus simply aren’t appropriate. We have difficulty getting them to eat anything other than mac and cheese. Do you really think we’re going to convince them that “smoked tofu, miso eggplant, bok choy, coco rice, hoisin, slow poached egg (Marrow)” is a good thing to try? As much as it costs to eat out, the last thing you want is the kids sitting there picking at expensive food they won’t eat.
  • Menus that make no sense. One of the things I really dislike is not having some general sense of what I’m eating. If I have to sit at the table and Google items on the menu to see what they are, we have a problem. Consider this description of an “Okonomiyaki Burger” at Rook: duck egg / leeks / caramelized onions / Tulip Tree Foxglove / shoestring potato / foie mayo. I’m still trying to figure out where the hell the burger is in all that. Is it beef? Mixed meat? Vegan? And I’m Googling “Tulip Tree Foxglove” and “foie mayo.” At $17, I kinda want to know what to expect before I put my order in.
  • Indigestion. I’m old. Stomach problems run in our family. A number of popular restaurants make their name on dishes that are spicy. As much as I may want to try those delightful looking dishes, I don’t dare. I won’t sleep for three days if I do. My stomach simply cannot handle anything too terribly spicy. This condition only gets worse over time, and no, popping an antacid doesn’t help. Who wants to spend money on moderately bland food?
  • Cost. I’ll admit that a lot of the trendy restaurants are not nearly as expensive as the more traditional steak houses such as St. Elmo’s or Ruth Chris’. Depending on one’s menu and drink choices, one can reasonably eat for less than $20 a person, plus tip. Not bad, really. Unfortunately, the realistic penny-pinching side of me looks at the $50 I might drop on dinner for Kat and me and know that I could buy a week’s worth of groceries for the same amount, and have leftovers (yeah, I’m that good), and manage to get the kids to eat everything on their plates at least five of the seven nights. It’s difficult to enjoy good food when you’re racked with guilt.

I’ve not lived in rural Oklahoma for a very long time, but at the end of the day, I’m still a country boy whose best friend in the kitchen is my cast iron skillet.  I don’t need exotic ingredients when I can just pick fresh veggies from the garden. I don’t need a cheese whose name is longer than mine and I damn sure don’t need my asparagus shaved. While I enjoy trying new foods, especially those related to a specific culture, I still want food that doesn’t require a degree in food science to appreciate.

Unless someone else is picking up me and the bill, I’m not likely to ever dine at any of those super cool places Condé Nast Traveler thinks I shouldn’t miss. That’s rather sad. I want to be part of the cool crowd; I just don’t want to take leave of my senses to do so. Not being a food fanatic in a city that is crazy about food rather sucks at times, but hey, I know a great place where the chicken is pan fried, the gravy is from scratch, and the greens have just the right amount of kick; it’s called my kitchen. Just give me a yell before you stop by.

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PotD  /  science
Intercourse No More
May 21, 2016
charles i. letbetter - intercourse no more

Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives. —Bertrand Russell

 

 

charles i. letbetter - intercourse no more

Sexual intercourse may not be required for the perpetuation of the species, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still be fun

Intercourse, that aspect of sexual relations performed primarily for and to the end of creating more little people with which to overpopulate the planet, is a problem. There are, globally, too many of us for the planet to sustain. Yet, due to uneven distribution of that population we, as Americans, don’t see the effects that come from having an excessive amount of copulation. We don’t see the overcrowding. We don’t see the poverty. We don’t see the disease. There’s a tremendous problem and, for the most part, we’re keeping our eyes shut.

Our children and grandchildren, however, may not have to deal with many of the consequences that come from our insatiable desire for sex. Earlier this week, we discussed how that, given that free will is a myth, we might one day be able to map the chemicals and neuron combinations that lead to inappropriate behaviors, such as murder, rape, and threat, and turn those off. Imagine how much better the world will be when we turn off that inclination and desire to kill people and do them harm.

Then,  I was reading last night an article concerning how close we are to taking the sex out of procreation. With advances in in-vitro fertilization (IVF), not only is it safer to procreate without intercourse, the world’s longevity may soon require that to be the only means through which children are born. We may not have a choice.

Here’s the thing: procreating the old-fashion way of picking a mate and shagging until you’re purple carries with it a load of dangers. Not only is there the threat of sexually transmitted diseases, there’s an even greater likelihood that both of you are passing along genetic traits and tendencies that lead to even worse outcomes. The intercourse with which we are most familiar allows us to pass on to our children the entire gene structure of our ancestors, including their inclination toward male-pattern baldness, Tay-Sachs disease, cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease, and over 250 other potentially fatal conditions that can already easily be eliminated with IVF.

As research continues, we may eventually be able to completely eradicate genetic disease and quite possibly build immunities against other forms of illness as well. Within four or five generations, we could have a population that is stronger and healthier than we have ever been. The downside to that, though, is that we won’t die off as fast, making the overpopulation problem even more critical than it already is.

Somewhere within the next one hundred years, overpopulation cannot help but become a front line issue that politicians and governments can no longer ignore. You think government interference in your sex life is bad now, it could get a lot worse. Requiring children to be conceived only through IVF or some similar method does two things that are important for the future. First, it makes our offspring  healthier, wiser, and safer. If we drop genetic diseases and eliminate the chemicals and synaptic combinations that lead to crime, we have the healthiest and safest society ever. Second, by using only IVF, the rate of procreation can be controlled. We can effectively bring population numbers down in the most heavily populated areas of the world, and boost them in those regions where underpopulation is also a problem.

At this point, we no longer need intercourse. In fact, one has to wonder if, among all the other impulses we filter from human existence, we might not eventually elimination sexual desire altogether. After all, how many really good science fiction movies have you seen where the characters showed any inclination toward boinking each other? We might see a passionate kiss here and there because we can’t imagine expressing deep emotion any other way, but that’s about all we get in the future: a kiss. That prospect would be rather sad and disappointing.

However, if we don’t need intercourse but can still have intercourse, what that does is open the door toward exploring sex simply as an elevated means of physical pleasure. If we no longer have to worry about disease or accidental pregnancies, we are free to explore and allow our sexual lives to be more open. Proclivities we have hidden behind the term “kink” would more likely be brought out into the open, become more socially acceptable, and explore means of physical pleasure from which we currently shy away. Not using sex to have babies has the potential to be very freeing.

With such developments, we could also see a significant shift in power control as gay and lesbian individuals, whose sexual activities don’t produce children already, become the preferred leadership around the world. This would follow a line of reasoning wherein those who can still procreate naturally are seen as a threat to world security.  Same-gender sex could very well become the dominant form of sex, which just might make the world a more fabulous place to live.

Of course, there’s a downside. Stolen genetic material might be manipulated in such a way as to create a race of super villains the like of which no one at Marvel or DC Comics has ever imagined. I assume the appropriate response from some future grandchild of Tony Stark would be to create a combative race of superheroes to keep the rest of us safe. The world would likely never be perfect, but it would definitely be interesting.

For better or worse, all of these possibilities still lie reasonably well into the future. I’m not expecting to walk into my doctor’s office one day and be told, “Hey, we can cure you of all that old-age grumpiness.” I’m not sure I would want that to happen. But if they can make intercourse better, then sign us all up! The future could be very pleasurable.

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Art  /  Music  /  Photography  /  video
Talent Contests Don’t Understand Talent
May 19, 2016
charles i. letbetter - talent contests don't understand talent

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

charles i. letbetter - talent contests don't understand talent

Any true contest of talent finds that true talent doesn’t need a contest

Talent is elusive. A lot of people can develop skill, but talent comes from the soul; either one has it or one doesn’t. There is no way to cultivate something that doesn’t exist.

Those who know me best understand that I do not submit my work to appear in juried art shows, with very few exceptions. Why? Because those who judge art, in any form, can do no more than reward those whose aesthetic matches their own. Putting a blue ribbon on a piece of art is not saying that the one piece is better than all the others entered, but merely that it would match the drapes were it hanging in the judges’ livingrooms.

Having held this opinion for many years, I am always a bit torn when it comes to televised talent contests of any kind. On one hand, they do provide a platform on which talent might  be recognized that would otherwise not receive attention. At the same time, however, it puts talent into a competitive arena that fails to understand what talent is in the first place. Having talent means that there is something within you, a combination of nurture and nature, a very specific mix of brain chemicals and specific methods of synaptic activity that allows you to do something very well and, in most cases, actually enjoy doing it. There is no competition for who has the best brain chemicals or whose synapsis fire the fastest. There is absolutely nothing about talent that can adequately and accurately serve as a basis for competition.

Look at those things that are competitive, such as sports. There is a definite measure of quality that defines who is the best. One runner moves across a given distance faster than anyone else. That can be measured. He or she in the winner. In a football game, one team or the other manages to move that odd-shaped ball across the goal line. Points scored are a quantitative measure. One team is the winner.

Talent, though, has no inherent scoring system nor means of accurate quantitative analysis that is wholly objective. We can measure range, we can measure decibels, we can measure color and light, but in the end, someone has to make a decision based on opinion, not an accurate measure of quality. Talent is, quite simply, not designed to be competitive in any way, shape or form.

So, we get down to the end of a popular talent contest like NBC’s The Voice.  The concept has been syndicated around the world and is responsible for unearthing some incredible vocal talent. Yet, in each instance, only one person is selected as a winner and, every damn time, one can make endless arguments for multiple contestants that one was “better” than the other, and all of those arguments are going to be wrong.

No one is better. They are all different. They have different tonalities. They have different presentation methods. They have different appeals to people who prefer specific genres. One group of people may prefer the sound of one person over the other, but that is a subjective opinion that is likely to not be shared outside a limited group.

Look at all the myriad television contests that have been on television over the years. From all those, how many of those “winners” have turned their prize into an actual career? The answer is very few because being talented does not necessarily translate into broad commercial appeal. Choose the wrong song, choose the wrong timing, choose the wrong PR agent, and one’s talent career is sunk, but that does not mean that the person is not still every bit as talented.

This week, The Voice chose its four finalists: two women, two men. I’m going to post the video of their recent performance. Listen to the talent, attempt to be as objective as possible (which, in reality, is not possible) and try to make an argument that one is more talented than the other.

https://youtu.be/9wb7HqVNuKg

https://youtu.be/OrTCjntO3_s

https://youtu.be/SSg2xHumQs0

https://youtu.be/vRW3JistcGo

All four of these people hold superb and well-refined talent. You might not like their genre, you might not like the way they sing a specific song, you might not like the tone of their voice, but all of that is nothing more than your opinion. And, I hate to be the one to tell you, your opinion isn’t worth squat. You can bitch and moan and say whatever you want, but no opinion changes the fact these people are talented.

Talent is NOT a competition, whether it is singing or painting or photography or floral arranging or creative writing or acting or playing the cello. There is no contest that can truly say one talent is better than the other. Maybe we need to find a better approach.

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Current Issues  /  Social Commentary  /  video
Fitness And Sex
May 19, 2016
charles i. letbetter - fitness and sex

Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security. —John F. Kennedy

 

charles i. letbetter - fitness and sex

You know you need to exercise, fitness just hasn’t been any fun, until now

Look at the quote above and who made it and we realize that, for the most part, the current American citizenry has never been in the best of shape, and despite numerous fitness crazes we’ve only gotten fatter. This is especially true if one lives in the Midwest, and if one lives in Indianapolis specifically, we’re more out of shape than anyone.

No, I’m not kidding. The American Fitness Index report was released this week and of the 50 US cities surveyed, Indianapolis comes in dead last. This is really bad. Look at this list of areas where we are failing:

Improvement Priority Areas (worse than 20% of target goal): • Lower percent meeting CDC aerobic activity guidelines • Lower percent meeting both CDC aerobic and strength activity guidelines • Lower percent consuming 2+ fruits per day • Lower percent consuming 3+ vegetables per day • Higher percent currently smoking • Higher percent obese • Lower percent in excellent or very good health • Higher percent of days when physical health was not good during the past 30 days • Higher percent of days when mental health was not good during the past 30 days • Higher percent with asthma • Higher percent with angina or coronary heart disease • Higher percent with diabetes • Lower percent of city land area as parkland • Fewer acres of parkland per capita • Lower percent using public transportation to work • Lower percent bicycling or walking to work • Lower Walk Score® • Lower percent of population within a 10 minute walk to a park • Fewer ball diamonds per capita • Fewer dog parks per capita • Fewer park playgrounds per capita • Fewer park units per capita • Fewer recreation centers per capita • Fewer tennis courts per capita • Lower park-related expenditures per capita

Just the size of that list should be enough for us to realize that we have a lot of work to do if we’re going to improve our situation. There is one measure not on the list, though, and it may be the one that gives us a chance to redeem our fat selves: sex. You’re reading that correctly, we might very well be able to sex ourselves into good health. Or, if not good health, at least something less likely to end up in the cardiac ward of your neighborhood hospital.

How is this possible, you ask? The folks behind your favorite porn site, PornHub, have created a new program with you in mind: Bangfit. No, I’m still not kidding. We’re totally wearing our serious face here. This is a legitimate fitness program, or, at least, an attempt at one. Here, watch this surprisingly safe-for-work video that explains the whole thing:

https://youtu.be/DUFjNiusLEw

Okay, so that’s at least the way the thing is supposed to work. I wouldn’t be posting this if I hadn’t checked the thing out for myself and, uhm, … it’s not working. This may be due to the fact that dozens of online magazines and sources reported about the site yesterday and their servers are now totally overloaded; that’s what I’m guessing. When I first tried accessing the web page, it timed out. When I tried about five minutes later, I got the site, but none of the links worked. When I pull up the site on my phone, it asks for a specific code to sync my phone, which is supposed to track my “activity,” with the computer, which is supposed to provide “instruction.” That doesn’t always happen, though. When the sight finally DID work, the lag between clicking a link and seeing any result was rather slow.

In theory, the premise should be correct. Sexual activity should provide serious fitness advantages, especially when done on a regular basis. I’m seeing some problems with the reality of the concept, though.

  1. For there to be any fitness advantage, the sex is going to have to last more than five minutes. C’mon guys, you know damn good and well how rarely that happens. You’re going to have to work on your stamina.
  2. No one is that regular with their sex lives, at least, not if you’re using a partner. The program has the single-person option, of course, which is also likely to be the most popular. But the real fitness comes from the couples play and very few couples manage to make daily sex a reality.
  3. The product is still in beta, so there are still some glitches and not all features are present. For example, only three settings are currently offered: single, couple, and threesome (in your dreams).
  4. The scoring system relies on your phone being attached to your hip in some way and measures your movement accordingly. So, depending on the position, one person might get more of a workout than the other. I also found I was able to adjust my fitness score simply by shaking my phone.
  5. Really cheezy porn from Brazzers plays on your computer while you’re “exercising.” Maybe you like cheezy porn. I’m sure someone does … somewhere.

I do encourage you to give it a try for yourself. Who knows, maybe we can start having group “fitness” parties! Of course, there are the necessary caveats. Check with your doctor to see if your heart is healthy enough for sex (mine always looks at me funny when I ask that question). Be sure to stretch, hydrate, and all that other pre-workout stuff fitness people do. Don’t forget to use appropriate safeguards such as condoms and birth control unless you really, really want an excuse for never working out again.

Sex fitness really isn’t a bad idea, and may be just the thing to help Indianapolis get off its unhealthy and flabby ass. I see a lot of people clicking on the single user option, though. Out of shape people aren’t going to find workout partners for this program too easily. So, good luck with that. Let me know how that works out for you.

 

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Current Issues  /  Mythology  /  PotD
If Puritans Were Treated Like Muslims
May 16, 2016
charles i. letbetter - if puritans were treated like muslims

All too many Muslims fail to grasp Islam, which teaches one to be lenient towards others and to understand their value systems, knowing that these are tolerated by Islam as a religion. —Abdurrahman Wahid

 

charles i. letbetter - if puritans were treated like muslims

What if Native Tribes were as xenophobic toward Puritans as Americans today are toward Muslims?

xen·o·pho·bi·a

[ˌzenəˈfōbēə, ˌzēnəˈfōbēə]

NOUN

  1. intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries.

America, we have a problem. The name of that problem is xenophobia. We can no longer ignore our problem. We can no longer tolerate the blatant and distasteful exhibition of our problem. We need to address this matter head on and put it to an end. Muslims are not inherently bad. Immigrants are not inherently bad. Believing that they are is not American and is not acceptable in an intelligent and progressive society.

I realize that these are tough words to start on a Monday morning, but we need the focus and determination that Mondays provide. Xenophobia has gotten out of control and needs to be stopped.

A prime example of xenophobia was made public in court documents last Friday when it was revealed that a North Carolina man (why is it always the Carolinas?) on a Southwest Airlines flight decided he needed to rip the hijab off a Muslim woman and scream, “Take it off! This is America!” The man was convicted of a misdemeanor hate crime, but this is just one small symptom of a wider disease.

After reading of this account, I began to wonder: What would have happened if native tribespeople had been xenophobic toward the Puritan separatists that landed at Plymouth in 1620? We know the Powhatan tribe that initially encountered these strangely dressed white people were suspicious, and they had good cause to be. European-based diseases left behind by Columbus and his crew had already made their way up the East coast from Florida and were wiping out millions of native peoples. In fact, some have wondered that, had the tribes not been decimated by disease, they might not have been willing to tolerate the newcomers at all.

When we think about it a bit, one can see similarities between how the Powhatan might have viewed the Puritans compared to how many people today view Muslims.

  • The Puritan separatists who followed William Bradford were refugees. They were considered traitors in England and unwelcome rabble rousers most everywhere else in Europe. Only the very liberal Holland offered to take them in, and Bradford found the social structure there too “ungodly” for his brand of religious extremism. They had nowhere else to go. Many Muslims know exactly how that feels.
  • Puritan women dressed funny, at least in the eyes of the Powhatan. Puritans were very concerned about modesty and a woman could be imprisoned, whipped, and even killed for dressing immodestly.  Puritan women wore no fewer than ten different pieces of clothing and having too few petticoats or not covering her head in public was considered scandalous. For native peoples looking on wearing little more than deer skin, such costuming certainly seemed ridiculous. Similarly, few Americans today understand why Muslim women dress so modestly.
  • Puritan women had no rights; they were considered the property of their husbands. They could not own property or speak in church, and they dare not challenge their husbands. Native peoples who respected and elevated women found this treatment quite strange, just as modern Americans find the different relationships of some (not all) Muslims to be unusual.
  • Puritans had a strange religion that native peoples did not understand. Native tribes were spiritual to be sure, but they saw their deities as benevolent whereas the god these Puritans worshiped was fearful and angry. Likewise, large numbers of Americans view Islam and any other non-Christian religion as “strange” and some would even deny Muslims the right to worship openly.
  • Puritans didn’t speak the native language. Communication was difficult and challenging. Muslims and other immigrants struggle with English now. Is there really any difference?

The similarities between the Puritan separatists we know as Pilgrims and modern Muslims immigrating to these same shores is striking. Both chased from the lands of their birth, neither understood, both disadvantaged, and both trying to hold true to their spiritual beliefs while surrounded by a people and culture that did not and does not understand them.

What if the response of the Powhatan had been to turn Bradford and his followers away? Certainly, there were more than a few opportunities to completely wipe out these pale settlers and be rid of them. What if the tribes had decided to build walls, fencing the pilgrims off and limiting their access to food and water?  Perhaps the Powhatan might have forced the immigrants to learn their language. If so, we might all be speaking Algonquian languages now.

Had the Powhatan been as xenophobic as we’ve become, we would not be the country we are now. While speculating on how we might have developed is futile, the willingness of the tribes to tolerate those early religious refugees in the strange clothes, to the point of the tribes’ own doom, was critical in shaping what we have become.

In his commencement address at Rutgers University this past weekend, President Obama addressed the problem of xenophobia in our country.

Isolating or disparaging Muslims, suggesting that they should be treated differently when it comes to entering this country. That is not just a betrayal of our values. That’s not just a betrayal of who were are — it would alienate the communities at home and abroad who are our most important partners in the fight against violent extremism. Suggesting that we can build an endless a wall along our borders and blame our challenges on immigrants — that doesn’t just run counter to our history as the world’s melting pot. It contradicts the evidence that our growth and our innovation and our dynamism has always been driven by our ability to attract strivers from other parts of the globe. That’s how we became America — why would we want to stop it now?

[You can read the full text of President Obama’s address here or watch it here.]

If we are going to continue to be the America we think we are, if we are going to continue to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, if we are going to continue to be the world’s leaders in economics and innovation and science and discovery, then we cannot tolerate xenophobia within our ranks. We must challenge those who speak disparagingly against immigrants, against those who do not speak English, against those who think we must all be Christian, and against those who would turn people away and erect walls along our borders. We must embrace those who are fleeing from political and religious persecution. We must welcome those who come in search of hope. We must put our arms around those looking for the success we have already found.

We cannot live in fear, any fear, whether it is fear of Muslims or Jews or Hindu or Southern Baptists. We cannot live fearing people who arrive on our shores from Syria, Honduras, Mexico, or Guatemala. We cannot live in fear of change, of different cultures, languages, and styles of dress.

We are Americans, damnit. Fear has no place here. Stand up and welcome them to their new home, just like the Powhatan did for a bunch of sea-weary religious extremists in 1620.

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Life Isn’t That Bad
May 15, 2016
charles i. letbetter - life isn't that bad

We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life. —William Osler

 

charels i. letbetter - life isn't that bad

Life isn’t nearly as bad as we think. Maybe we should start looking at the positive a little more often.

“You know what your problem is? You can’t see the good because you’re too busy complaining about the bad.”

I wish I could remember the name of the woman who said that to me several years ago. She was a mid-level executive at an ad firm. We were sitting in a creative meeting and I thought I was just being realistic about everything. People have less buying power. The middle class is only buying what it needs. Discrimination is rampant. She was finally fed up with the negativity I spewing and called me on it. She also knew I didn’t have the numbers to back up my claims. Why? Because those numbers haven’t existed for decades.

As a nation, we have a habit of believing the worst, even when there is no real evidence to support it. Gregg Easterbrook first published his book, The Progress Paradox, in 2004. His thesis is that while life has gotten better for almost everyone in the Western world, we actually feel worse about our lives. He draws on three decades of research to make his point, and then dares to suggest that we need more optimism, affirmation, and forgiveness in our lives. No one listened.

Mr. Easterbrook was back this past week with an OpEd piece in the New York Times, “When Did Optimism Become Uncool?” He takes on the notion that mainstream politicians in both parties have convinced us that life is horrible, that it has been horrible a long time, and that the only way to fix it is to elect them to office. He then calls them all liars.

Why? Because they’re not telling us the truth. When one looks at the numbers, we’re much better off than we think. Consider some of the little details he tosses out (based on real research, mind you):

  • Job growth has been strong for five years
  • Unemployment is the lowest it’s been since the Clinton administration
  • The American economy is the largest in the world, more than China and Japan combined
  • American workers are seven times more productive, per capita, than Chinese citizens
  • Pollution, crime, and most diseases are in extended periods of decline
  •  Living standards, education, and longevity are all up
  • The US military is the strongest ever
  • Middle-class buying power is up thirty-six percent in the current generation
  • American industrial output is nearly double what it was during the Reagan administration
  • Only 10 % of humanity lives in extreme poverty; in 1990, that number was 37%

We are, in anything, afraid of being optimistic? Why? Because we don’t think optimism moves agendas and we all have our fucking agendas. We have this incorrect notion that to get increased funding to study the economic benefits of alternative power that we must first create a doomsday scenario to justify the study. The fact that it would save money and increase efficiency and make everyone’s lives better isn’t enough of a selling point. If we want to encourage domestic investment in manufacturing, we make up some story about losing jobs to China. Sorry, there is ZERO evidence to support that claim. Instead, we’re ignoring the fact that modern manufacturing doesn’t require as many on-floor employees as it did even twenty years ago. US Manufacturing is on the rise, it just doesn’t take all that many people to do it.

We are, collectively, full of negative bullshit. Even worse, we enjoy spreading negative bullshit across social media. One reasonably popular pop singer had her Twitter account suspended this past week after she went on a number of distasteful rants. We see something negative and use it to bludgeon what we see as the ideological enemy; things are bad and it’s their fault.

Did you know that, despite all the negative talk by politicians on both sides of the aisle, the United States still leads the world in science, engineering, business innovation, and every area of creativity, including the arts? What about the fact that, even including 9/11, Americans are still five times more likely to be struck by lightning than being killed by a terrorist? Yet, only 26 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with the direction the country is going. What, you want things to get worse?

That is not to say we don’t have our problems. Life could be better I mean, how fucking long as we going to keep talking about bathrooms, already? Drop it. There never was a problem there. Transgender people have been using the restroom with which they identify longer than any of you have been alive and there are no incidents of any kind of inappropriate activity. Let it go, or I’m sending in Elsa with her lesbian lover. And yes, we could be doing a lot better with matters of racism, but those would be severely diminished if we would simply learn to show some respect to each other rather than looking at everyone as the enemy. We are at a point where we are so committed to being miserable that we’re making up things to be pissed about.

Life really isn’t all that bad. In fact, this is a pretty fantastic time to be alive. Mr. Easterbrook uses a quote from Warren Buffet’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that has been fairly popular. I  think context is important, so let’s look at the whole of that part of Buffet’s statement:

It’s an election year, and candidates can’t stop speaking about our country’s problems (which, of course, only they can solve). As a result of this negative drumbeat, many Americans now believe that their children will not live as well as they themselves do.

That view is dead wrong: The babies being born in America today are the luckiest crop in history.

American GDP per capita is now about $56,000. As I mentioned last year that – in real terms – is a staggering six times the amount in 1930, the year I was born, a leap far beyond the wildest dreams of my parents or their contemporaries. U.S. citizens are not intrinsically more intelligent today, nor do they work harder than did Americans in 1930. Rather, they work far more efficiently and thereby produce far more. This all-powerful trend is certain to continue: America’s economic magic remains alive and well.

Some commentators bemoan our current 2% per year growth in real GDP – and, yes, we would all like to see a higher rate. But let’s do some simple math using the much-lamented 2% figure. That rate, we will see, delivers astounding gains.

America’s population is growing about .8% per year (.5% from births minus deaths and .3% from net migration). Thus 2% of overall growth produces about 1.2% of per capita growth. That may not sound impressive. But in a single generation of, say, 25 years, that rate of growth leads to a gain of 34.4% in real GDP per capita. (Compounding’s effects produce the excess over the percentage that would result by simply multiplying 25 x 1.2%.) In turn, that 34.4% gain will produce a staggering $19,000 increase in real GDP per capita for the next generation. Were that to be distributed equally, the gain would be $76,000 annually for a family of four. Today’s politicians need not shed tears for tomorrow’s children. Indeed, most of today’s children are doing well. All families in my upper middle-class neighborhood regularly enjoy a living standard better than that achieved by John D. Rockefeller Sr. at the time of my birth. His unparalleled fortune couldn’t buy what we now take for granted, whether the field is – to name just a few – transportation, entertainment, communication or medical services. Rockefeller certainly had power and fame; he could not, however, live as well as my neighbors now do.

Indeed, most of today’s children are doing well. All families in my upper middle-class neighborhood regularly enjoy a living standard better than that achieved by John D. Rockefeller Sr. at the time of my birth. His unparalleled fortune couldn’t buy what we now take for granted, whether the field is – to name just a few – transportation, entertainment, communication or medical services. Rockefeller certainly had power and fame; he could not, however, live as well as my neighbors now do.

…

For 240 years it’s been a terrible mistake to bet against America, and now is no time to start. America’s golden goose of commerce and innovation will continue to lay more and larger eggs. America’s social security promises will be honored and perhaps made more generous. And, yes, America’s kids will live far better than their parents did.

See? Life really isn’t all that bad. In fact, it’s pretty wonderful. Perhaps we should start being more appreciative of what we have, taking a more optimistic look at the future, and build together for the common good, not because we fear the world is about to fall apart.

Be happy.

 

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Advertising  /  Fashion  /  PotD
Modeling Sucks. Sometimes.
May 11, 2016
charles i. letbetter - modeling sucks sometimes

I never cared about modeling. As a model, you’re powerless. —Karen Gillan

 

charles i. letbetter - modeling sucks sometimes

If you’re looking to make a career out of modeling and don’t already have a fat bank account, you might want to think again.

Back in 2005, when I first considered moving to Indianapolis from Atlanta, I naturally wanted to make sure that I would be able to have sufficient income. I did a little digging and was able to make contact with four different modeling agencies here. Three were delightfully quick to say yes, they would be happy to utilize my services. The fourth, Helen Wells, wouldn’t commit but at least was open to discussion. I had similar phone calls with ad agencies with similar results. So, I put the majority of my belongings in a storage unit (which would later flood), packed the rest in the back of a rental car, and headed North feeling somewhat optimistic about the future.

Within two weeks I knew I was wrong in my assessment. One modeling agency packed up and moved the very next day after I met with them, taking all the models’ earnings with them. Another told me how much they paid for a model’s comp card session, but they only had one model due to a disagreement over pay. They were gone within 30 days of that conversation. The third was more difficult to pin down, never quite having time to schedule a meeting and when we did was suspiciously non-committal. By the end of the summer, a lawsuit had been brought against the agency for withholding models’ pay. The models won the suit, but the agency owner fled the state without paying anyone.

I don’t know how many times  I’ve talked with aspiring models who just wanted to make a little extra money while in college. Modeling sounds like it would be an easy source of cash for anyone who is reasonably attractive. The common perspective is that all one has to do is show up. Someone does your hair and makeup, someone else provides your wardrobe, then you just stand in front of a camera and pose for a few minutes. Boom, instant easy cash. But that’s not the way modeling works at all. Not even close.

Modeling has always had its shell games and money rackets going all the way back to the 1940s when professional modeling began. The industry runs loose with absolutely no one overseeing it in any way. Some states have laws concerning how long models can work if they’re under 18, and a few European countries have some form of law designed to protect against eating disorders, but for the most part, modeling agencies do whatever they damn well please and models almost always end up feeling more like victims.

CNN Money recently started airing a five-part investigative series called Runway Injustice, taking a detailed look at the dark and dirty side of modeling. Only two parts have been released so far, but it is obvious from the title that the cable news outlet isn’t taking a positive view of the modeling industry. They’re looking at the con games, the slow-to-pay problem, and how many agencies make money charging models for expenses. One former model even goes on record as saying her agency charged her for the flowers they sent her on her birthday.

When one watches a fashion show and sees all the long-legged girls parading past in next season’s fashion, one might get the impression that these models are doing quite well for themselves, but the truth is quite different. While designers might pay the Hadid or Jenner offspring outrageous (and unjustified) amounts for showing up, most labels still pay less than $5,000 per model. I know, that still sounds like a lot, but from that travel, hotel, and food expenses are deducted, on top of the agency’s standard 20% commission and administrative fees. Many models walk away, after months of waiting, with less than $500. Some end up actually owing the agency money. Even Cara Delevigne, who has been at the very top of the game, doesn’t have anything nice to say about the industry and how it treats models.

Increasingly, the value of an agency, or “management company” as many like IMG prefer to be called now, is being called into question. More casting agents are looking at sources such as Instagram and other social media outlets, choosing models with exceptionally high numbers of followers, which virtually guarantees success for whatever ad campaign or runway show in which the model appears. Unrepresented, or independent, these models have difficulty keeping the work flowing. Most end up signing with an agency and find themselves right back in the same traps that more traditional models experience.

All this begs the question that, if modeling is such a horrible career, why would young people want to even consider doing such a thing? The answer is that not everything about modeling is horrible. For many, just the fun of being in front of the camera, getting to play dress-up with the wardrobe, the opportunity to travel (even if it’s on their own dime), and sometimes meeting really cool and famous people is sufficient. Some use modeling as a way to explore their alter ego, being in front of the camera what they cannot be in their private lives. Others use modeling as a means of escape from other horrible conditions.  For many, just the chance that they might become part of the .05% who actually make a fantastic living is enough to risk everything.

I’m sure that, at the end of the CNN investigation, there will be someone advocating greater oversight of the industry and legislation to protect models from various forms of abuse and deceit. Don’t expect anything to actually happen, though. We’ve heard all these complaints before. Nothing I’ve seen in the CNN report so far is new or different from what I’ve seen and heard for 30 years. The sad fact is models are not an organized group, therefore they are not able to present a single or unified voice. They don’t have, and can’t afford, lobbyist speaking to legislators on their behalf. No one sticks up for them and, once the spotlight of the CNN story fades, everything will almost certainly continue on the way it has.

Modeling is fun, sometimes, but there are a lot of other times when it just plain sucks. If someone wants to do it for the fun and adventure, great. Go for it. Have fun every step of the way. Don’t expect to get rich, though, and watch your back at every turn. While being a model can present some incredible experiences, it’s not likely to leave you swimming in cash. In fact, you’ll be needing your own gas money. Always.

Good luck.

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PotD  /  Social Commentary
A Mother’s Beauty
May 8, 2016
charles i. letbetter - a mother's beauty

Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved. —Erich Fromm

chalres i. letbetter - a mother's beauty

Mother’s Day brings plenty of memories, but we forget the beauty sacrifices mothers make for us.

I typically avoid the topic of mothers on Mother’s Day, partly because that’s what everyone is talking about and I’m not sure I can, or should, compete for your attention. Mother’s Day is also a little sad now that my own mother is gone. Some days it is better to let others do all the talking.

We romanticize our mothers in a sense, not that such a perspective is inappropriate, but our love for our mothers sometimes keeps us from seeing the depth of a mother’s sacrifice for her children.  She wouldn’t bring it up, of course, mothers rarely do. But what we remember of our mothers is seen through the perspective of a child. We don’t see what all went on in a mother’s life before she had children and everything she willingly gave up for us.

There aren’t many pictures still around of my mother when she was young. Her family was dirt poor and didn’t have a camera so the only pictures are those someone else took and gave her. What I see in those few pictures, though, is someone with a quick smile, sparkling eyes, and curly jet-black hair. I can understand why Poppa found her attractive. She was petite, like her other mother, with her father’s slim build; enough curve to be feminine, but not so much as to appear inappropriately sexual, which was apparently a thing back in the 1950s. She wore bobby socks with loafers and heels and gloves as was common at the time. Poppa said she was very prim and proper, very strict in her etiquette, but more than anything, he said she was beautiful.

Sure, everyone thinks their mother is beautiful, but we don’t see the same beauty that our fathers did. We see someone who is loving and caring and made sacrifices for us so that we could have everything we needed. Remember, though, that our fathers knew our mothers before we did and they saw her beauty in a different light.  They saw a side of a mother’s beauty that we’re not all that comfortable discussing. Despite everything that might have happened later, all the arguments and divorces, the illnesses and emotional issues, before we were born our fathers thought our mothers were sexy. They wouldn’t likely use that word in front of us, but that’s what they were thinking.

I occasionally come across someone who has nude photographs of their mother taken before they were born. We don’t often think of artistic nude photography having existed much before Helmut Newton, but it most certainly did, and was secretly very popular.   The difference was that they kept those photos to themselves. There was no Internet or social media on which to share them, so rarely did anyone else ever know they had been taken and it certainly wasn’t something they would just show to the kids. Typically, the photos are found by the adult child while helping their mother go through things later in her life. They elicit all knew stories about a side of our mothers we never considered: they were sexy.

Then, we came along and spoiled it all. The effect might not have happened immediately. Some women’s bodies handle childbirth better than others. Others, though, never lose the weight they put on carrying you. Hips that widened to facilitate your delivery didn’t snap back in place. If you kicked the wrong thing while you were swimming around in all that amniotic fluid, you likely created a physical problem your mother had to endure the rest of her life. She was thrilled to nurse you and cuddle you close, but because of that her breasts sag and she never looked the same in a swimsuit again.

You gave her stretch marks and those dark circles under her eyes from 18-plus years of never getting enough sleep and worrying about the trouble she knew you were getting into, even if she didn’t know exactly what it was. You killed her arches as she ran after you in shoes that were not meant for running. Her joints eventually became stiff and arthritic from all the times she put herself in unnatural positions to find that toy you had just dropped, or teaching you how to play leap frog, or picking you up and carrying you from the playground after you fell from the swing, again.

Before you were born, that lady you now call your mom paid more attention to how she looked when she went out. Her ensemble was carefully put together, even if it was more bohemian and less Chanel. She might have even worn makeup and had her nails done. After you came along, though, she was happy if what she was wearing didn’t have any fresh stains and if everything matched it was more by coincidence than design. Your mother’s stylist thought you were cute, but secretly hated you because your mother went from trying out different cuts and colors to short and easy-to-manage.

After  you came along, your mother didn’t go out with friends as often, didn’t travel as much, gave up on trying to fit into Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and damn sure wanted to make sure there was sufficient coverage between her and her Calvin’s. Almost everything that had gone into making her so physically desirable to your father either you ruined or she had to give up to care for you, except for one thing: Love.

And that’s what we remember on Mother’s Day: her love. After all, that’s what is important, right? Nothing else matters, at least, not now. A mother’s beauty isn’t defined by how “hot” she looks, how many heads she once turned, or how many hearts she once broke. A mother’s beauty is defined by how she could kiss a boo-boo and make the pain go away, or how she knew exactly when you needed her to make those special pancakes, or how she could mend a broken heart then help you plot revenge. She likes that definition.

Mothers don’t care about what they’ve given up for you. The love you and, in the vast majority of situations, would do everything all over again (with the benefit of a little wisdom from the experience). She loves you, you love her, and that makes everything beautiful enough for her. But don’t you ever forget that she did make those sacrifices. I’ll tell you what she might not: you owe her. Big.

A poet, whose name escapes me at the moment, once said that a mother’s beauty is defined is defined by the grace and compassion of her children. Your mother gave up a lot for you. Make her beautiful, damnit.

 

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Female Entrepreneurs Do It Better
May 7, 2016
charles i. letbetter - female entrepreneurs do it better

I never felt oppressed because of my gender. When I’m writing a poem or drawing, I’m not a female; I’m an artist. —Patti Smith

 

charles i. letbetter - female entrepreneurs do it better

Female entrepreneurs are more successful than men, especially when under the age of 25.

Being in business for oneself is a dream that a lot of people have had, but for centuries, conventional wisdom held that men were the safer bet for investors. Being born female automatically put one at a severe disadvantage in the business world. Even now, for all the positive strides that women have made, venture capitalists still prefer to put their money on all-male teams. Call it the good-old-boys network or outright chauvinism, being female and trying to run your own business is more than a bit challenging.

Opinions may soon change, though, after a 10-year study by venture capital firm First Round has shown that many of those old, prevailing concepts of what makes a new business a good investment are just plain wrong. Being young isn’t bad, and being a female is actually a blessing. So much so that new business with at least one female on the management team out-performed traditional all-male teams by a whopping SIXTY-THREE PERCENT! In terms of business statistics, that number is huge! Combine that with the same research showing that having a founder under the age of 25 increases performance by thirty percent and we’re starting to wonder why every new business isn’t being fronted by young women!

The results of the study were first assimilated into a non-academic structure by the Harvard Business Review and should, hopefully, not only encourage investors to put more money into businesses started by women, but should also encourage more women, especially young women, to not hesitate to put that business plan together sooner rather than later. We’ve already seen that having a female at the front of the business is more likely to result in a successful Kickstarter campaign. Successful categories for women include technology, fashion, and games, but across the board, women beat all-male startups every time.

Perhaps the big question here is why we’re so surprised by these findings (and, universally speaking, we are)? Women have been running operations with complex financing and investment structures for thousands of years; they’re called homes. To claim that there’s no parallel between making a home successful and doing the same for a business is naïve and ignorant. Moreover, women have proven themselves more than capable of leading armies, running countries, and heading up Fortune 500 companies while still taking care of children and keeping their families in tact. Good luck finding a man who can pull off the same tasks with as much gracefulness.

Numbers compiled about this same time last year show that female entrepreneurship is on the rise. The number of funded startups with at least one woman on the management team doubled between 2009-2014. Still, that only accounted for eighteen percent of the whole, significantly low for the size of the whole picture. Women not only find it more difficult to secure VC financing for their companies, they have more difficulty gaining support from friends and family, especially in traditionally conservative areas of the country, such as the deep South and the Midwest. There are still too many people who challenge a woman with silly questions such as, “How are you going to balance both a business and a family?” or, “Does this mean you’re not going to have children?” That nonsense just needs to stop.

One possible area of concern, though, is that the same First Round study shows that where one goes to school does actually seem to matter. Specifically, startups did better when at least one member of the management team had attended an “elite” school, ie.,  anything in the Ivy League, Stanford, or MIT. That factor creates a significant challenge for any entrepreneur, but especially for women who cannot count on the legacy factor to get them into those schools. With rising education costs continuing to bring into question the value of a college degree, justifying the expense of going to an elite school over state schools with national standings in specific fields becomes a more difficult argument. Is it worth having a diploma from Harvard just to get funding for a business?

There are a lot of factors that go into making a startup work, though, and part of the reason for having a management team rather than trying to do it all on one’s own is that a diverse team spreads out those qualifications and experiences so that one doesn’t have to stretch to be perfect in everything. One of the dichotomies of the study is that, while startups with founders under the age of 25, having work experience at a top tech company is also an important factor. How is one supposed to go to college, get experience at a top tech company, and still start a company by the time one turns 25? I suppose if one graduates high school at 16 or something along those lines, it might theoretically be possible, but that is still a lot to ask of one person. Utilizing the skills and experiences of a team keeps the pressure from landing on the shoulders of one person.

What we do learn from this research, though, is that the time for young women to be starting their own business is now. The concept of waiting until one has several years of experience under their belt has proven to be ineffective. If you have an idea, do the research, write a solid business plan, and assemble a strong management team. Get yourself out there and do things. All the evidence points toward unprecedented success.

Go. Do it. Make yourself proud!

 

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Taking Over The World
May 3, 2016

The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do. —Sarah Ban Breathnach

 

charles i. letbetter - taking over the world

Taking over the world may be as simple as taking one single action: voting

One of my favorite cartoons ever originated the same year my oldest son was born. Warner Brothers’ Animaniacs holds a place of nostalgic importance within our family for many reasons, but one of those is the concept that anyone with the right determination, effort, and a little luck, might take over the world. Where did we get that idea? Pinky and the Brain. In every episode, Pinky asks, “What are we going to do tonight, Brain?” and Brain answers, “The same thing we do every night, Pinky, try to take over the world.” They’re mice, and more than once they come quite close to succeeding.

Given the interconnectedness and interdependencies among nations, taking over the world is probably a more realistic goal now than it ever has been. The solution is rather simple and I’m not the only who has noticed, I’m sure. Affect the stock market in one major country and watch all the others respond in kind. This makes gaining economic control easy. World food supplies are largely controlled by a handful of companies. Control the food supply and you control people. The entire world, including governments and the global power grid, are connected by computers.  One well-written virus and you control who has electricity and who doesn’t.

Perhaps most frightening is the realization that one intelligent individual could probably achieve that level of control without the aid or knowledge of their own government. Fortunately, controlling a stock market and the global food supply requires a substantial form of capital and not many people have access to that wealth. Still, it is a very real danger. Who has access to that kind of wealth and power?

The President of the United States.

Whether we like it or not, we cannot deny that the US is a global power and that the decisions made here affect events and people around the world. For example, the United States is the sole source for a number of life-saving drugs. Should we decide to shut down production of those drugs, especially those for fighting diseases like Ebola and Malaria, the results could be devastating on a global scale.  Were our government to enact a policy that makes it impossible for international companies to make a profit in the US, the global economy, including our own, would crash overnight. Where we decide to put troops affects the safety and well-being of millions of people. Pull the Marines from Okinawa and that region of the world would almost certainly collapse as North Korea’s insane leadership would see that as an opportunity to assert domination.

The President could affect all of those situations and more.

When we’re considering for whom we are going to vote, or whether we’re going to vote, our tendency is to look at domestic issues, specifically, “What’s best for me?”  As such, our vision tends to be incredibly short-sighted. We too often want a President who will encourage and enact policies we think will make our lives better, even if it is to the detriment of someone else. We are as selfish in our voting as we are in our use of money.

What might have a greater effect on our longevity and quality of life, however, is how we relate to the world. Even our domestic policies such as health care and minimum wage affect things such as immigration and foreign investment. We like to think we’re all big and mighty and powerful on our own, but the fact is we hold a lot of debt and in many ways are just as dependent on other countries as they are dependent on us.

One of the first stories to slap me in the face this morning is evidence that Syria’s President al-Assad is coordinating efforts with Daesh.  This is bad news for the entire world as Syria appears to be directly funding terrorism. Both the economic and military strength of the United States are principal aspects in stopping this atrocity.

Oh, and there’s more evidence that China’s economy lacks a solid foundation. China influences the US economy in three ways: investment, debt, and trade. Should their economy crash, they could easily take down ours and the European Union at the same time. US foreign policy is critical in helping keep the Chinese economy stable.

Then, there’s the increasingly worrisome matter of North Korea. Not only have they now limited movement in and out of Pyongyang, but they’ve banned weddings, funerals, and any other form of assembly ahead of their party congress next week. This increases speculation that the country may attempt a nuclear demonstration during the event. Even North Korea’s one reluctant ally, China, is depending upon US intelligence information in helping to form an international response should the rogue nation decide to do something stupid.

The United States is tied to events all over the world, which makes the US president a key component in how those events are resolved. While we don’t need a president who is going to be overly aggressive and intimidating toward foreign leaders, we also don’t need someone who fucks it all up with a religious-based ideology or a hesitant approach to taking action. We are dogged by the hindsight that had we taken a more forward and active role in foreign matters prior to WWII, we might have prevented at least some of the atrocities committed in both theaters of that war. We don’t have to like being a world power, but the world depends on us stepping up and taking that responsibility.

Okay, so maybe it’s a stretch to say that the US rules the world entirely. We have our vulnerabilities. Still, whoever we elect as President wields incredible power over the lives not only of Americans but the seven billion plus citizens of this planet. We should take extra care in deciding how we’re going to cast our ballots. After all, Pinky, we know taking over the world is possible. We need to be careful about which lab mouse we select to do so.

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pop culture  /  Social Commentary
Pretty Tough Girls
May 2, 2016

When I was in college there was a girls’ flag football league. The girls were extremely aggressive. —Lynn Swann

 

charles i. letbetter - pretty tough girls

All girls have a tough side to them – they need it for combating the bullshit thrown at them by men

All girls are pretty and tough. I’ve never met one who wasn’t. Neither the pretty nor the tough are always visibly evident. In fact, if we see one we tend to miss the other. Men, especially those of my generation and older, can be ridiculously one-sided in how we see women and that is evident in the way we treat them. Selling a girl short, though, is a mistake. I don’t have space to list all the pretty tough girls I know, but I want to highlight four who have my attention and deserve yours as well.

Let’s start with the girl in the picture: Cynthia Schmidt. If you’ve been around here very long you already know she’s one of my favorite Indiana models. When I first met Cynthia, she was only 18, fresh out of high school, obviously athletic, and far from fitting into any stereotype anywhere. She ended up joining the Army, ultimately going into the reserves, and proving she could handle anything the guys could dish out. She came back to Indiana for a few years then moved to Las Vegas where she became a star wide receiver in what is now the Legends Football League. If you think these girls don’t play real football, you’ve got some adjusting to do. As NFL Hall of Famer Lynn Swann infers above, these girls come to play some serious ball and aren’t afraid to hit hard. Last week, this video of Cynthia was released. I think it sums up both the pretty and tough quite well.

I have been Facebook friends with Cathy McNeil Stein for a little over seven years now. We almost met once, but that never quite worked out. I need to make that happen, though, because Cathy is one of those pretty strong girls who shapes pretty strong girls. Having received her Juris Doctorate from Harvard about the same time as some other prominent Illinois people with whom we’re acquainted, Cathy stayed out of the harsh light of politics and focused on the courtroom. She is very strong on women’s and civil rights issues, which, if I remember correctly, is how we became acquainted in the first place. Her opinions teach me to think in directions not inherent to my stubborn brain. What has impressed me more recently, though, has been her work as Mock Trial Coach for Timothy Christian High School in Elmhurst, IL. Talk about tough! This past weekend, she led her team to what I believe is their fourth state championship! What she is doing with the young men and women at that school, as well as at North Central College where she is an adjunct professor, is shaping minds that will hopefully be instrumental in moving the entire country forward. Perhaps one of these days I’ll get up there and take a picture of her smiling face. I just hope I don’t have to get arrested to get an appointment.

Another person on my list would be Cindy Whitehead. I still have no idea why Cindy sent me a Facebook friend request back in 2012. I’m fairly certain I’m more a fan of hers than she is of mine. She rarely comes this direction and I’ve not been back to California since we became acquainted, so I don’t have any pictures that I’ve taken of her and don’t know that I’ll ever have the opportunity. I do know that when it comes to pretty tough girls, Cindy breaks the mold. She is known to most as one bad-ass skateboarder. How bad-ass, you ask? This is the girl who got up one morning and rode her skateboard on the 405; as in Interstate 405, the multi-laned major North/South thoroughfare across Southern California. Cindy is also founder of Girl Is Not A Four Letter Word, an organization that encourages, supports, and facilitates women’s involvement in extreme sports such as skateboarding and surfing. Cindy has done enough noteworthy things in the past 25 years to fill a couple of books, which might be fun to write. I think, though, to best understand why Cindy rocks, you’d best listen to her for yourself. Here she is at a TED-x forum:

I’m closing this with the pretty tough girl who means the most to me: Katherine Franson. I’ll try to avoid the gushy sentimental stuff, though that’s rather difficult. When Kat and I met three-and-a-half years ago, I thought I was reasonably healthy. Sure, there were days when the arthritis was more problematic than others, but I assumed I was doing sufficiently well for my age and absolutely horrible lifestyle. Then, within weeks of moving in together, I injured my leg and that set off a chain reaction of medical complications we’re still fighting. I have never been so thankful to have a U.S. Marine in my life as I was those first few months, though. More than once Kat has had to lift my limp body off the floor, help me down the hall, and at times even help me get dressed. Through every bit of it, she’s been the tough one, pushing for me to get the care that I need, helping me make adjustments in how I work, and minimizing the pain and depression of having to do less. When we met, she rarely wore makeup. She didn’t like it. Now, here she is about to finish school so she can do hair and makeup full time. Pretty. Tough.

charles i. letbetter - pretty tough girls

As I said at the beginning, every girl is pretty and tough. These are just four examples that really stand out for me. So, when you hear some lame ass presidential candidate talk about the “woman card” or how easy women have it; or when you hear some religiously-motivated former child-actor talk about how women should follow men’s lead, remember these four examples and know that they represent the strength and beauty, determination and resolve, intelligence and capability of every girl on this planet. Do not disparage them or fail to show them any respect. They already run the world, there are just some idiots who have yet to figure that out.

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Predicting The Future
May 2, 2016
CHARLES I. LETBETTER - predicting the future

Never make predictions, especially about the future. —Casey Stengel

 

charles i. letbetter - predicting the future

Sure, trying to guess a future that is, at best, blurry is risky, but some things are more certain than others.

I’ve met a lot of shysters and con men over the years. I hate to admit I’ve even been taken in by a couple of them. Those who know how to read people well can easily manipulate them. One of the most common, and obvious, cons is predicting a person’s future. We know when we sit at the small, sparsely-adorned table that what we’re about to hear is fake, but still there is a part of us that wants it to be true, especially when the fortune teller says things we want to hear.

There have been a few times, though, I have come across people who seemed to have an unusual amount of insight, and at least a couple of them were wearing suits. They had an uncanny sense of  the future; where markets were heading, which technologies would live, which would die, and the unexpected ways in which those technologies would affect society. The business world prefers to call them futurists. Then, there was that strange person who walked up to me at a Starbucks in Atlanta, unprovoked, and said, “You’re going to lose everything.” Yeah, that’ll leave an unsettling feeling in your stomach.

Even futurists don’t get everything right, but I think there are some things that are more certain than others and we can tell simply by watching trends and adjusting our actions accordingly.  While there is still no accurate indicator of when you’ll find love (scam, every time), we stroked the fur of our black cat this morning and came up with some predictions for the future we think we pretty accurate.

  • Men’s Fashion Week is doomed and androgyny will slowly take over fashion. In some ways, the handwriting would almost seem to be on the wall with this one. An article in this morning’s WWD discusses yet another major label, Gucci, combining both men’s and women’s fashion on their runways. To some degree, the move just makes financial sense. However, over the next few years what this is likely to set up is a greater amount of androgyny across fashion. We’ve already started seeing it in some of the younger, more “street” labels such as Public School and Alexander Wang, but don’t be surprised when the transition reaches the point that couples can shop not just at the same store, but off the same rack.
  • A major South American war seems inevitable and the US will largely ignore it. Yeah, that’s a little vague, because there are multiple countries where revolution seems ripe. At the moment, food shortages in Venezuela have that country high on my list. People who are hungry do desperate things and Venezuelans seem to be reaching that tipping point quickly. They’re not the only ones, though, as both Brazil, for whom this summer’s Olympics may be an economic bust, and Columbia, where unrest among cartels and the government is simmering, could erupt as soon as this fall. Unfortunately, and somewhat inexplicably, the United States has never taken the interest in South American humanitarian conditions that it does with Europe and elsewhere. One might almost think we’ve forgotten our neighbors to the South. I don’t see that attitude changing.
  • Straight, monogamous sexual relationships will become the minority preference. We’re already well on our way toward this one. As social acceptance of gay, lesbian, bi, and transgendered lifestyles reaches a sense of normalcy, other “alternative” sexual preferences inevitably begin to rise as well. New York Magazine published an article last week with findings from a Kinsey Institute study, the largest of its kind, showing that roughly 21 percent of adults in America have engaged in “consensual non-monogamy and kink” at some point in their lifetime. Kat and I talked this one through a bit and feel that this surprisingly high number is tilted toward younger generations where alternative lifestyles in general face less social stigma than they do with those my generation and older. Combine these people with the LGBT crowd and, even allowing for some overlap in the two groups, that number is likely nearly 40% already. Upcoming generations are likely to embrace that trend and grow the numbers even more. The social and political impact of this will be considerable.
  • Children currently under the age of ten are most likely to be affected by a full-scale cyber war during their lifetime. Yes, it’s easy to make such projections on the very young, but the future almost seems inevitable on this one. If you’re not familiar with the term “Internet of Things (IoT)” then you might want to start reading. The basic concept is that soon everything will be connected digitally, including manufacturing. While that may be a challenging concept to comprehend, one of the side effects is that wealth and power and likely to become even more concentrated, which means when they are primary targets in the future of warfare. Those who successfully hack the IoT will be able to disrupt food supplies, access to basic services, and completely shut down banking, leaving people stranded from their money. Traditional warfare with Marines landing on beaches goes out the window and a handful of people will have the ability to bring mighty countries to their knees.
  • Religions will fall out of social favor and will be seen more as cults. This is a pendulum swing that seems to happen every few hundred years and we can see it coming. Nearly 30% of Americans now list themselves as religiously unaffiliated. Again, the trend is being driven by younger generations who are less accepting of religious precepts and totally deny any religious authority. Historically, this ushers in a period of severe secularism where those espousing any form of visible religious observance are labeled as extremists and religions themselves as cults. This trend isn’t just among Americans, either, as similar trends have been noted in Europe and Australia and is driven not only by violent extremists in the Middle East but right-wing political involvement as well. The arc historically takes 200-300 years to complete and by my estimation, we’re still at least a generation or two from that arc reaching its apex.

Now, all that being said, we are obligated to add the caveat that the future is never written until it is past. Are there actions that could disrupt these predictions? Sure, but these are strong trends and I’m giving these predictions around a 90% chance of coming true. If I’m wrong, you are more than welcome to remind me. However, when I’m right ….

Yeah, I’m going to say I told you so.

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Art  /  Mythology  /  Photography
Random Naked People
May 1, 2016
charles i. letbetter - random naked people

It is necessary to fall in love… if only to provide an alibi for all the random despair you are going to feel anyway. —Albert Camus

 

charles i. letbetter - random naked people

Even if nudity were legal, we all know damn good and well that very few people would ever just go waltzing down the street naked. Still, the chance that someone might decide to take such a stroll should encourage more people to walk

I passed an alleged statistic somewhere this week, one of those that I can never go back and find when I need it, which said something to the effect that 20% of all American couples in a long-term relationship had experienced a three-way sexual triste or “some other form of kink.” I didn’t have time to stop and read at the moment and didn’t think to save the link, so I have no idea who is making that claim. If it was the Kinsey Institute, which is entirely possible, then I really want to read that study and find out what they mean by “some other form of kink.” I have a feeling their definition is broader than mine.

Human nature is funny in that we all, to one degree or another, are drawn toward those things which we are told are off limits. Even the most ancient mythologies about the beginning of human civilization involve some form of “disobedience” whether it be Adam and Eve in Abrahamic mythologies or  Izanami and Izanagi in Japanese mythologies. With both, as well as many others, there is some random “fruit” that someone eats when they’re told it’s forbidden. We all want what we can’t have.

Yet, if we had what we think we want, would we be happy? Probably not. We are motivated by the pursuit of things, even if we don’t know how best to use them once we have them. That includes mates. Ancient bedouins, for example, considered the number of wives had to be a symbol of their wealth. King Solomon, circa 970 – 931 BCE, allegedly had 700 wives and 300 concubines and they called him wise. I might want to challenge that assertion. Do you think he actually knew the names of all his wives, their birthdays, or their country of origin? Ancient misogynists collected wives like trophies. They didn’t know what to actually do with them once they had them and trying to keep them all happy was undoubtedly a nightmare.

That’s why I don’t think allowing for more open, casual nudity in public would actually result in much, if any, change. People are too into fashion, too self-conscious of their bodies, and too afraid of being shamed to just run around naked all the time. Sure, there would be some, here and there, who would take advantage of the opportunity, and that might provide a momentary thrill for a neighboring 15-year-old. But random naked people isn’t likely to set off any kind of a crime spree; incidents of rape aren’t likely to increase (because it’s not about sex, moron), communicable diseases aren’t likely to spread (that would involve some form of contact and they’re really just not that into you), and Beelzebub will not suddenly appear and take over the world (too many have already voted for him in the Republican primaries).

There’s nothing wrong with a little random nudity. So here, enjoy some I pulled from the catalog.

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Photography
Left Out In The Rain
April 30, 2016
charles i. letbetter - left out in the rain

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. —Langston Hughes

 

charles i. letbetter - left out in the rain

In the dreariness of a rainy day, we still find beauty, even in things others ignore

I hadn’t planned on doing a second article today, and trust me, this one will be short. I looked out the kitchen window this morning, though, and saw that the kids had left the tricycle out in the rain. Yes, they had been told to put it up, but, being six- and seven-years-old, they didn’t think it necessary to follow those instructions. If we’re honest, few if any of us followed those instructions when we were that age. My father actually backed over my first tricycle because I left it behind the car. Such is the nature of being a child.

While frustrated that, yet again, my instructions had not been followed, I found an odd beauty in the rain on the tricycle. There’s something about the water on the chrome and the metal, the tire in the mud, the drops falling off the pedals and handlebars, that struck me as interesting. So, I grabbed the camera, ran out quickly while it wasn’t raining too hard, and grabbed a few shots.

While processing the images I also thought of how we often leave people out in the rain, so to speak. We enjoy them while they’re being fun and useful, but when we’re done we just leave them out where ever. We don’t bother to see that they’re safe, or happy. We don’t bother to think whether they might be lonely or in need of a friend.

We view too many people the same way children view toys: expendable. Children don’t typically worry about their toys because they assume that Mommy and Daddy will buy them new ones, even though that assumption is likely wrong. In similar fashion, we do the same thing to people we casually meet. We assume that the server at the restaurant, or the floor person at the department store, or the cashier at the grocery, are all expendable so it doesn’t matter how we treat them. Their feelings don’t matter. I’ve seen some treated as though they’re barely even human. We, effectively, leave them out in the rain, discarded without a thought, just assuming they’ll be there the next time we need them.

I’ve felt left out in the rain before. Perhaps you have, too. If so, perhaps you’ll understand the emotion behind these pictures.

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Art  /  PotD
Suffering In Vain
April 30, 2016
charles i. letbetter - suffering in vain

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. —Friedrich Nietzsche

 

 

charles i. letbetter - suffering in vain

[Ed. note: Yep, this is a rerun. Family demands just don’t give us enough time on Saturdays to write two new pieces without children going nuts. Besides, there are enough new readers who didn’t get to see this the first time around. Thank you for understanding.]

A lot was made last year of a major league baseball game played at Baltimore’s Camden Yards at which every seat was empty. Due to recent violence in that neighborhood, officials feared it would be too dangerous to allow fans, who tend to get a bit rowdy anyway, into the ballpark. So the game, between Baltimore’s Orioles and Chicago’s White Sox, took place in an eerily silent stadium. There was no one singing the national anthem. No fans clamoring for autographs (though catcher Caleb Joseph pretended to sign them anyway). No cheering when a run scored. For the first time in the history of major league baseball, no one was there.

Performing artists around the world understand. They’ve been facing some of those same conditions for years. Even when the climate for the performing arts was at its best, there were still many venues where actors and musicians and dancers performed in halls designed to seat a couple thousand people, but in which fewer than 100 were actually watching. It is a situation repeated most often in smaller cities, but not completely unknown even in the most famous of places, such as Carnegie Hall. Even Broadway has seen a nine percent drop in attendance at musicals and twelve percent decline at plays.

The National Endowment for the Arts is who keeps track of such numbers, and because attendance and involvement in the performing arts can vary so dramatically across the states and can be influenced by local situations such as labor strikes and local economies, they are careful about making short-term comparisons. However, when they conducted their latest study in 2013, what they discovered was a rather disturbing trend compared to figures from the previous study in 2008. Attendance at more traditional art forms, ballet, classical music, and musical theatre, all dropped. Opera attendance held steady, but I’m not sure that’s saying all that much since it only garnered the attention of 2.1% adults in either survey.

All artists understand suffering and sacrifice. I’ve seen both painters and photographers pass out because of lengthy sessions in unventilated rooms. I’ve seen guitarists and violinists practice until the blood was dripping from the necks of their instruments. I’ve seen pianists and actors fall from the sheer exhaustion of rehearsal. I’m not sure anyone pays as much of a physical price, though, as do ballet dancers. The picture on today’s billboard is a relatively nice one compared to some I’ve seen; toes with no nails, knobbed from repeated breaking, calloused, scarred, and misshapened.  By the time a ballerina retires, she often cannot walk without assistance.

While performing artists will tell you that they do what they do out of love and passion for the art, it is still disheartening to put in all the practice, the years of training, the hours upon hours of suffering only to look out into an audience and find no more than a smattering of season ticket holders present. Why attendance is low doesn’t really matter at that point. When one completes a performance one has rehearsed tirelessly for months and the meager applause echoes off empty seats, the heart sinks. At these moments, even the most experienced and stalwart of performers has to wonder why they’ve bothered.

I doubt one will ever actually see a billboard such as this one because it is a bit too unrefined for most performing arts organizations. Symphonies and ballets and theatres prefer a more positive approach because the arts, in their opinion, should be a place that makes one happy, not one where attendance is mandatory out of some form of social obligation. Yet, as that happy approach is not working, perhaps it’s time to take a more realistic look at the matter.

Don’t let their suffering be in vain. Support all the arts.

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Advertising  /  Current Issues  /  Just For Fun
Friday Follies
April 29, 2016
charles i. letbetter - Firday Follies

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies – it is the first law of nature. —Voltaire

 

charles i. letbetter - Friday Follies

Oh, wait, we forgot to talk about a few things

Oh geeze, it’s Friday already. How did this happen? The lawn needs to be mowed, the house is a mess, the laundry is piled up and I don’t have anything thawed for dinner. I’m so behind on editing I don’t even want to think about it at this point. On top of that, there are no fewer than a dozen topics on my board that we haven’t had a chance to talk about this week. Writing takes up a lot of time and there just hasn’t been enough of that time available.

So, since most everything is somewhat timely, let me see how many of these follies I can reduce and get into one article. You can click the links for full stories in most cases. Or not.

Leica announced a new stripped-down version of its digital camera that sounds exactly like what I need. No LCD screen, no stupid video eating up battery, no wildly high ISOs, none of the stupid filters and shit that all the amateurs think make their cameras cool. This is a real photographer’s camera. One has to know what they’re doing and not rely on presets and the “auto” setting. I like the look and sound of this camera. What I don’t understand, though, is why the damn thing costs over $5,000! With all the nonsense stripped down I would expect a price significantly lower. I  was all ready to put one on my shopping list until I saw the damn price tag.

I’ve always thought that, being a child of the 60s and 70s, we grew up with some of the best music ever written. Now, there seems to be some evidence that as, for the first time ever, older catalog music is outselling new music.  Some are trying to blame this on streaming services while others say that the whole retro vinyl thing is a factor. To an extent, both arguments may have some validity to them. But, the bottom line, and we all know it, is that older music is just better. Only a fool would choose Taylor Swift over the Beatles or Stones, One Direction over AC/DC or Three Dog Night. We had the best music ever, and now even the kids are beginning to recognize that fact.

Durham, NC ad agency McKinney has the perfect response to their home state’s controversial HB2 law: flush it. To make that action more accessible to people, they’ve printed HB2 on toilet paper. The rest should be self-explanatory. The only problem with the concept is they didn’t seem to make any provision for it being widely  accessible. If you write the company, they might send you a roll. You should know what to do with it.

Funniest thing I’ve seen on Twitter all week:

Speaking of funny, if you’ve not followed Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County on Facebook this week, you’ve missed a special collection of real gems. Since Breathed decided to publish his work on Facebook rather than through the creative-squashing syndicate, we’ve seen some delightfully wonderful strips, but this week has taken the hairball (so to speak) as the cartoonist stretched Monday’s World Penguin Day into a full week. Well, almost. Bill the Cat got his dues in today. Still, this week’s strips have been a prime example of why Breathed is a treasured talent.

There, that clears out the most important stuff. Follies are best on Friday, I suppose. That’s the only way the alliteration works. There are still a couple of scraps lying around, but I’ll leave those in case I get desperate over the weekend. The grass on the lawn isn’t getting any shorter with me sitting here. Not that I’m going to cut it. I just need to find someone in the neighborhood who can use an extra $4.37.

Follies. Hehe.

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Current Issues  /  PotD  /  video
More Than Mean (Video)
April 27, 2016

I think there is a danger there of being mean to people and humiliating people and embarrassing people just because it might get you ratings. It is a disturbing trend. —Bruce Nash

charles i. letbetter - meaner than mean

The only habit of allowing trolls to be mean, especially to women, whenever and where ever they want has gotten out of control. It’s time to stop them.

“Stop being mean!”

That is the Tipster’s response when I put her to bed for the third time. In her six-year-old world, having an 8:00 bedtime is mean; the sun isn’t quite down yet, there’s still daylight, so she thinks she still has time to play. We have boundaries and schedules I am obligated to enforce for her own good, so therefore, in her mind, I’m the mean one.

Raising a little girl in today’s environment. I want her to be as independent and strong as her mother and she shows every sign of having all those qualities. Grandpa Bob tells me Kat didn’t like going to bed, either. Yet, when I look at the world into which she’s growing up, one that demeans and ridicules women just for being women, I worry. A lot. I think I have plenty of good reasons.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that one of the nation’s top software engineers, Jessie Frazelle, received so many death and rape threats that her employer had to hire bodyguards to guarantee her safety. She recently moved to another company and while she has yet to make any kind of statement the general consensus is that she was harassed out the door, that the company knew about the harassment and did nothing to stop it. Last July she wrote:

Ever since I started speaking at conferences and contributing to open source projects I have been endlessly harassed. I’ve gotten hundreds of private messages on IRC and emails about sex, rape, and death threats. People emailing me saying they jerked off to my conference talk video (you’re welcome btw) is mild in comparison to sending Photoshopped pictures of me covered in blood.

Then, earlier this week, Frazelle tweeted:

I wish I could say this was an isolated problem. I wish I could say this was a new problem. Neither of those statements would be true, though. Being mean to women online is as old as the Internet itself and the toll it is exacting is severe.

The same day that the Frazelle story was posted, The Washington Post ran a story questioning whether 31-year-old Fairfax County firefighter Nicole Mittendorff was harassed so severely that she committed suicide last week. What makes this story particularly upsetting is that the trolls who have continued to hound her claim to be her fellow firefighters. An investigation is underway, but no matter what they find, and it’s almost certain that someone will be charged in this case, the fact that nothing was done to stop the continual barrage of mean comments, that no one was able to sufficiently stand up for her and back the trolls down, incriminates the entire online system.

Being mean, especially to women, has reached epidemic proportions. While this is just observational speculation, I’m willing to be that one could ask any woman with an internet account if they’ve had someone they don’t know say something mean about them online and probably 9 of every ten, if not more, would say yes. I know Kat’s gotten comments, especially when we first started seeing each other. She was able to handle those quickly, though. Not everyone is so lucky.

We laugh when Tonight Show host Jimmy Kimmel has guests read mean tweets about themselves but the very fact we find those tweets and other similar comments funny is a part of what allows the online abuse of women to flourish. Part of the reason trolls say the mean things they say is because they think what they’re doing is absolutely hilarious and that if we don’t “get it” that we need to “lighten up.” There is no humor in threatening to rape or kill women, though. It’s not funny to send them pictures covered in what appears to be blood. There’s no joke behind telling women they asked for it. Every last bit of it is mean.

#MoreThanMean started trending on Twitter yesterday after a Washington Post video was posted where two sports reporters, Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro, sat down and had sports fans read, out loud, some of the mean tweets the two women receive every day. The effect was emotional and drove home just how easy it is to type things that we never would consider saying to someone in person. The men reading the tweets were clearly uncomfortable and some even cried. You not only need to see this video, you need to share this video. Take a look:

Stop and think. Mother’s Day is coming up in a couple of weeks. Would you talk to your mother like that? Would you tolerate someone talking to your sister, your girlfriend, or your spouse with those words? Not if you have an ounce of decency in you, you wouldn’t. Those of you who have daughters, what if someone spoke like that to her?

Being mean has become so much a part of our culture, though, to the point that we have justified it and built organizations around it, and now embodied it in one of our leading presidential candidates. In a follow-up story on the boycotts we mentioned last week, a new article from Business Insider shows just how much hate and meanness there is around letting transgender people use the restroom with which they most identify. People of color have been beaten at presidential campaign rallies and the candidate has encouraged such mean behavior.

We have created a culture of mean and tolerated it far too long. The time has come for us to stand up, to confront the online bullies, especially those who harass women. We don’t have to necessarily be mean in response to meanness. I think responding with, “If you wouldn’t say it, don’t type it,” is a good start. And yes, unfortunately, there are people who are willing to say mean things. One of them is inexplicably running for president and appears to be winning his party’s nomination. Are we really willing to allow the election of a president who is mean?

This is the primary reason we don’t allow comments on these pages. We tried it a few years ago and even then the mean and rude comments were enough of a problem I made the decision to simply not provide a forum where such statements could exist. I am still of the mind that unmoderated comments are unnecessary and unhelpful.

#MoreThanMean needs to become a battle cry. We cannot allow this culture of mean to continue. Lives are at stake. The lives of people we all hold dear, even if they’re not old enough to be online yet. For all the Tipsters and the Ravens and the Emmas and every other little girl out there who are not yet able to speak for themselves, we need to shut this culture of mean down now.

If you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t type it. And confront those who do.

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Current Issues  /  PotD  /  science
Suicide Has Our Attention For Now
April 26, 2016
charles i. letbetter - suicide has our attention for now

Our nation has not made the level of investment on a federal level that can have the positive effect on suicide that has happened for the other leading causes of death. —Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention

 

charles i. letbetter - suicide has our attention now

We’ve callously tried to ignore suicide for years but as the numbers go up we have to pay attention

We’ve all known someone who didn’t make it. Suicide hit close to home again a couple of weeks ago when the owner of the restaurant where Kat and I have our infrequent lunch dates decided he couldn’t go on. That was not the first such incident either of us has encountered, though, and the numbers are going up.

Suicide has our attention now. With the release of the CDC’s latest report last week, news and media outlets jumped on the unexpected and alarming news that suicides in the United States have jumped, overall, by a whopping 25 percent since 1999.  Statistically, that 25 percent is frightening enough, but when the numbers are broken down into specific groups the fear factor spikes. Just take a look at some of the larger increases:

  • Suicide among Native Americans increased a dramatic 89% among women, 36% among men.
  • Suicide among white women increased by 60%.
  • Suicide among white men increased by 28%.
  • Suicide among girls ages 10-14 tripled.
  • Both women and men between the ages of 45-60 saw increases of 63% and 43% respectively

There almost seems to be one bright spot in that deaths among black males is one of the few areas that saw a decrease. Oh, but wait, that group has seen a severe increase in homicide over the same period, which more than offsets the suicide statistic.

There’s also a disturbing shift in the mode of suicide. While firearms and poisoning (which includes drug overdose) are still the most common methods, suffocation (hanging) incidents increased by 25 %.

When faced with this topic, the first question out of our mouths is almost always, “why?” The truth is, we don’t always know, but looking at the economic divisions we see that suicides were higher in all age and gender groups where income and economic opportunity were lowest. Even with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, which wasn’t fully implemented until after the study’s end date, availability of mental health care among the poor is exceedingly scarce.  The entire psychiatric field relies almost entirely upon insurance receipts and mental health care is one area where insurance companies risk significant loss because of the need for ongoing treatment. Insurance looks to cut its losses by limiting coverage and raising rates, which, in turn, means that those most at risk are least likely to get the help they need.

We also know that there is an increased sense of desperation across the country and social media may be feeding into that problem. Young adults seem to be especially prone to this problem as pressures from parents are high to get a job, even though entry-level positions can be difficult to find. An increase in the importance of standardized testing at school increases the emphasis on academic performance. Meanwhile, when looking at Facebook and Instagram all one seems to see are photos of other people going to concerts and on expensive vacations and buying expensive clothes. This isn’t motivating. Instead, feeling that they are the only ones in their group not succeeding leads to a sense that they never will succeed and might as well stop trying.

Depression is a well-known factor in one’s decision to end their own life, but what we can extrapolate from this study is that the causes of depression are increasing and the depression itself is more severe. Women suffering through long periods of gender and pay inequity increases rates of depression. Repeated loss of employment, long-term unemployment, and seeing their skill set become irrelevant are among the major causes of depression among middle-aged men. General concerns about safety, ability to care for families, pressure to conform to societal standards and the feeling that government isn’t helping are all contributing factors.

With this, our attitudes toward suicide are slowly changing. The death of comedian Robin Williams brought the topic to the forefront of conversation for a moment and we slowly began to realize that the conversation we were having wasn’t the right one. Still, we find ourselves unsure what to do, how to help, or what to say when we fear that someone we know may be suicidal. Based on what we are beginning to understand, here are some tips to keep in mind.

  • Keep the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in your phone:  1-800-273-TALK (8255)
  • Be aware of any signs of abuse and/or bullying as these are leading factors across multiple groups
  • Don’t be afraid to say something. Posting “I wish I had known” on Facebook after the fact doesn’t help anyone.
  • Learn how to listen. Listening, keeping your mouth shut, avoiding platitudes or empty advice, are valuable traits.
  • Know what to say. There are numerous resources online to help. You already know someone who needs help. Be ready.
  • Suicide is not “the cowards way out,” nor does it negatively affect one’s spiritual situation. Don’t even go there. Guilt doesn’t help.
  • Consider how your own actions may be making someone else’s life difficult. The words we say, the way we treat others, are all factors.

Now that suicide has our attention, let’s do what it takes to reverse course. I’m not naive enough to think that every suicide is preventable, but there is a lot we can do to reduce the number. We can no longer feign ignorance or pretend that the issue doesn’t apply to anyone we know. We have an obligation, if not to society, at the very least to our friends to put this issue on the front burner. We don’t have to wait for medical science to come up with a cure. For a significant number of people, we are the cure.

There’s no downplaying the severity of suicide any longer. Now, we do something.

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pop culture  /  PotD
Rewards For Surviving
April 25, 2016
charles i. letbetter - rewards for surviving

The rewards of freedom are always sweet, but its demands are stern, for at its heart is the paradox that the greatest enemy of freedom is freedom. —Os Guinness

 

charles i. letbetter - rewards for surviving

As frustrating and maddening as our lives can become, there need to be rewards along the way for simply surviving

We often find ourselves on Monday morning thinking through the events of the weekend and shaking our heads. Sure, there were some good moments, but those were peppered with the bad, the ridiculous, and the downright frustrating. If there are supposed to be rewards for working hard and persevering, they didn’t necessarily seem to choose this weekend to show up. Consider:

I ‘m not sure whether that’s enough to make one want to turn right around and go back to bed or pack up and move somewhere a little less populated. I don’t think Indianapolis is really any worse than any other major city. There are times when the universe decides to dump a whole lot of bad on us at once. When that happens over a weekend we get to Monday morning staggering, feeling as though we’re hung over from a party we don’t remember attending.

During times like this, it can be really difficult to keep focused on long-term goals. When surrounded by the negative it becomes difficult to imagine that anything positive is ever going to happen. Our brains understand that if we keep moving forward, doing the things we know we have to do, that we will eventually succeed. Our emotions don’t necessarily buy that argument, though, and Mondays seem like a very good time to tumble into depression and not come out.

Generally speaking, utilizing a system of rewards and punishments has proven to be less than effective, especially in educational matters. However, I remain convinced that when we feel as though the universe is punishing us for merely daring to exist we deserve rewards simply for managing to survive. I worry every time Kat visits a friend who lives in an apartment complex or drives on I-465. She deserves rewards for surviving both those experiences. The kids were non-stop narcissists over the weekend. We deserve rewards for letting them live.

You, of course, have your own troubles and challenges and you, too, deserve your own rewards. The problem is, it’s Monday. We can’t exactly go skipping work or whatever simply because we need to recover from the weekend. So, here are some ideas for rewards you might give to yourself that won’t dramatically interfere with the rest of your day.

  • Donuts. Indy is blessed with a wide selection of donut shops. Yelp lists over 20. That should, in theory, put one near you. Even if it doesn’t, there’s always the Krispy Kremes at your local Speedway. The sugar will help launch you into whatever comes next.
  • Beer. Okay, so depending upon when you’re reading this it might be a wee bit early to start indulging in alcohol just yet, but by noon it’s fair game and Indy has a plethora of breweries so finding one shouldn’t be a problem. Maybe treat yourself with one at lunch and see if  it doesn’t improve your outlook on the day.
  • Call your mom, or a sibling, or someone else whose voice makes you happy. These are the times I miss being able to call Poppa and just say hi. A calm, familiar voice can turn a day around in a heart beat.
  • Shopping. You may need to be careful here. Don’t burst your budget so that you have nasty credit card bills coming at you in the future. A little retail therapy can make a significant difference in your day, though, even if it’s just picking out something online.
  • Quick sex. There’s probably not enough time for all the romance and foreplay to which you’re accustomed, but a quick nip before work or at noon isn’t a bad use of your time and is the one thing that is likely to put a smile on your face.

There are other rewards you can find, I’m sure. Do something that brings you pleasure and makes you smile. Perhaps a chocolate covered strawberry, or a little extra creme in your coffee this morning. Rewards don’t have to be large or extravagant to be effective. You can reward yourself in thousands of different ways if you think about it a moment. Sometimes, just taking a moment to think can be a reward itself.

Weekends aren’t always pleasant and relaxing. If yours was a bit more challenging than you would have liked, take a moment and reward yourself. After all, you’ve survived once again. Not everyone can say that.

 

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Measuring Your Footprint
April 22, 2016
charles i. letbetter - measuring your footprint

We in the industrialized world make a greater difference because our ecological footprint, our impact on the condition of the environment, is 40 to 50 times larger than that of people in the developing world. —Maurice Strong

 

charles i. letbetter - measuring your footprint

We do not exist without leaving a scar upon the plant. Our obligation, our responsibility to the universe, is to make that footprint as small as possible.

We learn in elementary school the basic balance of life on this planet. We breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Plants, all the green living things around us, take in carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. Just that easily, we keep each other alive, a carefully balanced symbiotic relationship that has been in place for millions of years. When perfectly balanced, neither leaves a footprint. Such a balance is difficult to maintain,though. As our population has increased, we have, partially of necessity, reduced the amount of green around us. This throws the whole planet out of balance and, because that balance is so precise, any imbalance in either direction causes bad things to happen. There’s no point arguing about who is at fault, we must focus our effort on reducing the size of the scar we leave and bring us closer to the balance between carbon life forms and plants that keep life sustainable.

Welcome to Earth Day, 2016. This is the 46th, I think, celebration and the day and normally we would encourage people to be out planting stuff. However, for most of us in the Midwest, weather conditions are not exactly cooperative. The ground is rather wet and muddy from yesterday’s rain and there may be more on the way before this afternoon is done. Not exactly prime planting weather. Still, there are things one can do to help address your impact on the plant and one of those is measuring your carbon footprint.

For those not quite up on the lingo:

car·bon foot·print

[ˌkäːrbənˈfo͝otprint]

 NOUN
  1. the amount of carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds emitted due to the consumption of fossil fuels by a particular person, group, etc.

The term sounds like some mix of science and feel-good pseudo-spirituality, but it is a real measure of just how much an impact you are having upon the planet. Understand, this is more than just the amount of carbon dioxide you emit when you take a breath. If your carbon footprint were only limited to that measure, we wouldn’t have any problems at all. The issue comes that, especially in industrialized countries such as the United States, anything we do that involves consuming fuel most likely also adds to the amount of carbon dioxide we put into the air. Because the greater number of our vehicles run on fossil fuels that release carbon and the majority of our electric power comes from burning coal that releases carbon, every time we so much as turn on a light we are adding to our carbon footprint.

This, then, brings us to the question of just how much carbon does one person produce? Obviously, that answer varies from one person to the next. There are online calculators at the EPA website as well as the Nature Conservancy that can determine the full size of the carbon footprint for your entire household. These calculate factors such as home energy, food consumption, recycling, and transportation.

What I found this year, though, is a tool that measures  where my footprint is the largest: online. We tend to not think about it, but when we are using our computers and accessing the internet, not only are we consuming energy in our home or workplace, we’re also consuming energy at the location of at least two servers, one that belongs to our Internet service provider and another that holds the website we’re accessing. The more tabs we have open, the larger the footprint we’re leaving.

There are two things that make this measurement tool cool. First, it’s a free plug-in for the Chrome browser. I’m not sure what the technological limitations are that prevent it from being available for other browsers, but at least for this year, Chrome users are the only ones who can take advantage of it. Second, and this is what sold me, it is sponsored by the makers of my favorite Scotch: Johnnie Walker. The whiskey distiller has pledged to plant up to 75,000 trees to offset the online carbon footprint measured by the plug-in. More details about the brand’s involvement can be found in this article.

I installed the plug-in on my desktop just about 24 hours previous to my writing this article.  In that length of time, my online browsing has generated 3467 grams of carbon, roughly the equivalent of using a microwave for over 365 minutes. To offset that amount of carbon, Johnnie Walker will need to plant 37.2 trees.

37 trees in 24 hours. Extrapolate that out and I would need to plant 13,505 trees  a year just to offset the amount of carbon generated by my daily computer use. That’s a lot of trees. Obviously, I need to find ways to make my footprint considerably smaller. Both the EPA and Nature Conservancy have plenty of ideas for how to do that so I won’t bother repeating them now. I’m already running a bit long here. You know best which options work well for you.

Our relationship to this planet is delicate. We cannot afford to continue growing our population and our cities and our economies in the manner to which we have become accustomed without incurring some very serious consequences. Already this year, every month has been the hottest on record. While spending a little less time online or using tools to put unused tabs to sleep may not seem like much of a big deal, the cumulative effort of everyone measuring and watching their carbon footprint adds up.

I don’t know if my boys are going to ever give me grandchildren. They might. Maybe. If they do, I would like to know that my grandchildren can enjoy playing outside safely, can breathe the air and drink the water safely, and not have to alter their lifestyle because of bad choices we’re making now. Measure your footprint and make some adjustments.

For Earth Day.

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Music  /  PotD
Prince, Chyna, and Immortality
April 22, 2016

The key to longevity is to learn every aspect of music that you can. — Prince

 

charles i. letbetter - prince, chyna, and immortality

Prince changed music. Chyna changed women’s wrestling. But would we want either of them to be immortal?

Here we are again, mourning the death of yet another music legend. If I had any purple left in my wardrobe I might be wearing it today. Maybe. Earlier this week, I listed Purple Rain as one of the top five songs that everyone needs to hear. Now, that’s all anyone wants to play. Everyone jumps on the bandwagon when an artist dies.

There’s also a temptation to curse 2016 for being unreasonably evil in killing off people who mean a lot to our culture and in whom we have a great deal of invested emotion. I saw one tweet yesterday that claimed the aliens were calling all their spies back home before the disaster of this fall’s presidential election. While unlikely, that explanation comes about as close to making sense as anything else does at the moment.

Yesterday just plain sucked for everyone except, possibly, Queen Elizabeth II, who turned 90. And even if her day went as badly as everyone else’s, the Queen gets a do-over in June when her birthday is officially celebrated.

The rest of us, however, started the day with news of Chyna’s death. That was bad enough. Chyna was one of those people who always seemed to be struggling against public perception. Few people paid attention to women’s wrestling before Chyna got into the game, and she changed that. She made it more sexy, more entertaining. That wasn’t enough, though, and she kept looking for something I’m not sure she ever found, some level of acceptance that alluded her.

When the news began to filter onto the Internet that Prince is dead, the initial tone was one of disbelief. After all, he’d been the target of false death announcements before and having TMZ break the news is like asking for a giant here-we-go-again eye roll. Only when the Associated Press joined in on the story did the shock and sadness really begin to set in and spread a purple wave of sadness around the globe.

Were it a more quiet news day, we would probably be talking about the death of Brenda Soto, a 16-year-old Fairfax county, Virginia student who was beaten to death by other girls while at school. There are multiple issues there that need to be discussed, including the accusation that multiple students stood by and recorded the beating on their phones instead of doing anything to help.

Our collective attention can’t seem to handle more than one topic at a time, though, and for the moment, all our attention is on Prince. The rock star’s death is bound to become one of those “where were you” moments for a lot of people. I am seeing in the global reaction’s to Prince’s death a pattern similar to what happened when Elvis died unexpectedly in 1977. All the shock, all the despair, mostly coming from people my age and a wee bit younger, those for whom songs like Purple Rain, Raspberry Beret, and When Doves Cry influenced some formative part of their adolescence, is very similar to that of women of a certain age when Elvis died.

I remember being in the car with Poppa, on my way to a piano lesson, when the news of Elvis’ death came on the radio. I wasn’t of the generation that worshipped him, though, so while I appreciated the impact he’d had on music, I wasn’t necessarily a fan (which hasn’t changed). Similarly, teens today are not overly familiar with Prince and the various iterations and changes he went through. Those who are really into music appreciate his impact, but they’re not as likely to be fans and most won’t understand why their parents and the rest of the world are turning everything purple.

What I expect to come next are the conspiracy theories. Prince led a life that is ripe for speculation. After all, since his 2001 conversion to Jehovah’s Witness, Prince had acted less like a rock star and more like a delusional cult member (which is the most accurate way to describe all Jehovah’s Witnesses). Even though he had returned to performing and seemed to be in good form when he rocked Atlanta earlier this month, one has to wonder if the strange religious beliefs, particularly that part about not allowing blood transfusions or organ transplants, might have factored into his death.

There’s also the fact that Prince died a mere two months after one of his more famous girlfriends, Vanity. That there might have been some connection between their deaths is already a tale that is gathering some steam and, given the romantic twist, could quite likely take off.

Or maybe he’s out golfing with Elvis and Bowie in Bermuda.

With the tremendous number of deaths among music legends and other celebrities this year, one might find it interesting that just this past Wednesday The Guardian ran a story about the possibility of digital immortality. The theory here is that while it might be impossible to preserve one’s body forever, given the natural decaying of biological tissue, one might be able to digitally preserve all of one’s memories, experiences, personality, and wisdom in a digital form, and then present that back through some type of chat bot with an avatar resembling the face of the deceased. The name of the company is Eternime and the product isn’t quite ready for prime time. Their website says they hope to be in beta sometime “next month,” without any indication as to which “next month” that might be.

But what if we could preserve the personality, the spirit, and the essence of people like Prince or Bowie or Elvis? Would we really want to keep them around in that form? We have their music, which is influential on their own. Do we really need a digital Prince to repeat back some of his previous questionable statements? Regardless of how great his music was, this was the guy who said, “When I found out that there was eight Presidents before George Washington, I wanted to smack somebody,” and “Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.” Do we really need that nonsense lingering around? I’m not sure immortality suits everyone terribly well.

And that’s why I might not wear purple today, even if I had some. All that was great about Prince happened before 2000. In fact, one could easily, in my opinion, make the argument that after his 1998 album Lovesexy everything else pretty much sucks. To return to an earlier analogy, think young Elvis versus “old” Elvis (he died when he was 42, so “old” is a matter of perspective). With both artists, the songs that made them famous and for which they’ll always be remembered are the ones at the front of their careers. Prince hasn’t had a number one hit since 1989’s Batdance.  After that, the highest any song ranked on the charts was The Greatest Romance Ever Sold, which topped at #63 in 2000. He hasn’t had a song hit the top 100 since 2004’s Call My Name.

So, as great as he once was, maybe it’s best that we let Prince and everyone else go. Immortality isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be and sometimes the more we know about our heroes and legends, the less likeable they become. We’ll miss what we liked about them, that part of them that touched our lives, but that doesn’t mean we should keep them around forever.

And hey, maybe the movie Men In Black was right: They’re not dead, they just returned to their home planet.

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Current Issues  /  PotD
Sex And Politics
April 20, 2016
charles i. letbetter - sex and politics

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. —Plato

 

charles i. letbetter - sex and politics

Given a choice between sex and politics, the wise person chooses sex

Now that the New York primaries are over and went exactly the way everyone knew they would, the circus that is presidential primary politics moves to Indiana in advance of the primary on May 3. Many times, having a late primary means that your vote really doesn’t count for much. In the past two election cycles, the nomination of both parties has pretty much been decided by the time the Indiana primary rolled around. Not so this year. Both Democrats and Republicans are involved in races that are close enough in delegate counts as to make every last vote in the Indiana primaries worth something (despite what some pundits are saying).  So, all five of the remaining candidates will be hitting the state hard and heavy over the next two weeks to try and convince Hoosiers to vote for them.

What should Hoosiers do? Have sex. Not with the candidates, mind you. None of them are attractive enough for the thought of having sex with them to not be cringe-inducing. I’m pretty sure a couple of them have to blindfold their spouses before getting into bed at night. And we’re fortunate that the list has dwindled to five. One of the advantages of a late primary is that we don’t have to put up with that messy political orgy that started the season. Still, given the choice between politics or sex, we’re all better off choosing the sex.

Let’s face it: we’ve been listening to these yahoos spout their lies and hate-inducing clap-trap for over a year. Media of various forms have inundated us with every stupid word they’ve said, every insult they’ve spouted, every ridiculous idea they’ve proposed, and every opinion on which they’ve flip-flopped. Whichever party one favors really makes very little difference. The candidates who have survived thus far do not offer any real hope for our country.

So, if we’re going to get screwed anyway, we might as well do it in a way that is at least pleasurable. Sex is so much better than politics, makes people so much happier, and even in the worst of circumstances doesn’t endanger as many lives.  Here are a few reasons sex is better than politics:

  1. You, alone, get to decide who fucks you. Politics is like rape in that you’re getting fucked by someone you don’t like in a manner you don’t enjoy and then you’re told it’s your fault. With consensual sex, you choose who’s in bed with you. You don’t have to worry about some lame southern state screwing it up for the rest of the country or taking it up the backside from the electoral college. The sex partner you get is the one you choose.
  2. When the sex is bad, there are ways to fix it.  Not all sex is good, which you understand if you’ve had sex more than once. However, the majority of bad sex comes from poor communication between partners and can be resolved with a little time and patience. Bad politics, though, last a minimum of four years and there’s not a damn thing you can do during the interim to make it any better.
  3. Even bad sex is still good. Even when the sex isn’t as wonderful as you might have preferred, at least you come out saying, “Hey, I got laid!” You don’t have to share the details and no one actually cares if you fudge the orgasm count a few times. Bad politics, however, is never good. Bad politics is like finding out your partner has  an STD even the CDC doesn’t know about yet. You’re doomed. The bumper sticker won’t scrape off and people scream at you for electing the douche that sent the economy into the toilet and got West Virginia nuked.
  4. Sex only affects the lives of you and your partner(s). Even if you’re cheating with someone who is also cheating on someone, the total number of people affected is likely to be less than ten. When politics goes awry, however, the fate of the entire world can be at stake. Millions of innocent lives can be lost. Clean air and drinking water can be ruined forever. Generations who linger long after our demise can suffer because of one bad political decision.
  5. Cleaning up after sex is relatively easy. When the sex is over, you take a shower, wash the sheets, re-adjust the lamp shade, and then go on about your day. Or night. The backside of politics isn’t so easy. Who cleans up after war? Not the politicians. Who has to find a new source of drinking water? Not the politicians who allowed it to be polluted. Who replaces the air we can no longer breathe? Not the politicians who allowed it to become poisoned. Who replaces all the jobs that are lost due to bad foreign policy? Not the politician who implemented the failed policy. Politics is sloppy and leaves you with the mess every time.

As the presidential candidates roam from town to town the next two weeks, they’re going to make a lot of speeches in a lot of different places. Your best move? Don’t go. Leave them all talking to empty chairs. Send a message that Hoosiers are fed up with their lies and their hate and their condescending attitudes toward the Midwest. Instead, stay home and have sex. Or go to a strip club. Or take your significant other to a strip club and then have sex. Or watch porn together. Or try out a new butt plug. There are myriad options that are better than attending a political rally where no one cares about your opinion.

Mind you, I’m not saying you shouldn’t vote. By all means, everyone who is eligible should be at the polls on May 3. Your vote counts more in this election than it has in a long time. Be there.  Do the deed. But don’t think for a second that anything leading up to the actual election matters; it doesn’t. Protesting doesn’t matter. Picketing doesn’t matter. Yelling and screaming doesn’t matter. None of the candidates give a shit what you think; they’ve already made up their pathetic little minds.  The ONLY way to send a message is to stay away from their stupid events, all of them. Void the damn political polls. Then vote.

And have sex.

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Advertising  /  pop culture  /  video
Progress We Think We’ve Made
April 18, 2016
charles i. letbetter - progress we think we've made

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. —Benjamin Franklin

 

charles i. letbetter - progress we think we've made

It’s easy enough to think that we’re above some of the errors of the past, but we may not be as progressive as we think.

I was left shaking my head this morning when Business Insider published an article with 18 ads we would consider horrible and terribly insensitive in today’s society. The purpose of the article was to give us the positive feeling that we have progressed significantly from the ads shown. Among them were racist soap ads, racist Jell-o ads, ads encouraging giving soda to infants, and ads denigrating women in just about every form imaginable. One aftershave ad even seems to encourage rape with copy that reads, “If she doesn’t give it to you, get it yourself.”

We like to think that we have progressed far beyond the stereotypes and social insensitivities of those ads. No one in their right mind today would put a picture of a pear with copy that says, “This Is No Shape For A Girl.” We know better, right? And we’ve even passed federal legislation so cigarette makers can no longer tell us that four out of five doctors smoke Camels. Yet, when we take a broad look at the bulk of advertising in place today, we may not have made as much progress as we would like to think.

Take a look through the advertising on your mobile device or, if you’re old school any major magazine. Notice how many of the ads still favor a stereotypical view of Caucasian people, especially in the areas of fashion, beauty, business, and travel. Within those sectors specifically, a whopping 80% of ads are tilted toward a white audience. Even worse, in many of those ads, especially those related to the hospitality industry, when a person of color is included in the ad it is almost always in a position of service, such as a waiter or hotel staff, further perpetuating the idea that those ethnicities are, for some stupid reason, supposed to serve the white man. Some studies in the health care area show that racial disparities in advertising actually have a negative impact upon the health status of disaffected populations.

Women aren’t faring much better. Just last year, the Bic company ran this ad:

This ad is so offensive to women on so many levels I have to wonder if there was any managerial or even adult oversight in the creation of this campaign. The very notion that women need to think like men for any reason is deplorable, and the inference that women aren’t already the boss are just the start. What does it mean to “look like a girl?” Exactly how does one “act like a lady?” Astonishingly, though, we still see this sort of advertising far too often.

The rape culture in advertising is still alive and well, also. An ad in Bloomingdale’s holiday catalog last year included the caption, “Spike your best friend’s egg nog when they’re not looking,” under a photo of a man leering at a young woman who wasn’t paying attention. Those are the kinds of attitudes that endanger women everywhere as they dismiss the concept of absolute consent. How are we still letting these things get into print?

Ads featuring gay, lesbian, or transgender people are still a hot button and advertising still gets it wrong as often as it gets it right. I hesitate to imagine what our children or grandchildren will think of us when they look back twenty years from now and see that ads such as this one still manage to get air time without censorship:

https://youtu.be/EumiDLgd-T4

Fortunately, the New Hampshire bill passed and the Supreme Court finalized the question of gay marriage, but that doesn’t mean that advertising has caught up or has any fewer stereotypes of gay and lesbian couples than it did before. Even if we didn’t have a part in the creation of such politically misguided advertising, we should be embarrassed that we would even allow such patently offensive material to air in the first place.

Even more liberal advertisers have not made as much progress as we would like to think. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) only removed this billboard after an overwhelmingly large public outcry against it:

Even by 1970s standards, that ad is offensive not to mention that it is misinformative. Eating a vegetarian diet doesn’t help if one’s general intake and eating habits are still unhealthy. Yes, there are diabetic and obese vegetarians. Shaming people because of their size is not helpful.

Ad agencies like to think they’re at the forefront of bringing out social change. Certainly, there are a number of ad campaigns that have done a lot of good in moving us to be more inclusive, understanding, and accepting of each other, as well as encouraging more healthy behavior. But before we get a cramp patting ourselves on the back, we need to take a good look at the places where we still reinforce old stereotypes and insensitive and offensive behavior. We’ve likely not made as much progress as we would like to think.

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PotD  /  science
Beware The Friendly Seduction
April 17, 2016
charles i. letbetter - beware the friendly seduction

Most virtue is a demand for greater seduction. —Natalie Clifford Barney

 

charles i. letbetter - beware the friendly seduction

The people who seem the friendliest may not always have your best interest in mind

As salacious as today’s topic may seem, I’m going to start with a story that comes from growing up in church. No, seduction and church don’t exactly sound like they should go together, but you might be surprised at the many ways in which churches are home to some of the most dangerously seductive people on the planet.

Growing up as a pastor’s son, we moved around Kansas and Oklahoma a fair bit. We also visited a lot of churches.  When we would first move to a new church Poppa would often warn: “Beware the person who is the first to greet you because they’re most likely to do you the most harm.”  His warning proved true every time. The people who would be on the welcoming committee, those who were first in line to offer their help in getting settled in or acquainted with the community had ulterior motives. They wanted us to do things their way and mistakenly thought that they might be able to wield some influence by posing as friends. When we would eventually move, the same ones that seemed most happy to see us arrive were the most delighted to see us leave.

That lesson carried forward into my adulthood and I found it often true in business as well. There is a seduction that takes place when a company is trying to hire someone new; they want their company to appear appealing, friendly, like it would be the perfect place for you to spend the rest of your life. You take the job, though, and discover those “friendly” people are manipulative, back-stabbing, and vindictive. After a while, one begins to look upon this friendly form of seduction with caution. Who do we trust? Who do we believe? Is anyone actually sincere?

Turns out, there’s actual science behind what we’ve been experiencing our whole lives. While that information doesn’t make me feel any better about people we’ve met in the past, especially some of those I experienced when we were children, it does, at least, explain their motivation and gives us all the more reason to be cautious in the future. Friendly seduction is everywhere and is even cultivated by many business seminars. We have good reason to be careful. The question is, are you one of those dangerous people?

Look at your resumè. Do you have the term “people skills” anywhere on there? For years, businesses of every kind, from the fast food joint on the corner to the Fortune 500 company downtown, have been looking for employees with good “people skills.” What they’re looking for, using the appropriate jargon, are prospective employees with a high level of emotional intelligence. The term was first posited in a 1990 study by Peter Salovey at Yale and John D. Mayer at the University of New Hampshire. The findings of that study then became a 1995 best-selling book by Daniel Goldman, who was, at the time, a science reporter for The New Yorks Times.  Where friendly seduction had occurred naturally in a few people before, the emotional intelligence movement began cultivating those with “people skills” and promoting them to positions of importance.

Now, let’s be extremely clear: having good people skills does not inherently make one a bad person. The whole premise of emotional intelligence is that being in touch with one’s own feelings and emotions helps make them empathetic to the feelings and emotions of other people and therefore, at least in theory, better able to understand their perspective and respond accordingly. Having a strong emotional intelligence is critical in any people-facing position and some of those qualities are important in developing our ability to get along with others. Emotional intelligence on its own is not inherently a bad thing.

However, since 1990, researchers have found that some of those with high emotional intelligence may not be the nice guys they pretend to be. Two separate studies in 2014, one by Ursa Nagler, et al., and another by Sarah Konrath, et al., built upon previous research to show that those with high emotional intelligence tend to be narcissistic, manipulative, malicious, and exploitative. On the lighter end of this friendly seduction, they are always looking to turn a situation to their advantage. They create and spread rumors, gossip, and misinformation. At its worse, these people use their ability to read others as a means of controlling them, persuading them to do things they otherwise would not, and working situations to the detriment of others. Before you know it, you’re “best friend” at work is behind you getting fired, or losing that promotion, or killing that great project you’re on.

And they do it all with a smile on their face.

While encountering these people at work is bad enough, they can be even more dangerous in social situation. Emotionally intelligent people come across as fun, engaging, often humorous, and charming, everything you might want in a potential mate. On the back side of this friendly seduction, though, they take advantage of that social appeal to rape and batter those who are least expecting such behavior. Highly emotionally intelligent  people may cause us to drop our guard so that we’re not as aware of impending physical danger.

Again, not everyone with a high emotional intelligence is a bad person. In fact, they, themselves, are more likely to be duped or misled because of their overconfidence. They often think they have control of a situation when they don’t. Highly emotional intelligent people are just as likely to be the victims of seduction as they are the perpetrators.

Being attracted to friendly people is in our nature and a necessary part of building a workable society. The vast majority of friendly people you meet are sincere and their friendships are worth pursuing. Beware the person at the front of the line, though. The seduction they offer is not in your best interest.

Not even at church.

 

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