Through the Ages

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 We measure time and assign things to an age, although at times it is hard to determine what age we are actually in.  We started with the prehistoric age where record keeping was confined to cave walls and historians didn’t exist, and have progressed through various civilizations until we arrive at today.  Along the way, we passed through the middle ages, also known as the dark ages, (~500-1500 AD) when the Roman Empire had collapsed and Europe fell into disorganization.  Then, of course, we had the age of Enlightenment where learning returned and men studied the classic works of the ancient Greeks and early Roman intellectuals.  This led us to the Industrial age where mechanical devices began to replace the physical labors of the common man or woman and the idea of mass production became a reality. 

Eventually the Industrial age begat the Industrial Tycoon.  He was a man feared by many for the power he wielded and the wealth he accumulated on the backs of the poor workers and the average citizen.  These men, their wives, and their progeny lived in opulence and traveled the world in an effort to see and buy everything they could.  For example, John D. Rockefeller Jr. traveled through post war Europe (1920s), buying up old churches and middle age tapestries, art, and armor from the religious orders and nobles who could no longer afford them.  He brought them home to the US, of course, and found a cozy spot on Manhattan to rebuild them.  

Certainly, these ages are not strictly defined with absolute start and stop dates, rather they are represented by approximations of when significant indications are present.  There are also “unofficial” ages we like to consider, for example the “Age of Chivalry,” where knights roamed the land protecting the poor and downtrodden from the evil that existed.  I assume good knights could be identified by their shinny armor and white ostrich plumes, gleaming broadswords, and pure white chargers; while the bad knights by their rusty dark black armor, ink black plumes, fear invoking broadswords, and black horses.  Their squires, most certainly, also represented the distinction with one group being kind and loyal while the other sneaky, dark, and perhaps even hunched back.

Which brings me to the question of today, what age are we in now?

If we are to believe the ubiquitous news reporting we must be in the “Age of Incivility.”   For night after night, day after day, that is all we hear about.  The media tells us how this group or that group is destroying society.  We see on social media the outpouring of rage, vile rhetoric, and hate over simple things we should find agreement on, but cannot.  In the cities, we see increases in violence and crime where the average person and even the police are warned not to go into certain neighborhoods for fear of their safety and life.

A year ago, there were massive floods in western Louisiana, citizens came together to help each other, people with boats set out to help rescue those stranded by high water and the various communities helped each other.

Today there are even more massive floods in southeastern Texas, including the city of Houston.  Tens of thousands of people are stranded and needing rescue and again citizens, including those from Louisiana, have come to assist the overwhelmed official first responders and the National Guard as they are mobilized.  It is interesting to see the difference in how the survivors respond.  In the small towns and rural areas, these private citizen saviors are welcomed and their aid appreciated.  In the inner city of Houston, they are fired upon and their boats stolen by those who would profit through violence and theft.  

Unfortunately, this says so very much about the state of the age we are in.

Thank You Mike Rowe

Today is August 24, 2017, yesterday the social media was alive with a response Mike Rowe, a television and internet personality, posted the day before when he dealt with a troll who attempted to link him, those who support him, and Republicans in general, with the white supremacy movement. Mr. Rowe tore him apart in the most civil of ways demonstrating why Mike is such a popular personality (BTW, this is unsupported opinion).  You can see his response either on his Facebook page (22 August, “Off The Wall”), or in this article Washington Times, Aug 23, 2017, Mike Rowe rips 'smug' reader for white nationalist' insinuation attack on Republicans.

What Mr. Rowe points out is how logical fallacies play so heavily on the arguments made by the left or right as they condemn their political opposition.   As an example, he used a tweet from Neil deGrasse Tyson to illustrate this, Tyson said since scientists could accurately predict the solar eclipse they could accurately predict global warming.  The two events have absolutely no correlation, and therefore to say “if A is true, then B must be true” is a logical fallacy that serves only to confuse the issue.  It drives me crazy when I see so many people push this type of argument along as a meme, but I’ve learned, for the most part, to just “let it go.”

Priorities, Social and Otherwise

Here on the Gulf Coast, we are in the heart of the hurricane season.  Almost exactly 12 years ago Hurricane Katrina came ashore, with a devastating impact.  The loss of life in New Orleans was almost unimaginable.  The levy systems failed, the drains failed, and the pumps failed as the city was submerged beneath the storm surge.  The local government failed as well.  Their preparations proved woefully inadequate, as they waited too long to order evacuations, and were ill prepared for the devastation wrought by nature or the recovery efforts that would be required.  Louisiana accounted for over 1,500 of the 1,800 total fatalities.  A year after Katrina they were still finding bodies that had been trapped in the attics of flooded homes.

Following the disaster, as there always is, there was a series of government investigations to determine why so much had gone so horribly wrong.  Why had the levies and floodwalls of New Orleans failed?  Why had the government response been so inadequate?  Why had so many died?

The Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for the construction and maintenance of the protective system that proved totally inadequate for the task it was designed for.  The investigations determined the government, in an effort to save money, had shorted some of the design requirements and the system was not as strong or robust as it was claimed to be.  The human decision points were late, and the city response was slow, as they underestimated the force of the storm.

The Federal Government was condemned by the press and political opposition, for its slow response to the disaster.  Of course, there were public floggings of the guilty bureaucrats, and the Army Corps of Engineers set out to build a better system of levies, floodwalls, and pumping stations to keep the city dry.  But what about the local leadership?  What about those who failed to maintain their part of the system?

Millions, and perhaps billions, has been spent in post-Katrina repairs and recovery.  Donations by the millions went into helping the poorest rebuild the homes destroyed by the storms.  The Army worked for years rebuilding the floodwalls, levies, and pumping stations to insure they would not be overwhelmed again.  But at the end of the day the primary custodian of the overall system is the city itself.

So here we are with another rain maker storm approaching, and is New Orleans ready?  I think we can safely say it’s not.  On August 10^th, the Governor of Louisiana declared a state of emergency because the city could not handle the heavy rains of that week.  It appears the city has failed to maintain the pumps and drainage systems needed to move water out of the city.  The story in the Toronto Sun[i] suggests the city isn’t able to handle even the thunderstorms that frequent this area in the summer time, so a major storm coming ashore will, undoubtedly, overwhelm the ill-maintained system.

So where is the public spot light on the local government, asking why they have allowed this?  The spot light will come, it will come when the loss of life occurs, but I am willing to bet it will be again focused on the federal government, rather than the corruption, and failures of a local government that seems more interested in enriching themselves than protecting its citizens. 

Let’s hope and pray for those who have placed their faith in the city council and mayor that they and their homes are not destroyed this year.

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[i] Toronto Sun, 08/10/2017, State of Emergency Declared in New Orleans as Flood Threat Increases

Life in a Post-Eclipse World

“Hello darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again.[i]”  Yesterday was a historic day.  The press spent almost as much time talking about the darkening of our sun as it did vilifying the President.  It was as if the world stood still.  Millions of North Americans, (500 million by NASA’s estimate), had at least some opportunity to see a part of this event.

Having made a cereal box viewer, I was not impressed. I think I needed a bigger cereal box or perhaps some fancy look at the sun glasses.  Although it got really dark, and wet for a time, I attribute that to the passing cumulonimbus that seemed to block out the moon, blocking out the sun.  But enough about me.

Today we return to what has become the norm, the people at ABCNNBCBS and Fox will again tell us how a statistically insignificant group is threatening our civil liberties with their hate and violence.  Of course, they will take sides and one hate group will be okay, while the other will be damned.

Politicians and celebrities will continue to climb on board with the idea that statuary that was placed by politicians a previous generation or two ago are now dividing our country unlike anything that has gone before.  In the political frenzy, they will not separate the profound from the mundane and will trample on them all.  They will, of course, be aided by the vandalism of one or two politically acceptable hate groups.

What they won’t cover, what we won’t discuss in reasonable terms, and what we won’t make an effort to fix is why are so many young people killing each other in the inner cities?  Why has gang violence escalated to the point that Chicago is now on track to break last year’s total of 789 murders[ii]?  Unfortunately, most of these are African-Americans, or the politicians would be forced to actually do something.  We see politicians talk in grand terms of government support to the poor, or closing our borders, or expanding/contracting our civil rights, but at the end of the day it is all meaningless if we let the one segment of society engage in murder without consequence.  We can fill our prison’s but they are already filled, and all they seem to be doing is returning the vicious back to the streets with better street cred. 

What would happen if we stopped talking about gun control for just a while (Chicago has among the strictest in the nation), and talked about how society has set itself up for this war in the inner cities?  The problem, as I see it, is we have abandoned the concepts of family, faith, and neighborhoods that form the sense of belonging to the young.  Even in our most liberal of areas we still discriminate with expectations for a successful life.  Those who can afford to send their children to private schools do so, those who can’t are left to the mercy of political agendas of the school board and the unions.

Is it better to allow everyone to become victims in this age of victim-hood?  For the major cities it would seem so.

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[i] Simon and Garfunkel, “Sounds of Silence”

[ii] http://crime.chicagotribune.com/chicago/homicides 

To Infinity; and Beyond

(with apologies to Buzz Lightyear, Star Command, PIXAR, and all the philosopher/mathematicians within the blog-o-sphere who’ve written so much about the deep meaning of the phrase).

This morning I set out for what Mark Twain described as a way to spoil a good walk.  I was considering the quiet of a course covered in the morning dew, the sun casting long shadows as it began its climb to zenith, and naturally here in Florida the humidity that turns your clothing into damp cloth in a matter of minutes.

A small sphere sitting quietly at rest, until a force, other than gravity, acts on it, transferring energy and imparting motion.  If all things are done in harmony that sphere with its drag reducing dimples will take flight in a graceful arch, supported by a top spin that will allow it to settle gently to earth hundreds of yards from where it began, on a direct line from its origin and a desired point of termination, some distance beyond.

 Along the way, as I travel from one resting spot to the next, and in between the activity points where I attempt to impart just the right amount of energy to the sphere I wonder about a lot of things. 

How fragile life is, yet how often do we seek to destroy it for human convenience?  We have invented a thousand different ways, and a hundred different reasons to destroy life.  If you’ve created a life and you don’t want it?  No problem.  If someone has something you want and the only way to get it is to destroy its owner?  Okay.  If you think life is painful and want to end it, there is help for that. 

Then, of course, we have war, where mankind thoughtfully or haphazardly inflicts grave damage to other parts of mankind to settle a dispute.

But we still grieve for those who’ve made it past the initial screening and are allowed to live, yet die for one of the multitude of reasons.  Why is that?  Why are some lives considered more worth saving than others? 

Sunday Morning Thoughts 8/20/17

It has been a tumultuous week, with riots, police shooting, terrorist attacks, and political opinions spinning wildly out of control.  The current “cause celeb” is the removal of monuments recognizing the Confederacy and (mostly) the generals who fought the war.  Liberal establishments are also taking steps to purge the names of slave owners/white supremacists from their institutions (e.g. Yale’s renaming of its Calhoun College).

What distant cities, or Ivy League institutions, do with statuary or names recognizing past contributions isn’t something I lose a lot of sleep over.  The people they commemorate are long dead and beyond caring.  For the most part their only visitors are the pigeons or the students who really didn't know how the name came to be.  I find it pretty funny how this political football has become such a hot topic, with the politicians and their supporters justifying the actions because of how offensive these are to an entire race.  The counter point, made by the opposition is “if these were so offensive why didn’t they all come down during the past administrations term?” I am willing to bet 99% of the race that is supposed to be offended has never given a minutes thought about the statues or the names of various colleges.  It is only the vocal 1% that has chosen to make this an issue, and not because they are historically offended, but because of they see it as a way to attack the President, and gain power for themselves.

So, this is what politics has become, act and counter-act, anger and counter-anger.  Anger and violence fanned by a media that supports one side of the story and a President who has created a persona that encourages the anger that flows from his opponents, both in and out his own party.

Today's Question

Why Do Hate Groups Exist?

Perhaps the more important question is why does hate exist?  That is a question mankind has struggled with for our entire existence.  If you have a good answer I am sure the world would love to hear it.  I know I don’t, but I do know greed, envy, vice, and hate have existed since the beginnings of our humanity.  One of the first stories in the Old Testament is Cain’s killing of his brother Able.

I am pretty sure creating alternative hate (alt-hate) groups is not likely to end this unfortunate human trait, for these alt-hate groups will just fuel hate for a slightly different reason.

Also, no matter what the government attempts to do, these groups will not cease to exist.  The human spirit, for better or worse, will find ways to take these movements underground even deeper than they now are.  Acknowledging Godwin’s law, we have only to look at the original Nazi’s and their attempts to crush resistance groups both in Germany-Austria, and the conquered lands.  The government simply cannot put enough laws in place, or lawman to enforce them to prevent their existence. 

Until we find a way to end hate; these groups will exist.  If we, especially our politicians and celebrity leaders, were to universally condemn hate groups, in all their forms, perhaps we might reduce them, but as long as some believe their violent groups are okay, and it’s just the other side that is evil, then the hate will go on.