Abduction!

At around 6:00 this evening, I walked under Highway 101 in Santa Rosa, and I was treated to the following sight:

The main thing to notice is the brightly displayed sign in the back. Because I have a terrible phone-camera, you can’t make out what it says, but you should be able to tell that it is one of those warning signs that they have on the highways to inform motorists of important information. For example, the sign could explain that there is an accident ahead and that drivers need to be cautious. It could say that, but it doesn’t. In general, such signs are only used for a single thing and that was the case this evening:

That’s right: the sign was alerting us to the fact that some child had been kidnapped and it really pisses me off. “Why?” you ask. “Isn’t it important for people to be on the look-out for children who are kidnapped?” Yes and no. Yes, real kidnapping is a serious business that we should all work to stop. But this is never the case with these alerts. When Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped, there were several witnesses. It should surprise no one, however, that none of these witnesses had the ability to not only take note of the color, make, and model of the car, but also to read (And remember!) the complete license plate number. If these signs alerted us to such abductions, I would have no problem with them—but they never do.

What the signs do alert us to should be clear enough by the accuracy of the information provided. This “kidnapped” child was not only in a silver Toyota Corrolla, it was in one registered in the State of California with a license number XABC123! It certainly sounds as if whoever witnessed this kidnapping was quite the trained observer. But, of course, we know this isn’t the case. Most likely, there was no witness at all. The child was simply “kidnapped” by one of its parents—the one who doesn’t have legal custody of the child. That’s why we know exactly what car the child is in.

These signs that could be very useful to motorists in saving time and decreasing the risk of accidents, are used almost entirely to police custody battles that are part of contentious divorce proceedings. I am not suggesting that when a parent resorts to kidnapping his or her own child, it isn’t very upsetting for the child. I’m also not suggesting that some of these cases aren’t very serious. But these alerts only serve to distract drivers without making anyone safer. In almost all cases, the situation will resolve itself within days or even hours. Meanwhile, we move ever closer to a police state—making the idea that policing your fellow citizens is the way things ought to be—over the most minor of problems.

What is next?

The One Problem With Anthony Weiner

I’m sure you’ve seen this before, but it is so much fun to watch. So watch it again; now!

The one problem I have with the Congressman is how he pronounces his last name. Yes, of course, everyone has a right to pronounce their own names however they want. But it bugs me that his last name is pronounced like that cigar-shaped thing from Oscar-Mayer, when it could be pronounced as it would normally be in German: Viner. Now that’s a cool sounding now. But let’s face it, when you can go on the floor of Congress and do what he did—it doesn’t matter; you’re a cool guy, even if your name is mud[1].

1 It is widely believed that the clause “your name is mud” dates back to Dr. Samuel Mudd who set John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg after Booth’s assassination of Abraham Lincoln. This is not the case, because the phrase dates back to a time before Mudd had even been born. The whole story is given at The Phrase Finder in a wonderful article Your Name is Mud, which shows the good that can be done on the Internet by people who care.

It’s really pretty simple. The process is based on the ancient art of information dissemination, commonly known as gossip. Here’s how it works. In the endless quest to satisfy the voracious appetites of vicarious attention-whores (A.K.A. National Enquirer subscribers, etc.), Site A posts a fascinating, albeit negligible, glimpse into the life of Celebrity 1. Then, Site B ever so slightly tweaks the information to lure in readers with as little effort as possible (and to avoid outright plagiarism).

Take this story by E!online writer, Natalie Finn.

I know what you’re thinking. Why would anyone feel the need to sex up an already great story? It’s a tale of attempted murder, bravery in the face of facial pain, and the indomitable will of a woman who refuses to let possible disfigurement keep her from helping others organize their stuff.

I’m almost certain that Martha is telling the truth, and not lying to keep her dog from being euthanized. True, it looks bad. The dog had motive, opportunity, and a definite chip on her shoulder. Being a bulldog (and a French one at that), Francesca must struggle every day against specists who think of French bulldogs as sinister-looking little freaks. Then to be dressed like the member of a chain gang on national television must have been beyond mortifying.

Even so, I do not think Francesca is a passive-aggressive little bitch, but rather a victim of circumstance. Being startled from a sound sleep by her Master, Francesca briskly hopped to, as would any smart member of Martha’s household. With the delirium of sleep and beady little eyes hampering her depth perception, the poor dog whipped up her head and collided with Martha’s lip. I’m sure she felt terrible, but I suspect that Frannie cowered in her bed, not so much from remorse, as from fear of dismissal.

Martha was the real hero in all this. Who else would have the presence of mind to have her daughter call the hospital to have a plastic surgeon waiting at the door, implements in hand? Most of us would have raced to the E.R., only then to realize that someone else had already called dibs, and we would be forced to sit in the waiting room for three hours using a towel to stop the gushing blood.

Sadly, the sordid minions of the media always manage to tarnish true journalism. This is where Site B comes in with their inflammatory headline Martha Stewart Makes ER Visit After Own Dog Attacks Her. I think Francesca should consider suing for libel.

(Author’s Note: In fairness, I saw the dog attack headline first. Thinking perhaps that one of Martha’s chows attacked her like a Vegas magician’s tiger, I was concerned that Ms Stewart may have been seriously injured. Then I clicked on the “reportedly” link (because I thought it odd) and was led to the first, less meretricious article.)

I’m working on an article about the absence of meaning in the universe, so I thought I would take a break and write something fun—not meaningful, but fun. I just watched On the Waterfront for, probably, the fifth time. The scene everyone knows is the one where Terry tells his brother, Charlie, “I could’ve been a contender.” And that’s the line everyone remembers, although I think most remember it with the wrong emotional overtone—it is actually forlorn. This is not the line that I remember when I think of this scene, however. To me, the critical line is, “It was you, Charlie.” Let’s watch it, shall we:

Most people see On The Waterfront as Elia Kazan’s answer to those (most notably, his close-friend Arthur Miller) who criticized him for testifying at the House Committee on Un-American Activities and providing names of former communists. Maybe it was in Kazan’s mind. It is certainly the case that even into his 90s, Kazan sounded very defensive about the whole thing. Also: the screenwriter, Budd Schulberg, similarly testified. But all such intentions, if real, are irrelevant. First, standing up against real corruption when it might cause your murder (the case in the film) is very different from standing up against a phantom[1] enemy when it would at worst cost you some friends with the upside of most definitely making your career more stable. Second, writers create stories; readers create meaning.

Thus, I don’t see the film as political, and the main reason is the cab scene with Terry and Charlie. Although you don’t see the whole scene in the clip above, Terry has come looking for Charlie to get his advice. And Charlie has advice to give. First, he tries to bribe Terry with a great job. When that doesn’t work, Charlie threatens to shoot Terry. The arc of that scene is the arc of the movie. It is also the arc of Brando’s great monologue. It starts with, “It wasn’t him, Charlie: it was you” and ends with, “It was you, Charlie.” In this expression that he couldn’t even depend upon his own brother, Terry realizes that he is ultimately responsible. He enters the cab still a child—still hoping that his older brother will help him make his difficult decisions; he leaves the cab as an adult, understanding the impossibility of his expectations of Charlie. This scene is the turning point of the movie and of Terry’s life: the point at which he decides to take control of his destiny.

Even before he knows that Charlie is dead, Terry has begun to make his own decisions. And as the movie winds up, those decisions get better and better and show that he isn’t a bum; he is a contender; he is someone who really matters in a way that a prize fighter never could. It is ironic, then, that in becoming “a contender” in the real world rather than the boxing ring, he is almost beaten to death by Johnny Friendly’s associates. Afterwards[2], Terry stubbles, barely conscious, to lead the other workers into the dock to work. His arc is complete: he has found himself—a leader of men. Thus, the film is not about corrupt union bosses or whistle-blowers. It is about one man’s journey from follower to leader—in the best, and least used, sense of that word.

It wasn’t him, Terry: it was you. It was you, Terry.

¹ I say the enemies were “phantom” because almost no one who was ever named was even a socialist, much less a communist. Of the people Kazan named, all were ex-communists (like Kazan himself). Even the most fervent supporters of the USSR backed off or broke completely when Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. The House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings were political theater—nothing more. And Kazan risked nothing by testifying.

² In discussing the difference between “afterward” and “afterwards,” Fowler (in 1926) says, “Afterward, once the prevalent form, is now obsolete in British use, but survives in U.S.” I must check a more up to date reference. I tend to prefer “afterward,” but what Jesus Christ is to many, Henry Fowler is to me.

Some of the most entertaining bits posted on CNN.com are the headlines. Here are a few gems that I’ve noted:

CNN is often almost as amusing as The Onion, and nearly as informative. Take Alan Duke’s recent article about Peter Fonda’s grisly discovery.

My first thought was, why would Mr Fonda call the fire department? The car wasn’t ablaze. Is the number for the fire department easier to remember than “911”? Anyway, apparently it isn’t unusual to see someone “slumped over the wheel” of a car in L.A., but for TWO days?! That’s odd. If it weren’t for Neighborhood Watch Citizen, Peter Fonda, the guy might have been there until the car’s tags expired. That would get the cops out there in a hurry.

My second thought (I number them for easy reference) was that Sunset Boulevard must be a desolate place if people can kill themselves by the side of the road and not be discovered for days. It wasn’t until I reached the end of this gripping tale of tragic death, that the mystery was solved. “…he was not a celebrity.”

Your average Joe Suicide is hardly newsworthy (especially one that no one misses), but if the guy who finds him is a celebrity, then rush that story to the press!

The Middle Ground

In today’s column, Paul Krugman discusses the fact that while it is a good idea for us all to listen to each other, what we are likely to find is that we really do disagree with each other. He points out that on the one side, we have people that really do think that taxation is theft and regulation is tyranny. On the other, we have people who believe in a market system, but who think that those who do well should be taxed to provide a social safety net. Given this, there really isn’t any room to compromise. He is fundamentally right that is the political dialog in America, but I’m not sure he is right on the compromise front.

The truth is, the possible political dialog is far greater, as seen in many other countries. The American liberalism consisting of a free market with a social safety net is already a compromise with early, more strident forms of egalitarian systems. The real choice is between socialism and classical liberalism; the compromise is the mixed economy of the New Deal and the Great Society. The compromise is modern liberalism.

What is so frustrating about political debate in the United States is that virtually all who wish for a libertarian ideal, not only don’t really want it—they don’t even know what it is. They don’t see all of the government infrastructure that allows the free market to flourish. One step back from that are all the people who hate socialism except as it affects their lives. For these people, all of American socialism can be found in that 20% of the federal budget that is not Social Security, Medicare, and the military. And one more step further, we find all the rich who suck off the tit of taxpayer money, as so brilliantly exposed by David Cay Johnston in his book Free Lunch.

Marx’s idea of socialism was that a country (or the world) would be so wealthy that it would not have to use humans as glorified pack animals and thus each person would be freed to find fulfillment in life as he saw fit. Yes, this is an overly optimistic view of the future. As I have complained elsewhere, the main problem here is not that we don’t have the economic ability to do such a thing—it is that the vast majority of people want to do exactly the same thing: sit around watching TV. But this itself may be an indication of just how disillusioned everyone is with our political/economic system. Regardless, I don’t think that Marx’s utopia is any more far fetched than the libertarian utopia.

As long as we say that mixed-economy liberals need to compromise with libertarian or socialist utopians—we are lost. The mixed-economy is the compromise. And, of course, we are lost when people equate The Communist Manifesto with Mein Kampf (as many did over the last week). I’m not suggesting that either book be a blueprint for political action—only that the books have little in common other than being revolutionary in nature; that Mein Kampf alone is a racist, militaristic screed (in fact, I believe but for the racism and WWII, it would be acceptable reading today—that Glenn Beck would recommend it); and that I’m sure no one I heard equating them had read either. When we can take seriously utopian libertarianism, but not utopian socialism (as found in The Communist Manifesto, not Mein Kampf), we have a real problem. When our debate is between center and right, where do we move? Center-right? And then where? Hard-right?

Are we really going to abandon a system that worked pretty well up to 1980—and lesser so thereafter? All for a mythical ideal that most of its proponents don’t even understand? I hope not. But then, we have already abandoned so much. I can see things getting much, much worse. I’m not one of these idiots who believe, “We live in the greatest country in the world!” But we still live in a pretty damned good country. The problem is: the trend is bad.

Jon Stewart Does Have Balls—Today, Anyway

The last two nights of The Daily Show were very funny. The 11 January 2011 show was very funny—the best I’ve seen in a long while. And then, last night’s show was also very funny, but even more important, Jon Stewart showed that he actually did—contrary to all the evidence over the past year—has a properly functioning set of testicles. He really took Tim “I look as ridiculous watching hockey fights as John Kerry did hunting birds” Pawlenty to task. He pointed out that Pawlenty supported Bush’s bad legislation (not that that narrows it down much), “No Child Left Behind.” Then he asked the question (not an exact quote as shown by the lack of quotation marks): don’t you think that if Obama had introduced the same bill, most Republicans would have been absolutely against it and Glenn Beck would have railed against it with big posters of Stalin? Pawlenty, of course, obfuscated. But good for Stewart.

Conservatives’ Brains

Colin Firth (yes, the actor) was doing a show for BBC-Radio 4 and ended up helping an academic study of the differences in the brains of conservatives and liberals. Firth, a liberal, said, “I just decided to find out what was biologically wrong with people who don’t agree with me, and see what scientists had to say about it and they actually came up with something!”

Conservatives, it seems, have large Amygdalae, which are responsible for processing and remembering emotional reactions. As such, they are what stimulates fear in us. Liberals, on the other hand, have large Anterior Cingulates, which are responsible for assessing the importance of emotion and motivational information. The study (sorry, no link) is small and thus open to question. What’s more, the size of brain parts does not necessarily mean that they are more powerful. For a questionable example: smart people don’t have bigger brains than dumb people (although from species to species there is a very strong correlation).

It should come as no surprise, however, that conservatives are motivated by fear and other lower, just above reptilian brain functions.