Will Blog for Food

Someone's Caging Lawd, Kum Bay Ya

How many of you know what caging really is? Here's a multiple choice quiz.

Caging is one of the following:

a) When a baseball player takes batting practice in a batting cage

b) The process of getting a wild animal into a cage

c) A vote suppression technique used by Republicans

If your answer was (c), you're a winner!

In her recent testimony, Monica Goodling casually said that Tim Griffin had been involved in caging. She could casually say it because she had prosecutorial immunity for anything she said. So she wanted to get that out of the way in her opening statement. If she hadn't said it and no one had asked her about it, she still could have been prosecuted for it since vote caging is highly illegal. This doesn't prevent the Republicans from doing it. Tim Griffin, by the way, is the newly appointed US Attorney for Arkansas replacing one of the eight US Attorneys fired by Attorney General Antonio Gonzales. Tim Griffin is also a protege of  Karl Rove.

The way vote caging works is as follows. Registered letters labeled "Do Not Forward" are sent to voters in poor black districts or to voters known to be soldiers serving in Iraq. This means that the voter or citizen has to go to the front window of the post office and sign for the letter. Many people are reluctant to do this because they suspect it may be a court summons or a dunning letter or they may not be able to do it because they're serving in Iraq or they may be homeless. So the letter gets sent back. This gives the Republicans grounds for challenging that voter when he or she comes to the polls to vote that they are not legally registered at that address. So the voter must then go home and get a utility bill and come back to the polls and show them that they do live there. In some cases they may be given a provisional ballot. The chances of a provisional ballot being counted are next to nothing. In most cases the voter would simply give up and go home. Thus Republicans suppress likely Democratic votes. Clever, eh?

It turns out (small world, eh) that Tim Griffin was Monica Goodling's former boss at the Republican National Committee (RNC) where he bragged that his shop made the bullets in the war against Democrats.

This Monica revealed something hotter — much hotter — than a stained blue dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One….And the Committee members didn’t even know it. Goodling testified that Gonzales’ Deputy AG, Paul McNulty, perjured himself, lying to the committee in earlier testimony. The lie: McNulty denied Monica had told him about Tim Griffin’s “involvement in ‘caging’ voters” in 2004. Huh?? Tim Griffin? “Caging”??? The perplexed committee members hadn’t a clue — and asked no substantive questions about it thereafter. Karl Rove is still smiling. If the members had gotten the clue, and asked the right questions, they would have found “the keys to the kingdom,” they thought they were looking for. They dangled right in front of their perplexed faces. The keys: the missing emails — and missing link — that could send Griffin and his boss, Rove, to the slammer for a long, long time.

Vote caging is illegal under the Federal Voting Rights Act. Oh, but that was passed mainly due to black Democrats. Republicans voted to do away with it. So it is a "Democrat law" which can be ignored by Republicans. Well, who would prosecute them anyway? The US Attorney? That would be Tim Griffin. Oh, he's the very one doing the vote caging. Does this mean he will have to prosecute himself? Fat chance! That is why he shouldn't ever be allowed to become US Attorney for Arkansas in the first place. Instead, he should be in jail for committing an illegal act: vote caging. Now he's being positioned to do more of it in the 2008 election.

Y'all Democrats, listen up y'heah! You want to know what the firing of the US Attorneys was about? It was about positioning people like Tim Griffin to throw the 2008 election(s) to Republicans. Oh, part of Tim Griffin's job was digging up dirt on Al Gore. You don't think that maybe he was placed as US Attorney in Arkansas for the reason of digging up dirt on Hillary Clinton just in time for the 2008 election, do ya?  Oh, blimey! Then he would have to prosecute himself again. Has the fox been put in charge of the henhouse? Tim Griffin has done a fine job of suppresssing the votes of poor blacks especially poor black soldiers fighting in Iraq as well as homeless people and others suspicious of registered letters. Why not appoint him to US Attorney? I see no reason at all. He has not only professed loyalty to Bush and Rove. He has demonstrably shown it with his deeds.

Someone's caging lord, kum bay ya.

Biking San Diego: Downtown Loop, South Park, North Park and Back

We start at the 12th and Imperial trolley station and head east on Imperial  Avenue. There is a lot of local color on Imperial Avenue not seen in Downtown although it's only a few blocks away. You can click on the pictures to make them larger.

We take a left on 25th St and head north to Golden Hill. Some of the landmarks along the way:

We cross Broadway and are in downtown Golden Hill. A good stop is at Panchita's bakery. Continue on to C street and take a right. Go to 30th and take a left. Now we're heading for South Park. In a few blocks, you'll find yourself on Fern. No worries. Stay on the main drag. It changes back to 30th at Juniper. Some of the sights of South Park:

Stan's Barber Shop really stans out! And there are a number of Laundromats, Laundramats, Laundermats, Laundrymats ... even Lavenderias! It seems to be one word in the English language that has no official spelling.

We are almost to University Avenue where we take a left. Here are a couple of final shots on 30th Street.

Finally, we turn west on University and pass an Albertsons. In just a few blocks we turn left on Park Avenue and head back toward downtown. We pass this church on our left.

We pass the zoo and Balboa Park and pass under this pedestrian bridge:

We see this view of the city and the El Cortez as we approach downtown.

This whole trip only took a couple hours and we passed through several outlying neighborhoods of the city. We board the trolley for the trip home wherever that may be! Yep, you can take your bike on the trolley. No problem!

Utopian Vision: Citizen Contractors Replace Corporations, Unions

Modern societal organization is composed of large scale institutions such as corporations and unions. The problem is that large corporations dominate the private economy sucking profits while minimizing labor costs. In other words their aim is to pay the people working for them as little as possible while enriching a few at the top. Hence you have outsourcing, hiring of illegals and obscene CEO pay among other maladies. Likewise, government workers are mainly unionized resulting in huge pension and health care costs and inefficient work performance since unions protect their workers from being fired regardless of their performance. This has put a stranglehold on many municipal governments which would be better off contracting out the work and firing city employees. The only problem is that the work would be contracted out to large corporations who would replace good paying jobs with low paid workers taking the difference in profits. What is the solution to this syndrome?

The idea is to set things up so that society serves and empowers the individual worker/citizen. The laws regarding corporations need to be changed. They should no longer be given the rights of personhood as they now are. The employer-employee relationship, which is basically a master- servant relationship, needs to be changed. Corporations, most  of which are now publicly owned via stock, should be set up in such a way that stock ownership is extended to all members of society and not just a select few. The corporation would still be publicly owned except now it would be owned by all members of the public and not just those who had the money to invest in stock, in other words not by just the investor class. Each citizen would have the rights of a contractor and not just the right to be hired as an employee. That means that various entities, government and corporate, would contract with citizens in such a way that the citizen and not the entity is empowered. Rating systems which monitor the citizen/contractor's performance would allow high performers to negotiate from a stronger position. Low performers would have an incentive to improve or else face the prospect of lower pay for their efforts.

Government would function in such  a way as to provide a giant  job search matching citizen/contractors to various openings that meet their requests for location, hours, working conditions, full or part time etc. Corporate power would be diminished to the individual level.  Corporate ownership would be society wide. Union membership would be society wide. That is each citizen (and not just a few union members) would benefit from union membership. A union member would be basically just a  citizen. For  example, unions ususally negotiate with corporations for health care benefits.  If health care is society wide such as in a universal health care system, then there is no need for a variety of unions to negotiate this benefit just for their members. In a democracy all the citizens should be able to vote for benefits that would apply to all members of society and not just to union members. By the same token, unions would not be in a position to protect "deadwood," non or low performing workers.  This would be reflected in each worker's job performance rating as an individual and in subsequent contracts. High performers would be able to command and  negotiate more money for the same contract than low performers. 

Small business enterprises could be started by individuals or groups and be privately owned. Once they reached a certain size, they would have to go public much as they "go public" today after they reach a  certain size.  The only difference would be that public ownership would be  extended to all members of  society. The  original owners of the business could be "bought out" by society mush as they are bought out today by the infusion of cash from an initial public offering (IPO).  So the essentials of entrepreneurship would  remain the same. The difference would be that corporations as entities in themselves would be disempowered and individuals would be empowered. Government and the corporate world would function in much the  same way in their relationships with individual workers. Government inefficiency is eliminated  by virtue of the fact that individual workers who didn't perform well would not be considered as seriously in the next round of contracts. There would be no need for firing someone. They just might not be given a subsequent contract or they wouldn't be given it on such favorable terms. However, non performance of a contract would be handled much the same as it is today. Managerial pay including that for CEOs need not be substantially higher than that for any other kind of work. Those qualified for any particular type of work would be taken into consideration for any openings. Their performance rating from previous contracts would be taken into account, and then the best person or persons would be chosen in such a way as to provide society with the best quality and quantity output for the monies expended in pay.

Just as huge amounts of money and power should be taken away from corporate management and ownership, the same should apply to government. Lobbying should be outlawed. Influence peddling should be eliminated. The revolving door between government and corporations should be  restricted. Political advertising should be curtailed.  It is by these means that relatively small groups of individuals seek to dominate the entire society for their own benefit and to the detriment of the vast majority. Their attempts at concentrating power and financial benefits in the hands of a relative few is something that should be severely restrained. Society should be self regulating and self organizing in such a way that each citizen has roughly the same power. Power and financial benefits need not be exactly the same for each individual; there can be a range of outcomes dependent on each individual's ability and performance, but no one individual or group should be able to dominate the entire society either politically or economically.

Preferensism is a philosphy of societal organization which accomplishes most of what is desirable in terms of the dispersion and distribution of power among all individual citizen voter/contractors. It enables the self organization and self regulation of society by providing a mechanism for linking financial rewards to quantity and quality of work performed. It empowers the individual by expanding the scope of available jobs, by providing a giant database of work available under a variety of working conditions. This is all integrated in such a way that all the desired work gets done as efficiently as possible. The individual is empowered. Equality of input to the system is guaranteed; equality of outcome is not. Dominant submissive work relationships such as employer-employee relationships are eliminated.

Bush Threatens Veto for a Lousy, Measley $6 a Month Raise for US Troops

While private contractors working in Iraq driving trucks, pumping gas and doing KP duty earn upwards of $100,000 a year, the troops, who earn about $1300. a month or $15,600. a year were denied a $6. a month raise. So it begs the question: is this appropriation bill that Congress is wrestling with Bush over, money to support the troops or money to support Halliburton, Blackwater and Dyncorp and their hires who make $100,000. a year? Please remember that Halliburton et al are reaping massive profits from their no bid contracts to supply "war services." Isn't this really where the money's going ... not to the troops?

According to ThinkProgress:

As ThinkProgress noted yesterday, President Bush has threatened to veto a House defense bill over a provision that raises the pay for U.S. soldiers by 3.5 percent, instead of the 3 percent preferred by the White House. Last night on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Todd Bowers — an Iraq war veteran and director of government affairs for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America — broke down the White House’s position in dollar terms. Bowers explained that the difference between a 3 percent and 3.5 percent pay raise is the difference of six bucks a month for the average servicemember. Bowers said: [The average servicemember] gets $1300 a month. You got expenses that you have to cover for. You got to take care of family members, car payments. It essentially adds up. This 3% raise would give them approximately $29 extra dollars, alright. Point five percent gives them an extra $6 dollars. We’re talking about $6 for someone that is serving over in Iraq and Afghanistan that is away from their families. It’s not too much to ask.

At the same time, according to US News & World Report the troops are being ripped off to the tune of $75. a month for internet access:

After we reported here yesterday that soldiers on large bases can purchase Internet access from a private contractor for around $70 a month, allowing them to circumvent the Department of Defense's ban of YouTube.com, MySpace.com, and 10 other popular websites from their servers, several readers wrote in questioning why the access is so pricey compared with rates back home. (We're hearing today that the figure is $75 a month.) Beth in Kentucky asks, "Do the soldiers with Internet access on base know how badly they are being ripped off? $75 for Internet access? My broadband service costs half that. We don't pay them enough to begin with, we give them low-rent hospital care when they come home, and now, we can't even give them a decently affordable internet service? What no-bid contractor got a hold of this one?" U.S. News Pentagon reporter Anna Mulrine did some asking around and found out that Internet access at Iraqi bases is provided by a company called Jackal Wireless, which operates a service called "Operation Internet Freedom" in Baghdad International Airport and several other bases in Iraq.

Bush has also shorted funds for troop health care:

The Bush administration, already accused by veterans groups of seeking inadequate funds for health care next year, acknowledged yesterday that it is short $1 billion for covering current needs at the Department of Veterans Affairs this year. The disclosure of the shortfall angered Senate Republicans who have been voting down Democratic proposals to boost VA programs at significant political cost. Their votes have brought the wrath of the American Legion, the Paralyzed Veterans of America and other organizations down on the GOP.

Notice that the Senate Republicans were not displeased that the vets were being shorted only that their role in the shorting was made public. So much for these hypocrites. But then we've known all along that they (the Republicans) were hypocrites. They wrap themselves in the flag and "support our troops" rhetoric while, at the same time, profiting themselves and their cronies from war. But every time they want more money for Bush's insane war policy, they phrase their request in terms of supporting our troops while in actuality they are supporting the war services corporations and ther highly paid "shadow army" who get $100,000. a year for pumping gas, driving trucks and pulling KP duty. That's where the real money's really going. The trigger pullers make $15,600. while the private contractors make upwards of $100,000. We  the tax payers are paying for no bid profits and huge salaries but not for our troops!

Military analysts say the private security arrangement allows regular military troops to concentrate on fighting. But they are concerned that the lucrative pay offered by private contractors -- often more than $100,000 a year -- is depleting the ranks of the special forces. There are other contractors who support the U.S. military in Iraq. Halliburton, the largest civilian contractor, has a Web site which currently lists more than 450 openings in Iraq. When the company threw a job fair last week in Houston, Texas, hundreds of applicants showed up. "You know, there's not that many jobs," said driver Bobby Johnson.

Also:

FACT — PENTAGON WORKING ON PROPOSAL TO TRIPLE COSTS OF MILITARY HEALTH INSURANCE (TRICARE): The Penatgon is proposing to “triple some Tricare insurance costs for military retirees and their families.” “Increases would be substantial — as much as $1,200 more a year by 2009 — with no end in sight because the plan calls for annual rate hikes in 2010 and beyond that would match inflation.” Bush has also chintzed the troops on body armor: FACT — THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S FAILURE TO PROVIDE BODY ARMOR HAS COST LIVES: The New York Times reported that a “secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor.” Body armor “has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field.” Additionally, the Pentagon has refused to reimburse troops who purchased their own armor. [New York Times, 1/7/06; AP, 9/30/05]

There are almost as many private contractors (100,000) in the private shadow army as there are troops (140,000). Take a look at the Appropriations bill for $125 billion. The President asks for zero, zip for Veterans' Health. The Democratic Congress proposed $1.8 billion. Bush proposed zip, nada for Homeland Security. Congress proposed $2.25 billion. Operations and Management accounts for some $50 billion. This is what goes to the war profiteering corporations to provide the shadow army of private contractors making over $100,000. a year. Procurement of $25 billion also goes to the "traditional" defense contractors. So the lion's share of the budget does not go to pay the troops. They are the peons, the cannon fodder, the trigger pullers. Four times as much as the troops get goes to the shadow army for war profits and $100,000 a year salaries. The troops who used to provide their own support personnel are increasingly just used as trigger pullers. Twice what goes to the troops goes to defense contractors for procurement.

We have blogged before about how stingy the Bush Administration is to the troops when they come home injured, denying them health care, disability and even making them pay back their signing bonuses! So when Bush makes a pitch to support our troops, he is really asking for money to support our war service corporations such as Halliburton, Blackwater and DynCorp. He is asking for huge amounts for private contractors making upwards of $100,000. a year, and he is asking for large amounts for traditional military-industrial complex corporations. Oh, and by the way, could he please have some chump change for the troops doing the actual fighting? The current poverty rate in the US for a family of three is $16,600. That means that our troop families consisting of a husband, a wife and one kid are living below the poverty rate! And Bush threatens a veto over giving them $6. a month more than what he has proposed!

Book Review: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins sets out in this book to prove that there is no God. In his initial chapters he goes over the "proofs" of the existence of God, as well as other reasons for believing in God such as Pascal's wager. Pascal said that one is better off to believe in God for the following reasons. Suppose there is a God and you believe in him. Then surely you will go to heaven. If there really isn't a God and you believe in him, you've lost nothing. But, if there is a God and you don't believe in him, you'll surely go to hell, whereas, if there really isn't a God and you don't believe in him, you've gained nothing so you're better off to believe in God. But hold on for a second. This is assuming that all God cares about is whether you believe in him or not. What if God doesn't really care whether or not you believe in Him but cares about how you've lived your life? Then all bets are off. And what if your believing in God causes you to carry an unnecessary and inhibiting baggage of false beliefs around your whole life, causes you to live in a mental straitjacket? Then surely, you've lost something by believing in God!

Dawkins separates the human race into a number of religious classifications from Theists (true believers) to Deists such as Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein, who believe God created the universe but doesn't micro-manage it by listening to and responding or not responding to prayers and supplications to agnostics who are unsure whether there is or isn't a God to atheists, like Dawkins, who believe there almost certainly is no God. We have to wait till the 4th chapter for Dawkins' proof that there almost certainly is no God and it is a big disappointment or maybe it's a huge relief depending on your point of view. His proof is essentially that, if there were a God, then who created Him and so on in an infinite regression? Well, it doesn't take too much imagination to imagine a God who is timeless, who exists outside of time and, therefore, always existed. Time is a function of the physical universe as Einstein demonstrated. Time started with the Big Bang and will end if the universe ends in a Big Crunch. If the universe continues to expand it may never end, but, at any rate, it is a function of our physical universe and doesn't apply to any entity that transcends our universe. Well, God, if He exists, and is the Creator of our universe would "almost certainly" transcend the time constraints of the universe He created. Timelessness is not hard to imagine, and I'm surprised that Dawkins, who prides himself on being able to imagine things beyond our normal 3 (or 4) dimensional world, doesn't seem capable of imagining it.

I agree with Dawkins that the great preponderance of war in human history has been justified by religion or has had religious overtones. Many ancient warlords and conquistadors were only interested in religion to the extent that any particular religion's God would help them to vanquish their enemies and win wars. The Roman emperor, Constantine, made Christianity the state religion of Rome only because he thought the Christian God would help him win battles. Otherwise, Christians would have probably continued being persecuted and tortured and thrown to the lions in the Roman Colosseum. But the existence or non-existence of God really has nothing to do with religion as it has played out in human history. I agree with Dawkins that religion really isn't about whether or not God exists so much as it is about filling a psychological void in the human experience. We probably need God more than God needs us.

If one is not a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist or a member of any other religion, one can still believe in the existence of God. Anyone can completely reject organizational religion and can still have a personal one. The fact that religion has been used to justify war does not mean that there is no God or that there is one. One of the positive things Dawkins is for is to conduct objective experiments which can reflect on certain religious beliefs. He discusses an experiment in which a group of cancer patients was prayed for by another group of people while a control group of cancer patients was not prayed for. It was double blind in the sense that no one knew which group was being prayed for or by whom. Then the two groups were statistically evaluated to see if one group had less deaths than the other. In this particular experiment, prayer was not found to have a benefical effect. There are other experiments that could be conducted. One I dreamt up is to have a carefully monitored light bulb hooked up to a switch that was switched off, but very easy to turn on. Then the object would be to have a group of people who would be willing to try to turn on the light after they had died. This experiment could be conducted over a long time span - many, many years. It would be hoped that a large group of people would agree to be participants. This would tend to prove or disprove that there are ghosts or that people who have recently died could affect reality among the living by interacting with them as ghosts and, at least, some of the dearly departed are reported to do. It is claimed that ghosts can open and close doors. Then they should be able to turn a light off and on. This would be a controlled experiment as opposed to the anecdotal stories that are heard which could be entirely apocryphal. The number of times the light turned on spontaneously could be compared to the number of people in the control group who had died.The only problem with experiments such as these is that true believers are not interested in conducting them, and scientists are for the most part not interested either.

Dawkins explores to a great extent the dichotomy between Darwin's theory of evolution and the religious fundamentalist theory of Creationism. Of course, he comes down on the side of Darwin and his arguments are most convincing. This is really child's play for an intellect like Dawkins. It's a no-brainer that the theory of evolution is viable. The only question is do we know all that there is to know about how evolution works? I don't think so. I think there is more to be discovered. It would be arrogant to assume that the last word has been written about any scientific theory. Will Darwin's theory ever be invalidated? I don't think so. Will it ever be added to or subsumed? Undoubtedly. While random genetic changes over a long period of time and natural selection can account for the evolution of complex species from simple ones, is randomness the only mechanism that's involved? I don't think science can maintain that with 100% certainty. I think there may be other mechanisms like even maybe the subconscious mind that might affect mutations thus making them somewhat less than totally random. I also happen to think that Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) is a reality. There was a book "Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain" that reported scientific experiments on ESP and, to my mind at least, strongly suggests the reality of such phenomena. J.B. Rhine founded a Department of Parapsychology at Duke University and conducted statistical experiments in card guessing and dice tossing. I think this is a fruitful area of research although there doesn't seem to be any money to fund it in a theocratic, militaristic culture such as the US.

Dawkins pays tribute to the psychological roots of religion. As human beings, we are all in need of solace, peace of mind, consolation and love. When I was a boy, my parents led me to believe in Santa Clause. Now there was somebody who loved me and rewarded me every Christmas by delivering a great assortment of presents. It was my favorite time of year, and Santa Claus was my best (imaginary) friend. Of course, it was my parents who loved me and delivered the presents. My Mom taught me that, although she didn't put it in exactly these terms, God was essentially Santa Claus writ large. God was all loving. God loved me unconditionally. That was the God they taught me to believe in. This was very comforting. Although I'm ambivalent about a personal God at this point, it is still comforting to believe that the universe has a purpose and God, while I don't believe He micro-manages life on earth, ultimately wants good to win out over evil. The purpose of the universe may be nothing more than the unfolding drama, the spectacle of it all, from beautiful sunsets to the ecstasy of sex. I tend to think prayer may have some validity, even though God doen't necessarily hear and answer prayers, in terms of sending out good thoughts and wishes via ESP to other human beings. So prayer may have validity even though the mechanism by which it works may not be the same mechanism that most people who pray believe in. In fact God may have set up the universe to work perfectly and automatically (including evolution), physically and spiritually, without his having to do anything.

This gets to the heart of the problem. Suppose that all religion is subjective and has nothing to do with objective reality. Dawkins decries wishful thinking, self-delusion and anthropomorphism where anthropomorphism is defined as ascribing human attributes to inanimate objects, natural phenomena or in this case God. As Dawkins points out, human beings' minds can play tricks on them when dealing with objective reality and most humans don't have the aptitude, inclination or robust intellect to be absolutely objective. It is too cold and forbidding. So we need things like God if only in the mythological sense. Dawkins and other scientists, and, in particular, atheists tend to take things absolutely literally. They are literalists for whom something is either true or false. What does it hurt to believe in a God of our own devising if we can believe in art, history, mythology, even Santa Claus, for Christ's sake, even though we know he doesn't really exist, and find some consolation there. Dawkins rightfully points out the importance of the Bible as part of our literary, cultural and historical heritage. Maybe we should consider God a part of our mythological heritage too and yet still draw comfort from Him as we would from art, music or literature - in other words not take God too literally or too objectively. How could you tell a child who has lost her mother anything other than "Mommy is in heaven with God"? Dawkins mentions religion as consolation and this is probably the bottom line of why religion is necessary even if you don't believe in it with your rational mind. You couldn't tell a child that her mother's death was just a random perturbation of atoms and molecules that came together in an unfortunate circumstance.

The trouble with atheists, especially atheist scientists, is that they don't even believe they they themselves exist as anything other than a machine, let alone whether God exists. Turing invented the Turing machine and the Turing Test. He said imagine that you ask questions through a slot in the wall. On the other side of the wall is either a computer or a human who supplies the answers through the same slot. If the computer is sufficiently complex, you could not tell the difference between a human and a computer based on the answers you get. Some scientists even believe that advanced computers or robots even have conscious feelings. So in a spiritual sense, some scientists, at least, believe that machines are "alive" and that they themselves are nothing more than "dead" machines. If you can't believe in yourself as a spiritual being, a self who is real to you anyway, how could you ever believe in the existence of something beyond yourself whom you've never seen or experienced in any direct way?

So let's postulate for a minute that God exists. Then the real question is: "What is the nature of God?" Is he all powerful and all loving? No, he can't be both because, if he was, he would step in and prevent the slaughter of innocents. He could have prevented 9/11 just by having better communications between the FBI and the CIA, not to mention having the President willing to read the PDB which was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack within the US.". He could have prevented the Nazi genocide of the Jews. He could have prevented genocide in Darfur. So it's obvious to me that God is not micromanaging affairs on earth. I think of myself as a Deist plus. I think God could have set up the universe just by defining six numbers, and set it up so that God is involved on an ongoing basis in terms of psychic and spiritual phenomena. In fact God, instead of being a well-defined entity outside the universe, could have immersed himself and dispersed himself within the universe and life itself could be God manifested in multitudinous forms combining both spiritual and physical attributes.

So the atheist position that there is no God is sort of a conversation ender. It's much more interesting to wonder, if there is a God, what is his nature, and what am I doing here and how does that all relate to the purpose, if there is one, of the universe?

Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago is among the best in the US, the others being the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of  Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim (the last two in New York City). I was fortunate enough to be there when they were having a special exhibition: "Vollard: From Cezanne to Picasso" - which was the most fantastic special exhibition I've ever seen. Art had been gathered from all over the world and to say it was extensive would be an understatement. But the regular collection of non-religious European art, especially the Impressionists and post-Impresssionists, is one of the best, if not the best, in the world. Fortunately, they let you take non-flash pictures of the permanent collection, but no photography was allowed in the  special exhibition.

When you enter the main gallery you are treated to a major dose of Impressionism right off the bat which sets the tone for tthe whole museum. The main piece here is Gustave Caillebotte's "Paris Street, Rainy Day."  Caillebotte is one of my favorite Impresssionists because, in addition to his talent, his life story is inspiring. Caillebotte was born into an upper class family and earned a degree in law.  Forsaking law for painting, Caillebotte's inheritance allowed him to befriend several of the major Impressionists including Monet, Renoir and Pissarro and to fund their exhibitions. He even paid Monet's rent! Caillebotte died prematurely at the age of 46. In his will, he donated a large collection of his own and other Impressionists' work (which he had purchased) to the French government. The government, however, looked down on Impresssionism at the time and demurred. Finally, the French government took some of the paintings. The remaining paintings were offered twice again and both times turned down. Finally, in 1928, the government decided it wanted the paintings, but Caillebotte's son's widow repudiated them and sold the paintings to an art collector. Lesson to the French government: He who hesitates is lost! Forty of Caillebotte's paintings are in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.

Another of my favorite Impresssionists is Camillé Pissarro, the only Jewish Impresssionist. Like Caillebotte, Pissarrro was also a mentor to other Impressionists.  He married the "bon" (the family maid), and, unfortunately, Pissarro's mother would have nothing to do with him after that, not even speaking to her eight grandchildren for the rest of her life! All of Pissarro's children learned to paint and draw. Camillé's great-grandson, Joachim Pissarro, is currently the Head Curator of Drawing and Painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. His great-granddaughter, Lelia, is a successful painter and resides in London. An excellent biographical novel about Pissarro by Irving Stone is "The Depths of Glory."

Some of my other favorites from the  collection are Monet's Haystacks:

Also these by Kandinsky:

Toulouse Latrec (another interesting life story including rejection by his upper class family):

Seurat and "Nighthawks" by American Edwin Hopper:

Regarding the special exhibition, "Vollard: From Cezanne to Picasso," art was collected from all over the world for this one. Vollard was an art dealer who got rich off of the Impressionists. This was all right with Cezanne who came from a wealthy family and just wanted  to be famous. By the way Cezanne painted the best apples! Ask anybody. It wasn't OK with Gaugin who really needed the money. Vollard usually sold paintings for 10 times what he paid for them. Sometimes he bought paintings directly, then resold them; sometimes he took them on consignment. He had several exhibitions for Van Gogh after Van Gogh's death with paintings on loan from Van Gogh's sister-in-law, but never sold any. I couldn't believe that I could stand within inches of Van Gogh's "A Starry Night." I'm assuming it was the original, but it was completely unprotected, and it's worth millions. There is another excellent biographical novel by Irving Stone about Van Gogh's life: "Lust for life." The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has the largest collection of Van Goghs: an entire museum devoted to his work. Founded by Van Gogh's nephew, Dr. Vincent Wilhelm Van Gogh, the Van Gogh Museum opened to the public in 1973. Its holdings, on loan from the Vincent Van Gogh Foundation, include some 200 paintings and more than 500 drawings and 700 letters by the famous Dutch master.

I spent some time in Auvers-sur-Oise where Van Gogh spent his final days. He is buried there next to his brother Theo who was an art dealer and chief supporter of his brother, Vincent. Theo's wife gave up her place next to her husband so the two brothers could be buried together. Theo's son, Vincent's nephew and namesake, lived until 1978 and so bore witness to his uncle's rise from someone whose work was rejected in his own time to someone who was world famous and whose paintings sold for millions.

All in all, the Impressionist period was one of the most fertile in art history both for the richness of the art and also for the colorful characters and life stories of the artists who began their careers being totally rejected by the art establishment. For the album containing more photos I took of paintings at the Art Institute click here.

Chicago, that Toddlin Town

I recently stopped off for a days in Chicago before continuing on to the East Coast. I had changed planes in Chicago many times, but I had never really "been" to Chicago. From O'Hare Airport I took the Blue Line train to my hotel in downtown having to change trains only once. I checked in at the Essex, the cheapest hotel I could find in downtown but one which I would highly recommend. They played jazz in the lobby - some great Charlie Parker licks I had never heard before, and there were art reprints on all the walls. The TV remote actually worked! Also it was centrally located on Michigan Avenue just across the street  from Grant Park, Chicago's Central Park (pardon the NYC centric-ness). The only unfortunate thing abouut the hotel was that the pool, which was very nice, was closed for remodeling. So I had to get up early and take the Red Line subway to the New City YMCA in north Chicago where I got to swim for free with my San Diego Y card.  In fact I swam for free at all  the various Y's I used on this trip including Summit, NJ and the Sussex Count Y, located near  Hamburg, NJ. Such a deal! By the way click on any picture to make it larger.

Michigan Avenue is one of the finest streets in Chicago: many fine hotels and restaurants. Just up Michigan Avenue from the Essex is the Art Institute of Chicago, my primary destination and one of the finest art museums in the world, certainly the best in the US for European art from the Impressionist era. They were having a special exhibition: "Vollard: From Cezanne to Picasso." Vollard was the art dealer who handled most of the Impressionists' and post-Impressionists' stuff and got rich in the process although the same couldn't be said about most of the Impressionists. But more about that in a separate blog just about the Art Institute. For now the photo album is available here.

After checking in, I headed up Michigan Ave to Millenium Park, a new and glitzy part of Grant Park featuring a stage and area for outdoor concerts and other productions. Along the way I got some neat shots of some of Chicago's signature landmark buldings such as the Aon Center, Prudential Plaza, CNA Plaza (painted bright red).Then I did a little walking tour around the circumference of Grant Park. Not as well developed as Central Park in NYC, neverthelesss, the park contains an assortment of monuments and fountains including the most famous: Buckingham Fountain. As it was gettting dark, I headed north on Michigan Avenue and back to my hotel.

The next day I walked around downtown snapping pictures (my favorite thing to do) until it was time for the  Art Institute to open. There are a lot of architecturally splendiferous buildings including the  Sears Tower, the tallest building in the world till 1996 and since the demise of the World Trade Center, the tallest building in North America. I circumnavigated downtown along the Chicago River staying mostly on Wacker Ave (wonderful Wwwackerrrr, I couldn't help saying that, with apologies to George Carlin). There are lots of gleaming towers in downtown Chicago such as 311 South Wacker, and lots of famous department stores including Sears Roebuck, of course, as well as Macy's (formerly Marshall Fields), and Carson Pirie Scott as well as all the usual mall varieties such as Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom's.

There are some unusual condos along the Chicago River and Trump (who else!)  is building more.

The "El" an elevated train makes the  rounds around downtown known as "the Loop." There is also a subway containing  the  blue line, the  red line and an assortment of other colors.

After my day at the Art Institute I took a brief nap at my hotel and then headed out again. I decided to walk the "Magnificent Mile" that stretch of Michigan Ave located north of the Chicago River which is the premium shopping area of downtown Chicago. Additionally, there's the  Wrigley Building, the Chicago Tribune building and the John Hancock building among others.

 

Figuring I'd walked a good ten miles that day including the 5 hours I spent at the Art Institute, I retired to my hotel. That night a serious storm blew in off Lake Michigan. The next morning I seriously wondered whether I should go to the Y and swim or not. But I decided, what the heck, and ventured out. I never came so close to being blown off my feet. The snow  was blowing horizontal!  I made it to the Y (one of few who did), then, on the way ba, got off the Red Line at Jackson for a Starbucks I'd recently found (I'd had to settle for Dunkin Donuts the previous day), got back on the Red Line and went one stop to Harrison, the closest stop to my hotel. I got my stuff, checked out, and gingerly walked the 4 blocks back to the Harrison subway stop in the slush almost getting blown off my feet again.

After changing to the Blue Line, I arrived in plenty of time for my 1:50 PM flight to Newark only to find out my flight had been canceled.  I finally got on a flight 10 hours later.  I had booked a rental car with Enterprise in Newark; then I noticed from my printout that their office closed at 11 PM. I inquired what would happen if my flight was arriving later than the office was open, and Enterprise told me they would cancel my reservation and I could come back the next day and see if anything was available.  I immediately rebooked a rental car with Hertz whose office was open 24/7 at Newark Airport. Live and learn:  the  cheapest rental car is not always the best deal!

For the complete Chicago photo album click here.

Is Human Nature Basically Good or Basically Bad?

Thom Hartmann, a talk show host on Air America, is always referring to the conundrum about human nature: is it basically good or basically evil. I think "evil" is a loaded word so I transcribe the question to good vs bad. Hartmann then goes on to say that the traditionally liberal position is that human nature is basically good and the traditional conservative position is that human nature is basically bad. This leads to liberal positions that government should be a "backstop", something that provides help for people in need such as universal health care etc, and conservative positions that government should be a police force or military, something that protects the good guys from the bad guys.

My question is: why can't government do both? Provide social protection such as education, health care, social security and provide police protection from the bad guys. In fact most governments do both so there isn't such a dichotomy as Hartmann imagines.

Returning to the basic question, I don't think there is such a thing as human nature in general. I think there is an aggregate of many human natures, and human nature spans the whole spectrum from good to bad. Some people are basically good and some are basically bad. Most are somewhere in between. The real question is "is the median human nature more good than bad or more bad than good or absolutely neutral, that is neither good nor bad." If bad is on the extreme right end of the spectrum and good is on the extreme left end, let zero represent the neutral point, negative numbers represent good points and positive numbers represent bad points. So the question becomes where does the median or average human nature lie.

My answer is that the average would be somewhere slightly to the right of zero or slightly bad. The reason is that I think people in general are basically selfish. For a person to be on the good side of the spectrum, he or she would have to balance selfishness with compassion, self-interest with caring for others. Since compassion and caring for others seem in short supply, on average, I don't think human nature is, on average, basically good although there have been examples of people who are basically good such as Albert Schweitzer and Mother Teresa, people who have devoted their lives to  caring for others, people of immense caring and compassion.

However, just because the average human nature is more bad than good is no reason to say that government should be just a police force and that's it, that people should fend for themselves. You would have to be pretty far to the right on the spectrum before I would say that you don't deserve any help from society but only deserve punishment. Shouldn't liberal government serve the bad as well as the good, especially when the bad aren't totally and thoroughly bad? I think so. It just need not be suckered. There are people who will abuse and subvert any service. This has to be guarded against. So while serving with the left hand, government has to be willing to punish, if need be, with the right.

From a Darwinian perspective, human nature has evolved in such a way that under certain conditions bad people are more successful than good and under different conditions good people are more successful than bad. Under primitive, less civilized conditions, in conditions of lawlessness, bad people tend to win out. For several centuries after the fall of the Roman empire, for example, war parties and raiders massacred peaceable people, pillaged, raped and stole their property. Bad people prevailed driving out good. In more civilized societies where the rule of law prevails, good people tend to drive out bad by either imprisonment or execution. However, bad people because of their ruthlessness, tend to rise to the top and gain powerful positions in large organizations including government. They, therefore, are in a position to wreak havoc on entire human civilizations. At the same time many small individual selfish decisions can lead to destruction of the environment by ignoring the welfare of the commons and only being concerned with selfish welfare. Both of these tendencies could cause the extinction of the human race just as 90% or more of the species that have ever existed have become extinct.

Whether humans can rise the level of compassion and cooperation necessary to  realize that their own collective selfishness is a threat to their quality of life and the cultivation of the commons is an enhancement remains to be seen. In some parts of the world, they seem to "get it." In other parts, not. It's a drama whose final  chapter has not yet been written.