a poke in the mind with a sharp pen

I heard via radio talk show (The Young Turks) this morning that a debate among Democratic hopefuls finally made some interesting points. Edwards mentioned that he hasn’t accepted money from any lobbyists for his campaign. Then Obama seconded that “emotion”. Hillary couldn’t say the same thing and I think it might cost her the nomination.
Up until now these debates haven’t been very good theater. As much as these three candidates want to be seen as different from each other, their differences don’t seem very great. Face it, after so many years of W’s smirky face and disgusting war, they all look very good to us. Most of us are for all three of them and against none of them. But now I think they have found the difference that will make the difference.
Lobbyists have never been a highly esteemed lot and during this administration they’ve sunk lower than a week old cow patty. The fact is that Fred Thompson is beginning to look like a viable candidate, but his years spent as a lobbyist are likely to keep him out of the White House, if not out of the primary race. And the problem is that a Hillary who is accepting campaign money from lobbyists, couldn’t use the issue if she was running against him. It would be the pot calling the kettle black. If she’s defending the lobbyists she’s getting campaign money from, how can she turn around and attack him for having been a lobbyist? And regardless of whom she’s running against, defending lobbyists is not a good position for her or any candidate to be in these days.
I don’t think this issue is going to go away soon. Democratic voters will have to consider, during the primaries, whether it’s likely to have a major impact in the election. Is it a weakness the Republicans might be able to use effectively against her? And conversely, if Edwards & Obama have campaign finances as squeaky clean as they say, will it be a big advantage for them to be able to call out their Republican opponent on the issue?

Is it just me, or does anybody else see that two of this world’s most pressing problems can and must be solved with one rather simple solution? The oil producing countries of the world are the focus of dangerously too much wealth, power and attention, while global warming is soon likely to make the Earth nearly (or totally) uninhabitable. And what will it take to turn these problems around, hopefully while mankind can still survive? Solar and wind power are clearly the answer. It’s not nearly as complicated as rocket science, but it is more important.
If the human race is to survive much longer, we must see the answer shinin’ in the sun and hear it blowin’ in the wind. The roof of every house in the world must someday soon have a solar panel on the south side and a wind generator on the north side, both feeding electricity into a battery in the attic. Beside that battery there may need to sit a small emergency gas powered generator which will automatically operate two or three times a year.
Such a system will not only provide the energy needed for each home, it will also fuel the family’s electric cars. When you get home from work remember to plug in the car. If your charge runs low on a long trip, just pull into a “gas” station and exchange your battery for one that’s fully charged. Of course when you’re on a trip your motel will charge up your car while you sleep.
What about big office or apartment buildings without roof space for enough solar panels? There will be large wind generators on the roof, while on the south side of those buildings, awnings will stretch over each window -- awnings which double as solar panels. Big factories will have roofs over their huge parking lots, pleasantly sheltering the employees’ cars, while the solar panels on top gather energy.
Telephone poles and power lines will be a thing of the past. No more trees falling in storms and knocking out the power or starting fires. No more trees will be cut down to make telephone poles. Thousands of acres of land now used for high power electric lines will be freed up for other usage.
Up north, where the sun doesn’t shine so directly and winter nights are too long, the wind generators will need to be larger and geothermal energy will be necessary. Even then the emergency gas powered generators might get a bit more use.
It’s my understanding that we have had the ability to do all of this for some time. One thing that’s been holding us back from using electric cars is the idea that they need to compete performance-wise with gasoline cars. Right now perhaps they can’t do zero to sixty in five seconds, but they will improve if there’s competition. And who really needs to go that fast? Can we all slow down to fifty miles an hour to save the planet? I hope so.
Somehow the government must facilitate these changes, because private enterprise will never do it quickly enough to save the planet from destruction. Call it national defense, because oil dependence on middle eastern countries is dangerous to us and to our economy.
The most ridicules move being made recently is toward ethanol, which is very nearly as environmentally damaging as petroleum. Also it’s absolutely obscene to commit our agricultural resources to making ethanol while global warming problems begin to cause such problems feeding the world. And I’ve also heard that farmers use oil based fertilizer to grow the crops to make ethanol. How crazy is that?
The direction we must take is clear. Hydrogen power may be the answer for airplanes, trains and trucks, but the sun and the wind must be made our main energy sources as soon as possible, while petroleum should be used mainly to manufacture plastics.

When sectarian ideas become law, countries lose momentum. Economic, and intellectual leadership in the world depend on progress and a country’s progress slows when religion effects policy too much.
There are examples of this throughout history. Centuries ago the middle east was a leader in the world -- scientifically, artistically and militarily. Two of the sectarian ideas which caused them to lose their momentum, are the idea that it is immoral to collect interest on loans and the idea that women are not entitled to equal rights.
Because Arabs could not collect interest on loans, they were effectively shut out of the banking business. Their religious laws sealed their doom, because we know that money is power and banks are where the money is. The Jews, who had no such laws against collecting interest on loans, became the bankers and the powerful. It wasn’t because Jews were such brilliant financial wizards, or that they were evil or overly conniving. It was because the Arab’s own religious law put them at a total and absurd disadvantage.
Because they gave women no opportunities to become educated the Arabs lost considerably more than half their intellectual pool. If you measure physically, they lost exactly half. But consider the contributions and competition that were lost – intellectual contributions and competition which would have made their male academics better. It’s been well proven that countries where women have equal (or nearly equal) opportunities progress better economically, scientifically and socially.
The Arab leaders truly believed their religion which said collecting interest was immoral and women were not equal. They legislated those beliefs and those were among the main reasons that Europe gradually took over as the world’s leader. If it wasn’t for the value of their oil, the middle east countries likely wouldn’t have yet regained a significant role in the world.
Today we have the some thing trying to happen in the United States, where the leadership role in the world migrated from Europe partly because of religious oppression. We have people beginning to legislate their sectarian views. If they continue to do so, they will slow our progress and hasten our fall from leadership.
One of the most important and exciting areas of scientific study today is stem cell research. Some religious people believe it’s immoral, not too unlike those Arabs who believed collecting interest on loans was immoral. Because President Bush and his republican congress have legislated against stem cell research, many scientists who want to work on this most promising leading edge of science have moved and are moving out of the country. And so our intellectual pool and our leadership in science has begun to ebb.
Some of our religious people label homosexuality immoral and are trying to legislate against equal rights for gays. If their misguided yet relentless efforts to make gays second class citizens should succeed, many gays might be inclined to leave the country. Losing that portion of the intellectual pool would further accelerate our fall from leadership in the world.
I heard about a southern community of farmers who hired a consultant to come and tell them how to get businesses interested in moving into their county. They wanted to diversify their tax base and provide employment, so that fewer of their children would be moving away to find work. They had a meeting where the consultant talked about tax abatements, roads, water and other infrastructure improvements that were necessary to attract businesses. The farmers were nodding their heads and agreeing with him unanimously until he mentioned homosexuality. The consultant explained that because businesses employed a certain amount of gays, they would have to be tolerant and accepting of gays in the community. The meeting ended right there and that farming community made no attempts to lure business. If and when those farmers make our country into their community, business and power will go elsewhere and we’ll become a third rate country.
Ah ye greatly religious folk who wish to have your morals de jour legislated for us all to “enjoy”. You remind me of a line from Leonard Cohen’s song “Suzanne”. How long will it be till we all sink “beneath your wisdom like a stone”?

Bits & Pieces

Have you noticed that Republicans are no longer pushing to have English made the official language of the U.S.? Do you suppose they realized that if English was made the official language, not being able to speak it just might be an impeachable offense?
"If we leave, they’ll follow us home." How many times have we heard that line? Does anyone remember that in Afghanistan the Russians fought mostly the same folks we’re fighting now? After about eight years the Russians gave up and went home. They didn’t win. They just left. And nobody followed them home to Russia. How can anybody say they’ll follow us home if we leave, when the same enemy didn’t follow the Russians home when they left?
I mentioned to somebody that Saddam and Osama were enemies and Saddam had nothing to do with 911. They replied that Osama had a training camp in Iraq before 911, so they must have been allies. That’s like saying that because Timothy McVay and Terry Nichols lived in Michigan and were members of the Michigan Militia it follows that the State of Michigan was allied with them.
Do you know what an escape goat is? An escape goat is similar to a Trojan Horse – it’s big, made of wood and you can get inside. The way it works is that when the Trojan Horse comes into your castle through the front gate, you go out the back gate in the escape goat.

It amazes me how many apparently intelligent people regard homosexuality a choice. Given the treatment gays endure, who would choose being gay? Why would anyone choose being gay then spend years in the closet? I never chose being straight. Did you? Nobody chooses whether or not to be sexually aroused by the sight of someone entering the room. Either we are aroused or we’re not. Sexual arousal is a reflex, not a choice.
I assumed homosexuality was a genetic mix-up – some combination of genes that occurs occasionally. I figured scientists would sort it out someday fairly soon and once-and-for-all debunk the queer notion that being gay is a choice. But something exciting has changed my thinking.
I recently heard that homosexuality is caused by a mix-up, not in the genes, but rather regarding testosterone received by the fetus. Three drops of testosterone pass through the placenta during fetal development. When the amount or timing of those three drops varies, it effects the sexual orientation of the fetus.
Apparently the first clue was several studies showing younger siblings more likely to be gay. The mother’s age wasn’t a factor, so it pointed to a variation in the womb, one growing more likely to occur with each pregnancy. Research has revealed those three drops of testosterone to be the answer.
If we know this to any degree of certainty, why hasn’t it made the headlines? Shout it from the rooftops! Haven’t gays suffered long enough at the hands of those insisting that their sexual orientation is of their own choosing? Here, finally, is proof that it is not. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this knowledge is the key to a Pandora’s box.
Knowing the cause, how long till we learn the solution? A year? Five years? Perhaps you test the fluid in the placenta on the 53rd day and add a drop of testosterone if necessary. Do the same on days 66 and 71 and your child is guaranteed to be as straight as an arrow. It’s likely not quite that simple, but we can most certainly figure it out and make the necessary changes. But do we want to?
Isn’t this the point at which we say no? Even those religious folks who decry homosexuality so strong and loudly must say no, that it’s God’s design and we must not alter it. He does not make mistakes.
Anyone needing nonsectarian reasons to say no, must only imagine a world of very masculine men and very feminine women. Such a homogeneous society seems more appalling than appealing.
We are all varying mixes of masculinity and femininity. Most importantly we need the greatest variety of individuals we can get to be the strongest society we can be. Who knows what the makeup of our next brilliant planet-saving scientist will be? What if we add a single drop of testosterone to his/her fetus on the 53rd day, so he/she becomes a professional wrestler or happy homemaker, not a scientist? Thus does our homophobia cause this planet to parish.
Clearly just learning about the biological cause of homosexuality should hasten the eradication of the homophobia malady. However by continuing to pursue this line of research we may find the key to a much more serious puzzle – pedophilia. Might it be possible that by adjusting when a drop of testosterone is introduced to the fetus we could prevent pedophilia? It seems so to me.
Of course homosexuality and pedophilia are quite different. I know that gays bristle at any comparisons, and rightly so. They are however, both variations in one’s sexual orientation, so it truly seems likely that their root causes might be closely related.
I can't see us having any compunction about preventing pedophilia if and when that becomes possible. But what if we become able to identify -- but not cure -- pedophiles when they are in the fetal stage? Should we allow, encourage or even require parents to abort them?
It's difficult to imagine a much thornier issue than this, but the time is nearing when science will make some very tough decisions necessary.

If any of the candidates running for president watched the Kerry campaign, then they know how not to win the presidency. If any of them watched when Bill Clinton answered questions put to him live on TV by college students and if they’ve watched the most popular show on TV – American Idol – then they should know how to win this election.
No I’m not suggesting that ALL that glitz and glamor should be added to question-and-answer sessions. That could be a disaster. But a certain amount, if it was done PRECISELY the right way, would be absolutely tremendously fantastic. So let me spell it out, Mr./Ms. Candidate. Here is PRECISELY the right way.
Plan four televised question-and-answer programs, roughly splitting the country into four quarters. Schedule them each a week or two apart. First, invite the student newspaper editor and one history professor from each of fifty widely diverse universities to participate for a day at each of the four locations. In total 200 students and 200 profs are invited to four locations, each bringing two questions to ask the candidate.
When they arrive, divide them into ten groups of ten, being sure to keep people from right wing schools together and people from left wing schools together to make certain a greater diversity of questions for the candidate. Transparency is the highest priority and getting the best questions is the main goal. You need to show an openness to answering questions from the right, left and center.
At the beginning of the day the ten groups are sequestered and, using secret vote, each required to choose the three best questions to represent their group. Those three questions are then sent to each of the nine other groups, where the members discuss the questions and, again using secret vote, decide which is the best of each three questions.
After lunch all those votes are tabulated and then the top ten voted questions -- one from each group – are discussed by the entire assembled group. The goal here is to eliminate any duplication among the questions, and consider any suggested changes of wording in the questions. If any of the questions are voted too close to being duplicates, the group must vote on which of the duplicates is better and eliminate the other.
All this choosing of questions must be done in total secret from the candidate or anyone in his/her campaign, so that the ones chosen are the questions voters want answered, not the questions the candidate wants to answer. Also the answer will be that of the candidate, not a politically correct one made up by political advisers. Total transparency is the key. The candidate is showing his/her willingness to answer any question the people want to ask, as well as showing how he/she will be open to transparency while in the White House.
After dinner, comes the live televised question-and-answer session. The authors of the chosen questions form a panel seated on stage across from the candidate, while their 90 compatriots comprise the audience. The first few minutes of the TV program tells about the participants and how they spent the day choosing the questions. Then the first question is pulled out of a hat and asked by the narrator. The candidate is given about three minutes to answer.
After the candidate’s answer, the narrator asks the panel whether the candidate directly answered the question or went off in another direction and avoided it. They each hold up a numbered card from one to ten – a ten meaning the candidate stayed on topic and answered completely and a zero meaning he/she did not. Then the narrator asks the panel members whether they liked and agreed with the candidate’s answer and again the panel members hold up a numbered card.
When all the questions and answers are done, the candidate chooses one of the questions and spends a few minutes discussing that question with its author. Finally the audience votes on the best question of the evening, its author is congratulated and given two tickets to the party convention and that’s the end.
Can anybody see how refreshing such openness by a candidate would be? Can anybody hear that candidate promising to continue those exact same question-and-answer sessions with all their transparency every four months when he/she is president? Can anybody imagine what size of an audience might tune in to such an entertaining and informative program?
When used really well, TV can be THE great informer of the people. Here would be a chance Mr./Ms. Candidate. Are there any questions?

I had the good fortune to visit Europe for the first time recently. I’ve seen much of the United States, even lived in San Francisco and New York City a few years, but I’d never been a world traveler until I went last October to see my son Seth, who was studying at Freiburg University in the Black Forest area of southern Germany.
The city of Freiburg lies near the Swiss border in a long crescent-shaped valley which gets its rounded shape from a rather high hill around which it curves. The city follows the shape of the valley. Freiburg’s downtown area, with its beautiful streets and sidewalks of cobblestone, is north of the hill. As you go west and south around the hill you find the suburban area and then at the southern end of the hill the valley goes south, gradually becoming a rather hilly agricultural area.
The University, a highly renowned school, is located in the downtown area, where all the buildings have stores on the first floor, and two or three stories of offices or apartments above. Many streets are quite narrow and often shops open onto crooked little alleyways.
No cars are allowed in the downtown area. People walk, cycle or ride the light trains, which have tracks in the middle of nearly all the main streets. The occasional police car, fire truck, ambulance or authorized delivery truck are the only motorized vehicles about. Pedestrians and bikers abound.
The morning after I arrived, I spent exploring the downtown area, while Seth was in class. I got lost more than once among the neat little quirky cobblestone alley-ways, but managed to find my way back to our designated meeting spot quite timely. We lunched and then, rather than walking his usual route home around the hill, we went over it.
When I was my son’s age, I hiked with two friends from the floor of Yosemite Valley up to Glacier Point and back down. Though this climb was perhaps about one-quarter the height of the one in Yosemite, it reminded me of that trek. The paths were nearly as steep and there were almost as many switchbacks. The weather was perfect, I enjoyed it and I felt very good, but did have to stop and rest three times on the way up and twice on the way down.
At the top of the hill we climbed the observation tower, because thick trees all around blocked the view, not that we wouldn’t have climbed it regardless. So round we went up the circular stairway to the small platform well above the treetops. There we found a superb view of the city, the valley and the hills.
We were not alone. One man who looked to be in his mid-seventies was up there. Soon we asked him to photograph us with the city in the background and he was happy to do so. Then he and my son engaged in a rather lengthy conversation in German. I don’t speak German, so Seth told me afterwards of the conversation.
I was flabbergasted to learn that he was actually ninety-two years old. As I said, he looked a healthy mid-seventyish. But not only had he made the trek up there that day, he lived in Freiburg and in the two years since the tower had been built, he’d climbed up there precisely two hundred and eleven times.
There was considerably more than this amazing revelation in his conversation with my son though. It seems that as a German soldier in World War II he was captured by U.S. soldiers in Italy. With quite a few other prisoners of war, he’d been sent to Wyoming, to work on a sugar beet farm for the duration.
Uncertain exactly what to say, my son said: “That’s too bad.” But the man laughed and said: “No that wasn’t bad. Bad would have been being captured by the Russians.” He had made it through the war with all his limbs and his good health, but almost none of those who went to Siberia were nearly so lucky.
I regret not getting a photograph of him. I’ve thought about his amazing life occasionally and told this story about him to quite a few people. Thoughts of his longevity and continuing excellent health have spurred me on while I’ve worked out swimming laps.
He obviously appreciated the treatment he received as our prisoner of war, and in the ensuing sixty-five years has apparently told his story to many people. So we most certainly fostered much good will through him and his fellow prisoners-of-war simply by treating them humanely. He and his fellow POWs have been almost literally broadcasting our praises from the highest tower – fantastic PR if inestimable value.
His story troubles me considerably though. It has given me cause to ponder how the prisoners in our current war will speak of their American captors and the treatment they received in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo or wherever they are being held. I worry that the truths those prisoners are going to tell and put into print and movies is likely to recruit great numbers of Taliban soldiers and suicide bombers to fight against us for many, many years despite the most sincere apologies we will be making someday soon.

About this blog:

My wife and I have been opponents of this Iraq war from the start. We’ve participated in two marches nearby and one in D.C., but for a long time I’ve wished to do something more effective against this war.
When I heard the tragic story of this young Iraqi girl I was quite profoundly disturbed. I had trouble getting to sleep a couple of nights thinking about her story and I knew I had to do something. So I wrote this article and sent it to the op ed departments of three newspapers thinking that by using my writing skills to shine a light on her story I might in my own small way contribute to bringing an end to this war. Alas I got no response of any kind from those op-ed departments, so I’ve posted it as the first article on this blog.
There will be more pokes in the mind with a sharp pen. I’ve written two more articles and am currently putting another one together in my mind. My goal is to make them well thought out, informative, interesting and worthwhile. I will be posting new ones about once a week.
I’m giving you these articles, but I ask a little of your help in return. If you appreciate my blog and my efforts, please one time send a short e mail to all the people on your mailing list telling them about this blog, so I can reach out to a large enough audience to feel that my efforts are worth continuing.

Thank you, Greg Schindler

I recently saw a reporter on TV who spent the last few years in Iraq. He said he’d had life-changing experiences there and when pressed to tell of one, he recounted an episode about the kidnapping of a young girl.
It seems that the daughter of a fairly rich Iraqi man was kidnapped and held for ransom -- a rather common occurrence these days I understand. When the kidnappers called to talk about the ransom, the father demanded to talk to his daughter. She came on the line sobbing and crying, quite terrified, hardly able to speak. Her father only wanted to know from her whether she had been raped. She finally sobbed yes.
He told her to give the phone back to one of her captors and when that despot came on the line the father told him to keep his daughter, he didn’t want her back. And so they killed the daughter.
Here was a young girl sentenced to death by her father -- who apparently could have saved her quite easily -- because she’d been raped and was no longer a virgin. And we are sending our children over to Iraq to fight and die for the rights of her father – this homicidal maniac. What are we thinking?
Near the end of the Viet Nam war it is said that the tipping point for public opinion came when on the six o’clock news we all clearly saw that Viet Namese officer shoot in the head a young soldier who was handcuffed and kneeling.
Isn’t the story of this child’s death even more horrible? She was no enemy combatant; just a young innocent caught in the middle. Can’t we clearly see her handcuffed and kneeling? Can’t we clearly see that despicable abductor putting a gun to her young head and pulling the trigger? And can’t we clearly see her -- who had most certainly loved her equally despicable father and always tried to live up to his maniacal code, but sadly and helplessly got caught in-between -- see her fall, dead before she hit the dirt floor?
PEOPLE, WE ARE SENDING OUR CHILDREN TO FIGHT AND DIE FOR THE RIGHTS OF MEN SO UTTERLY MORALLY TWISTED THAT THEY VALUE THEIR DAUGHTERS’ VIRGINITY HIGHER THAN THEIR DAUGHTERS’ LIVES!! PLEASE TELL ME, WHAT ARE WE THINKING?!!!!!
Clearly there is someone in this gut-wrenching story worthy of us fighting for, but she’s dead. She may have a younger sister who is still alive, but sadly we can’t save her sister either. We should know by now that we cannot change the beliefs and codes, the traditions, values and laws of billions of people by force. What are we thinking?
Over time and by example, I believe that we are likely to save her sister’s daughter’s daughter’s daughter -- however many generations into the future -- but our futile attempts to force change only serve to strengthen the resolve and increase the numbers of opponents of change, thus pushing those changes farther into the distant future.