A possible fix for our schools

Education in California, perhaps other states as well, is going down the wrong road, into a dead end. One of our strengths has been an education system that has produced leaders and innovators. Now, between entrenched 19th century policies and our current miserly attitude, we'll raise a generation ill prepared to take their place in today's world.

Unfortunately, we can't fix it without stepping on many toes. In order to get some things, we must give up other things.

One of the things we need to give up is job security. Teacher tenure was a good concept a century ago, but it's no longer necessary. Teachers have certificates and are not political appointees.

It makes no sense to talk about teacher accountability if bad teachers, as well as good, are virtually impossible to remove. It would be better to have annual evaluations during a two to three year probation period, then evaluations every three and eventually every five years, unless a problem comes up that must be addressed quickly. A good teacher would get rubber stamped at each evaluation, a teacher with problems could be coached, and if that fails, let go.

The same thing should apply to classified staff. These people are now almost impossible to get rid of, and a poor employee can bump an employee who is doing well in a position. These people, should they get a negative evaluation, and if they don't improve their performances, should be given notice that they will not be back the following year.

Administrators shouldn't be exempt from this process. For starters, we need a law stating that no more than 15% of a district's budget can go to administration. This would stop the continual growth at the district office level. Also, these peoples' jobs should not be protected by the old boy, old girl network.

How do we decide who is doing a good job and should be rewarded, as opposed to those doing so poorly they should be fired? The current system won't do it. Generally, the school board works for the administration, even though they are elected by the voters. The reality is that most voters don't know and/or don't care about what goes on at the school district, so they vote the person who knocks on their or has a good sound bite.

School boards should be appointed. Here's a rough plan for doing so. Various stakeholders should appoint a member of the board: One from the teachers, one from the classified staff, one from administration, one from a parent advisory group, one from each political entity served by the district (one if the district is a city school district and more if the district extends to cities, county or more than one county). There should also be a member selected from the students, probably high school level.

If a teacher has been brought up for possible dismissal, the teacher member of the board would naturally oppose it, while the administration member would support it. The other board members would hear the evidence and vote with one or the other. A bad administrator, charged by the teachers with incompetence, would be defended by the administrator, prosecuted by the teachers, and the other members would hear evidence and vote accordingly.

Appointed board members, should they fail to discharge their duties, could be removed quickly by the entity that appointed them, rather than waiting for the next election. Also, being appointed by stakeholders, members would be better suited to look out for the interests of the their groups, and the mix would make sure everyone is represented.

In the end, the winners would be the students, as their education, not politics would be primary. Another winner would be the tax payers, as a better run school system would do more with less resources.

Obama as Nero

I hate to say this, having voted for him, but when I hear "President Obama," I think Nero. Practically all most of us know about Nero was that he fiddled while Rome burned, a fire he likely was responsible for.

I guess America could be thought of as the Rome of the modern era, and it isn't literally burning, but "burning" is a good metaphor.

There are many elements coming together to cause this metaphoric conflagration. For openers, the economic is still is disarray, and unemployment is over 10 percent. Foreclosures have put many of our neighbors out on the street.

Congress is about to raise the national debt ceiling again, meaning we'll be in debt for generations. The government is bleeding money, but none of it seems to be putting people to work.

It turns out that billions are going south over to Mexico to fuel the drug cartels and their wave of violence. At the same time, we have teens wandering around the streets of our cities carrying loaded guns and shooting each other, along with any innocent bystander who happens to get in the way.

These are problems that need to addressed right now, problems we could spend some of the billions we are collectively going into debt for. Why doesn't that seem to be happening?

It seems that while America is in a melt down, President Obama is fiddling around in Afghanistan and Iraq, throwing billions of our tax money at wars of choice. That's right, choice. These countries aren't attacking us, and the people there would probably be less hostile toward us if we'd just go away and leave them alone.

But no, we send the money that could put people to work, and now our young men and women sign up to be cannon fodder in order to be able to earn a living. At the same time we are bribing the "enemy" not to blow up our supply caravans, and we're paying foreign countries to be our "friends" and to take our side.

Let's see, we only have two viable political parties, and they both believe in wasting our resources on endless wars of choice, rather than help our people, and all we can do is sit here and watch Rome burn.

Obama's speech and the idea of evil

President Obama made his speech accepting the Peace Prize, and, ironically, he devoted much time to the subject of war. Agreed, there are times you must wage war to arrive at peace, as in the defeat of Hitler. But, rather than get mired in the question of whether war is justified or not, I found with I consider a serious problem in Obama's remarks.

He said, "For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world."

My question is why did he have to invoke some vague supernatural force, some ancient reference to gods and devils, implying enlightened beings and dark forces? This is only one step removed from, "We have God on our side."

This whole notion of good vs. evil goes back at least to Zoroastrianism with the good god Ahura Mazda in opposition to the evil one, Angra Mainyu, now renamed "God and the Devil." It all reads much like J. R. R. Tolkien's Ring Trilogy. The whole notion seems too easy an explanation, while not explaining much at all. Like the idea of the soul, good and evil aren't something you can put under a microscope or weigh or make any other determination about. These are labels, and we always use the "good" label to identify ourselves, and the "evil" label for the other guys.

I'm more comfortable with labels such as, "Ignorance, religious fanaticism, criminal activity, sociopathic personality and thugs for hire" to explain why some people do really nasty things, such as murder, rape and other kinds of abuse. At least these terms are descriptive, and we can address what actually happens. If the Taliban's education extended beyond the Koran, perhaps they wouldn't be so hostile to differing viewpoints. As far as religious fanaticism, that has a brutal past in all religions. Also, if people are dirt poor and someone offers them $250 per month to kill the American invaders, that's not evil, it's just trying to keep food on the table.

With statements like "Evil does exist in the world," Obama sounded, not like the super rational person he is supposed to be, but much like Bush, in whose world view everything was either black or white.

Obama plans to bring the troops home eventually

Obama promised to start bringing troops home from Afghanistan in July of 2011, and I believe him. I also read where the decision on how many to bring home and how fast is still unsettled.

So, I called a contact deeply embedded in the Washington scene, and he was more than willing to give me the inside information, particularly after seeing the embarrassing photo I have of him.

Well, it turns out that the withdrawal decisions have already been made, Obama being a stickler for detail. It turns out that a full company of men will return stateside each month. A typical company has about 200 men.

By the time we start withdrawing our troops, we will have about 100,000 soldiers stationed in Afghanistan. So, if we are diligent about bringing home a company each and every month, we'll have all our boys home in just over 41 years. Now, there is talk of bringing home an entire battalion during Christmas each year. That would get everyone home in just under 36 years.

I think it is safe to tell your little grandchildren that they will be able to celebrate the end of the war before they retire.

Obama's plan to put 30,000 Americans to work.

Dec. 1. President Obama outlined his new job creation program to help reduce our soaring unemployment rate. He calls it the Afghanistan troupe surge. This program, according to the President, will create between 30,000 and 35,000 new jobs, and because of the high mortality rate, 40,000 potential jobs could be created.

The cost of this program, divided between all the new jobs, comes to approximately $1,000,000 per job of taxpayers money. He reasons that the American worker, willing to support the excesses of the banking industry, won't balk at a few billion more to put young men and women to work.

afgahnistan and the right toy for a child

I needed a present for my nephew as he entered kindergarten, so I bought him a rifle. I tried to explain to him that he should practice extensively with it, as it could save his life fifteen years from now in Afghanistan.

As I thought more about this, it occurred to me that it's not just my nephew's problem, so I suggested to the school board that they substitute a children's version of basic training for the usual physical education. I argued, correctly, I believe, that this would give them excellent physical conditioning and would be more relevant than kickball, flag football or any of the other games that have no application in the real world.

The board is considering my idea, and while they agree that it is practical, they are concerned about the public reaction to admitting that the war will still be a hot item in 2025. One board member admitted that everyone realizes this on a subliminal level, but no one really wants to point to the metaphorical elephant in the room.

He said, "Let's find a way to sugar coat this, and then we'll see if it flies."

Finishing a really big job Obama style

I could relate to a quote from President Obama in an article about how he will send several thousand more military personnel to Afghanistan, to "Finish the job" begun eight years ago. I know how it feels to not want to give up on a big project undertaken over a long period of time.

You see, eight years ago I got the brilliant idea to remodel my 3/2 rancher into a copy of the Taj Mahal. At the time people warned me that it was too just big of a job, too unrealistic, but I was a man with a vision.

The first problem I ran into was the local building codes about building height in residential neighborhoods. But after getting special permits and modifying the height of the towers, I was ready to proceed. However replacing the windows was a bigger problem, leaving us without any windows at all during the coldest winter of the decade.

Also, I never realized how expensive that ancient siding would be in modern America, so I sill have much of that unfinished. Of course, opening up the interior required knocking out some walls, so much of the house has temporary bracing.

Big changes require moving lots of stuff, so currently the wiring and plumbing are pretty much torn out, and we're using candles and an out house.

Now, after eight years, my negative friends are still urging me to give it up before things get even worse and more expensive. No way. I've already put more into the remodel than I paid for the place. Besides, I'm no quitter.

I now figure that in another three to four years and another maybe third of a million I'll have, while not exactly a copy of the Taj Mahal, but at least something that sort of resembles it and hopefully has indoor plumbing.

Anyway, President Obama, I know what you're going through. Hang in there.

Founding a new old religion

After years of spiritual seeking, rejecting traditional religions and doing all the eastern mysticism stuff, I’ve finally discovered the true religion. It’s actually a variation on a very old idea, polytheism.

After much meditation and observation, I’ve concluded that the gods lurk among us. They wander around in the guise of those demented homeless bums who stumble about in the gutters of our cities.

Have you ever noticed that they talk loudly to themselves. Well, I’ve stopped to listen, and their cryptic statements can only be understood as cosmic revelation. The arguments they have with themselves are the great philosophical debates of our time. Seriously, this stuff is really heavy.

I remember a disheveled bum who staggered around the streets of downtown Long Beach some years back. I started to notice that whenever his monologs turned angry and he started to shout at himself, within 48 hours we would get rain. I’m convinced that each of these characters is the god of some natural force, and we won’t know which one until we insult one of them and perhaps fall victim to a flood.

I know that some would say that this is merely coincidence, but the three great western religions were founded on less empirical evidence. Oh sure, I could be wrong, but I’m not about to risk a lightning strike by rejecting these compelling facts.

Lately, I’ve taken to bundling up grains, fruits and veggies and stacking the bundles in my trunk. Now, whenever I see one of these gods, I stop, pull out a bundle and lay it at his or her feet as a sacrifice.

Well, I can tell you it is working. I haven’t experienced a plague, lightning, oozing sores, exploding animals, the reversal of gravity or an attack by one of my many enemies. I’m living under the protection of the gods, and I can now cross the street even without looking both ways.

Those of you who still believe in only one god, remember that a single god can’t be everywhere to watch everyone. If you want to be safe and secure, you need hundreds, maybe thousands of gods looking out for you.

Blasphemy ban a non starter

Some in the Muslim world want an international treaty to protect religious symbols and beliefs from mockery, a ban on blasphemy. For openers, that would run counter to our cherished right to free speech. It would also open a huge grey area: what constitutes blasphemy?

All the rhetoric that culminated in the Fort Hood killings could be protected by such a ban, as would the web sites promoting al-Qaida.

I’m sure that those Muslim countries that are pushing this are not thinking about protecting Christianity and Judaism from blasphemy, but once this can of worms is opened, what’s sauce for the goose, as they say, is sauce for the gander. Like it or not, “Allah is great; kill the infidels” would be seen as also unacceptable.

What next, once the standard religious sects of the western big three are protected, will we also have to ban denigrating the various kooky cults that spring up? No one really wanted to mock Jim Jones and his Jonestown experiment before the poison cool-aide incident. What about David Koresch? Those are just the prominent names that pop out of a very long list.

Taking this one step further, what about those of us who are atheists, a group of people who have only been able to come out of the closest in recent decades and who are still shunned by a large segment of society. Those of us who equate even conventional religion with kooky cults would likely be victims of witch hunts, jailed and persecuted just as we were for centuries.

Whether you are non-religious, conventionally religious, nominally religious or orthodox, to be kept from observing that the emperor has no clothes means the emperor, in all his guises, can run amok and naked through civilized society.

The politically correct among us may well fall for this blasphemy ban, thinking that we can’t criticize another culture’s beliefs, no matter what form they take. My view on that can be illustrated by what some friends have been sending me: strange lines that confused me until it was explained that they were from a game called Clue, something I’m not familiar with. However, whether you play that game or not, you should already know that the first step to understanding the complexity of anything is to start getting clues to people’s motives. Every clue warns me to reject this notion in any of its forms.

The Sad story of Joe

Let me tell you about Joe. I won’t give out his last name. A few years ago he decided to invest in a home for his young family. He scraped together all his savings and any other money he could scrounge up in order to make a down payment. He managed to purchase a nice home in a good neighborhood with good schools. He planed to live there many years, raise his kids, live the American dream.

His problems started with the issue of home maintenance. He was warned when he bought that he needed to have the place checked for termites every 3 to 5 years, but all that cost money, so he ignored it. When the house needed painting, he didn’t have time to do it himself, and the cost of a contractor was more than he wanted to pay. As a result, the paint peeled, and eventually dry rot got into the wood siding.

Then there were the cracks in the foundation, which he figured were no big deal, as most of the foundation looked pretty good. Then when the roof leaked\ and he was told it needed replacement, he tried to patch it himself, but unfortunately, water leaked into the attic.

To make a long story mercifully short, within a few years the deferred maintenance became such a huge issue that it would have cost a small fortune to fix the growing problems. It fact, the house was in such bad shape that it was unsafe and unhealthy, and Joe was forced to sell for half what he paid. I hear the new owners leveled the place and rebuilt.

Now Joe and his family live in a two bedroom apartment that rents for $300 more than his old mortgage payment.

Now, substitute “State of California” for “Joe.”

Taylor Swift: fantasy and a mute button

I was watching some middle school students playing on the internet, and several of them were watching Taylor Swift videos. Looking over their shoulders, I found it hard to take my eyes off of Swift. Because the students were wearing headphones, I couldn’t hear the music, which, in retrospect, was a good thing.

OK, I don’t like country music. More precisely, to me country music is like well bitten finger nails raked down an old fashioned blackboard, played through an amp. with bad feedback.

Anyway, curiosity got the better of me, and I listened to a preview of some of her music on the internet. She has a rather ordinary, somewhat metallic country voice. And, no, I wouldn’t buy her album.

However, with a face like that, even the finest voice would fall short. Being male, knowing a face like that is out there somewhere is enough to let me know that the world is a benign place and that somehow, somewhere, all will be sweetness and light. All I have to do is hit the mute button and sit back and enjoy.

The abortion bias.

Just watched “The Duchess,” set in the 1780s, about the duchess of Devonshire. The woman, trapped in an unhappy marriage is prevented by her rich and powerful husband from having a fulfilling relationship with a man she loves.

Apparently, the duke only married her to obtain a male heir. Beyond that, she had no real rights or purpose. She was forced by her husband to end her romantic relationship or lose her children forever.

Things have improved for women in the last 200 plus years, but there is still the underlying assumption that a woman is primarily a vehicle for producing a man’s children. Case in point is the health care debate and abortion as a sticking point that could derail the vote.

Many have cloaked this issue in religious terms, but I find that religion is often used to slip a sugar coating over a bitter social pill. This isn’t about anyone’s god; it’s about control and who has or hasn’t it.

We all have our views on abortion, from those who would deny any abortion to any woman at any time, to my view: mandatory abortion unless the parents could prove they have parental skill, emotionally maturity and sufficient financial resources to raise a child.

As much as I think I’m right, I wouldn’t want to impose my position on everyone else. I’m egocentric, but not that egocentric. If I would deny my right, based on massive wisdom, to make the rules, I certainly would balk at other, less enlightened, people making rules for everyone, everywhere.

It’s time to live and let live. A fetus is just a fetus, your religion is just one of many world views and, in case you don’t read the news, life isn’t all that precious these days.

Political correctness and the Fort Hood tragedy

For a number of years Americans have become more politically correct, more sensitive as it were. Some of this has had a positive effect. Many really insulting terms have all but vanished from conversation. We tend not to make fun of people who are socially or physically disadvantaged, at least not publicly. However, like any social trend, political correctness has moved beyond reasonable civility to something approaching the emperor’s new clothes.

A case in point is Nidal Milik Hasan, the army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded 29. All the warning signs were there. His anti American comments and his odd behavior were noted by many, yet nothing was done. It would have been politically incorrect to profile him because he was a Muslim, that he might be a terrorist or just noting that he might be dangerously disturbed. As a result the military experienced a tragedy that could have easily been averted.

What will be the next step? Given human nature, it will be both rationalization and denial or over reaction, either of which would be a mistake. Those to whom political correctness is almost a religion will caution that this was such an aberration, that it should be dismissed as something unpredictable and never to happen again. The knee-jerk, quick to anger folks will be ready for an anti Muslim witch hunt. Somewhere between the extremes lies reason.

Social problems tend to have faces and don’t occur in a vacuum. Obviously, post menopausal women, old men in suspenders and toddlers don’t engage in gang activity. Therefore, politically correct or not, we tend to watch certain groups of young men. By the same token, when worried about radical Muslim, anti American activity, we don’t waste our time looking at girl scouts, Southern Baptist choir members or soccer moms. Yes, looking at certain people as more likely to be involved in these things is profiling, and profiling used to harass, intimidate and persecute an entire demographic group is wrong. However, when a society is subjected to particular types of crime, a certain cautious watchfulness, a less hysterical profiling, is reasonable and at times necessary.

In the real world, you don’t want to arrest everyone who looks like an Arab, but if several men in masks, holding a crate of dynamite, are standing in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, you might just want to ask them what they’re up to.

Are we the real us?

Recently I watched a special on the late Mae West, and apart from her full and interesting life, something notable struck me.

Several times interviewees who recalled her made similar comments. In essence they said that she had so become the persona of public person Mae West that the real person Mae West had somehow disappeared. I hope I wasn’t the only person who thought that rather odd, particularly so given the fact that the interviewees were theater people.

Let’s look at this idea. Do any of us know anyone who isn’t some public persona? Really, now. If we do, that person must be really uninteresting. Imagine being just yourself, just that little neighborhood girl or boy who, even after several decades, has never moved beyond that person. And even if you can think of one, hasn’t that person worked at maintaining that image long beyond its shelf life?

Somewhere during the growing up period we all attach our name to some personality, some image we think is interesting or cool. Then, that image comes into play in all our actions and reactions. With each day, each interaction, we place another layer of varnish over that image, and by the time we are into full maturity, we have polished and perfected that image. We have fully become that person.

That’s how personality grows, like a bit of grit that over the years becomes a pearl.

In simplistic terms, we are the respectable banker, the intellectual, the town drunk, the bleeding heart, the class clown, the jock, the ditzy blond, the steady worker, the good mom or the pillar of the community. We could all have tee shirts made with our labels printed on them.

At the heart of this is the question of whether we are something fully realized at birth or some work in progress with ourselves as both the artist and architect. I believe that few moments of serious reflection will answer that question for any honest person.

I know that long ago I started to think about who this person with the strange name, “Meade” was all about. It couldn’t, as I believed, be the insecure, shy and boring child I was at the time. I was more than that, a troubled, creative child, a complex and convoluted soul, a character, perhaps even more. With each layer, I grew, and I liked the direction I was growing in, so I added more layers until I became whoever I am today, and like Mae West, I can’t even relate to any question as to whether this is the real me or a persona. It is all I have, all I am, and it took many years to evolve.

Yes, each day I rise, get into costume and prepare for the role of me. I’ve perfected this role; I’m better at being me than anyone else, and I know many people who enjoy the performance. Beside, I haven’t a clue how to be anyone else.

But no, I don’t deserve an academy award

CIT and our lost money

The other day an interesting news item caught my attention. CIT Group declared bankruptcy, and along with other investors, the US Government will likely lose $2.3 billion of taxpayers (our) money. At least our elected officials refused a second infusion of cash.

While they were getting all those billions that didn’t help, in other parts of the country businesses were shutting down, putting many out of work. In the same issue of the paper there was a story about some town in the heartland, where the major employer, a furniture manufacturing company, shut down, almost destroying the town. I couldn’t help wondering if 100 grand of that wasted $2.3 billion might have saved this small town. Yet, this was only one small town out of many caught in this recession/depression, the term you use determined by how it has affected you and yours.

Of course, this bankruptcy only affects the holding company, not operating subsidiaries such as CIT Bank. Now, I’m no financier nor economist, so all that hair splitting makes no sense at all to me. Investors lose money, but some or most of the company goes on making money.

The part of the story that amazed and amused me the most was that CIT has retained Evercore Partners and FTI Consulting as its financial advisers. Now, let’s slow this down for those of us who are financially challenged. CIT is a financial institution, a really big one. Financing and moving money is what they do, and they hire people who are trained professionals to do all that financing. I doubt seriously if they hire auto mechanics or house painters to make loans and investments. So, why on earth do they need to hire other people to advise them? I’m beginning to underst

Sign of the times and global warming

Saw a banner along Highway 1 in Moss Landing: “Not smart enough for science? Try religion.” I got a laugh out of it, but then, as serendipity would have it, someone sent me an article: In the United States, more people believe that houses can be haunted by the dead than believe that the living can cause climate change.

The percentage of people who believe humans are contributing to global warming has dropped to 36%, while those who believe that ghosts haunt houses stands at 37%. Also, and I didn’t make this up, the haunted house numbers are higher and the warming numbers lower among conservatives and church goers. So, we come full turn to the banner on the highway.

Now, in all fairness, the banner doesn’t have it quite right. It isn’t that these people aren’t necessarily smart. Stupidity is a condition of birth. If you are born a 40 watt bulb in a 100 watt world, you can’t do very much about it. At issue here is ignorance.

Ignorance is a personal choice made by people who want simple explanations that make them feel secure, rather than take the effort to delve into matters, think them out and try for a deeper understanding. Most issues are complex, having many shades of gray, making even many smart people uncomfortable. It’s so much easier to frame everything as right or wrong, good or evil, black or white, left or right or people like us vs. people like them. I have a sneaking suspicion that religion got its start catering to that gnawing need in people.

However, with mounting scientific evidence for global climate change, evidence that can be understood with only the application of the high school chemistry class we took, people who disbelieve that the huge amount of carbon spewing from our cars and industries is going into the atmosphere and having an effect on weather, no longer simply have their heads in the sand. Rather, they have their heads in a much darker, less pleasant place.

On the other hand, haunted houses remain a romantic notion, made lovable in films like “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.” While there is no scientific evidence for ghosts, and while it is highly unlikely that something remains after death that is capable of haunting, the possibility that there are ghosts and haunted houses can’t be totally disproved.

While ghosts are elusive and hard to prove, we can roughly measure the carbon that we, through modern industrial technology, are putting into the atmosphere. We also know how carbon combines and how it affects sunlight.

Religion doesn’t necessarily take sides against atmospheric science and for the paranormal. It does, however, predispose people to simplistic and erroneous answers.

First successful soul transplant

The world’s first successful soul transplant was performed yesterday at the UC transplant center in San Francisco, by Dr. Les Apt.

Dr. Apt explained the difficulties involved. “The major problem was finding the soul. It is invisible under normal light. With the discovery of the ultra yellow spectrum, we were finally able to see the elusive little dickens.” Ultra yellow light was accidentally discovered at Apple’s research facility while they were trying to develop a computer so fast that it would second guess the operator, giving the human an answer minutes before he posed the question.

Dr. Apt also explained the handling of the soul. “It’s kind of a slippery, shapeless thing, so we had to develop magnetic forceps to keep it from sliding through our fingers.”

Since there were no human souls available, Apt’s team was forced to use a pig soul. “It’s a bit larger and has fewer blemishes,” said Dr. Apt. “But otherwise, it’s an almost perfect fit.”

Not everyone applauds this breakthrough. Rev. Ben Dover of the Moral Minority said, in a televised statement, “This is contrary to God’s law of one soul, one person. Also, we object to the use of a pig’s soul. If God had wanted us to have animal parts, He would have made us part of the animal kingdom.” He also added that he was afraid the godless secular humanists would start harvesting souls from aborted fetuses.

One of the problems with this procedure is that people are unlikely to leave their souls to medical science. Moral philosopher Rev. Ima Wise explained the problem. “People spend a lifetime preparing their souls for heaven. What would happen of the recipient misuses it, and the soul ends up in hell?”

We asked Dr. Apt how the patient, whose name has been withheld, is doing after the procedure. “He’s awake and alert. His family said he used to be a rather difficult fellow, but now he seems much nicer and more congenial.”

Is it possible for a person to live without a soul? Medical researcher, Martin Mink said, “It is possible for a person to exist, but he or she wouldn’t be alive and aware in the same way we are. They would be, in essence, little more than insensitive automatons. We are only aware of a couple of examples, both commentators on Fox News.”

Asked about where the soul connects to the body, Dr. Apt chuckled. “You know, Rene Descartes was right all along. We just sewed it on to the pineal gland. Only took a few minutes.”

In the Labyrinth of the mind with Hofstadter and Searle: a review of Douglas Hofstadter’s, I am a Strange Loop

Those of you who suspect that cognitive science isn’t particularly cognitive or scientific; Hofstadter’s 2007 book will confirm your suspicions. This rambling and often incoherent work is located on the “science” shelves, but would be better placed in “memoirs.”

The title made me think I’d be getting current insights into consciousness, but after he started the book with a dialog he wrote as a teen and followed it up with an account of his conversion to vegetarianism, I began to think he wasn’t going to address the subject.
Then when he blasts John Searle for a review of Hofstadter’s earlier work, The Mind’s I,
the warning lights really went off. The review was concise and clear and didn’t warrant offhand dismissal. Perhaps Hofstadter’s admitted friendship with artificial intelligence guru Marvin Minsky had something to do with the hostile attitude.

Oddly enough, there are areas of agreement between Searle and Hofstadter, such as a rejection of Cartesian dualism and thinking machines: on page 190 he agrees that Deep Blue, when beating Kasparov at chess, wasn’t really thinking.

I found his premise that the “I,” that self-consciousness we all experience, is a loop running in the brain. However, he doesn’t really dig deeply into what that means in terms of mental states and brain activity. He does go on about symbols in the brain, but that is totally unclear. It sounded to me like little name tags stuck to synapses.

He also failed to address a major issue surrounding the “I,” the obvious evolutionary forces that made self-consciousness necessary. We are social animals, and to be such we must read the goals, moods and actions of our group, and then make inferences about projected group behavior. Doing this would, naturally, be pointless if we couldn’t also read the same things in ourselves in order to decide if we were with the group, following them, deciding to lead them in another direction or deciding we were in the wrong group.
It is impossible to be a social animal without self reference.

Another puzzling part of the book is the amount of space he spends praising mathematician Kurt Gödel. He devotes one full chapter and a big part of at least two others in what appears to be blatant hero worship. He even dwells on the fact that Gödel’s name includes the letters “god.” As part of this hero worship, he reduces the work of Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead to nothing more than a springboard for Gödel’s 1931 work. The most confusing part of these Gödel pages is that Hofstadter takes a convoluted route to make a connection between Gödel and the premise of his book. I finally had to skip over sections where Gödel’s name appeared. That Hofstadter is an admitted failed mathematician might have something to do with this apparent obsession.

Hofstadter’s notion that an imperfect copy of one person’s mind can be incorporated into another, say a loved one, ignores the fact that the physical experiences, not just mental ones, shape the content of the mind, thus forever leaving each mind virtually isolated. He seems to verge on the “New Age” with these notions.

At times Hofstadter attempts to be literary, but he seems to try too hard, overdoing the extended metaphors to the point where the reader thinks, “just get on with it.”

Finally, in this 360 page book, any valuable points he makes about consciousness and self-consciousness can be found in John Searle’s 161 page, Mind, Language and Society.
However, Searle is perfectly clear, while Hofstadter leaves the reader confused.

Reframing the health care debate

In doesn’t matter much if you are far right, far left or near center, the current debate over health care reform isn’t working, and that’s a different issue than if health care itself is or isn’t working.

Name calling and labels, complete with all the dreaded and ambiguous “isms” only serve to further entrench personal biases and preconceptions. The louder the argument, the deeper we retreat into familiar territory. We need to abandon the notion that someone with a different political opinion is either of a different species, dishonest or morally corrupt. What we need is to reframe the issue and use that new frame to search for solutions.

In order to reframe, we need to establish as given some premises any reasonable person can agree to. Let’s take the two central issues: health and money.

Premise one: Health is a good thing both for the individual and the nation. Unless you are pathological, you would rather be healthy than sick. Also, in general, you would rather have someone you pass randomly on the street healthy, rather than sick. From a national point of view, healthy people are productive, thus adding to the economy and general prosperity. Sick people are not productive, thus drawing from the economy and reducing the general prosperity.

Premise two: Cost matters. If I promised everyone full health care coverage for a yearly fee of $100,000, most would balk at this. If I made the same offer for $1, everyone would line up to take advantage. So, most people would agree to the following, “Give me great health coverage, and give it to me cheap.”

If everyone, left, right and center is still with me, we can start to reframe the debate. We all want our medical needs taken care of, but we don’t want it to bankrupt us personally or as a society. It doesn’t matter if we carry tea bags or anti war signs, we are all the same on these basic issues. Now we can throw away the labels and see each other for what we are, humans who will eventually get sick and die, but who would like as many healthy years as possible.

Not being a doctor, politician or economist, I can’t sit here and generate the perfect frame for this debate, but I’ll bet that groups of doctors, politicians and economists can sit down armed with these basic human needs and create a frame that most people can buy into. From there, the road to health care reform is a “yellow brick” expressway.

I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize

The news that Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize has gotten me thinking, and being self-centered, that thinking has gravitated toward myself.

I do like Obama. I voted for him, but I have to wonder if he were the best choice. We are, after all, still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the two parties in Congress are almost ready to come to blows.

Now, I could offer a wide field of alternative choices for this award, but it’s hard for me to speak to the motives of others. Besides, I’m sure my list would leave out many qualified candidates. No, the only proper thing to do is offer myself as a person eminently qualified for this award, along with the money involved.

Let me make my history known to one and all, so the world can judge my qualifications.
I was peaceful even at an early age. As a kid, when someone had a problem with me and said we’d meet after school to fight it out, I simply wouldn’t show up, opting instead to meet friends for a soda and some fries.

Then, along came the Viet Nam war. I quickly dashed out to enlist in a safe National Guard unit, where I spent my summers playing military games in the California desert and drinking copious amounts of beer.

Throughout my youth, whenever some international situation would get me angry, I would quickly make a date with some attractive young woman. I always subscribed to the idea, make love, not war.

You can check the record. I’ve never dashed off to Washington DC to sign any declaration of war. I resisted the urge when Iran held our hostages, and I didn’t get involved on either side when Israel and its neighbors had all those nasty little wars.

When we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, I didn’t rush out to re enlist. I pulled out my old National Guard uniform, found it no longer fit and thought better of the whole idea.

I don’t even kill the animals I eat, leaving that unpleasant chore to other, more violent, people.

As much as I respect our president, I have to say, in all humility, that I’m by far the better choice for the Peace Prize.

Pedestrian stops and civic responsibility

Apparently, according to a news piece, police in major cities are stopping pedestrians, questioning them, perhaps even frisking them if they seem to be acting suspiciously. It seems that as this practice is on the rise, crime rates are falling.

Civil rights groups are naturally upset, particularly because Blacks and Hispanics are targeted more often. While about 90 percent of those stopped are soon left to go on their way, they are left shaken and indignant, afraid and angry. However, about 10 percent are found to be doing something illegal, like carrying concealed weapons, and are arrested.

This appears to be a classic case of that delicate balance we’ve tried to achieve in this country, the balance between civil rights and public safety. Clearly, no one wants innocent people stopped and searched on the streets. This makes us think of totalitarian oppression. Yet, no one can deny that crime on the streets has been and continues to be a serious problem. Added to usual street crime are the gangs, which seem to be growing larger, more numerous and more violent. Also, since Blacks and Hispanics comprise a proportionally larger percentage of criminals on the street, some degree of profiling is unfortunately taking place.

In an ideal world, people wouldn’t be stopped by the police unless they were committing or had committed a crime. Of course, in an ideal world, young men would not be gathering in gangs, carrying weapons and causing a public safety problem.

It all comes back to some bedrock assumptions about a civilized society. To the degree that people behave responsibly and civilly they are free to go about their lives and engage in any chosen activities. Our society accepts a wide latitude of behavior, and as we continue to evolve as a society, this latitude grows wider. Homosexually has been decriminalized, and I expect drug use will also be decriminalized. Behavior that once seem deviant enough to keep people out of jobs or neighborhoods is now seen as fairly acceptable.

Again, it is a question of balance. Law enforcement, faced with daily violent activity, see the streets as unsafe places, filled with real or potential criminals. Young men hanging out on the streets, to the degree that they are doing something suspicious, see the police as dangerous enemies. It’s another version of the old adage, if you are a hammer, you see everything as a nail.

We tend to frame things in terms of society’s responses. The authorities are seen as either soft on crime or accused of police brutality. We tend to view the street criminals as being hampered by unemployment and lack of education. Naturally, we need to offer education and employment opportunities, but these need to be contingent on more responsible behavior. In order to de-escalate this growing tension between the two positions, each side needs to back down incrementally. Less street violence, less police pressure and

Some time ago I commented on fact and opinion, and now I’d like to explore this a bit more, including the notion of belief.

In school we all learned to know the difference between fact and opinion, but belief wasn’t mentioned.

Let’s take an example, something uncontroversial like strawberries. Here’s a fact: Strawberries are an edible fruit. Agreed?
Now an opinion: I think strawberries are the best tasting fruit. Valid opinion, right?

Now here’s where the problem starts, the point where opinion becomes belief: Strawberries are the world’s best fruit. See how this statement leaves no room for disagreement. It you object, saying you prefer blackberries, the response would be something like: What’s wrong with you? How can you not prefer the world’s best fruit?

To discover the source of many human conflicts, simply replace “strawberries” with any statement about religion, politics, social issues, philosophy or even taste in music.

We seem to take our opinions, carve them in stone for all time, and they become our beliefs, even when evidence to the contrary is presented to us. When it was proved that the earth revolves around the sun, many people still believed the opposite. Even today, we have people who assert that the earth is flat.

It seems we need to pull out our beliefs from time to time, dust them off, re examine them and adjust or even discard them if needed.

Sweat Lodge fraud

The sweat lodge ordeal was in the news again, this time a survivor told her story. What caught my eye right away was that people paid $9,000 or more for this retreat. Then upon reading further, I found that for this sizable sum, the people fasted for five days, were deprived of sleep and subjected to mind altering breathing exercises, all that before they were herded into a sweat lodge that made many ill and killed two.

A spokesman for the character who ran this perverse party said that many people had “amazing experiences,” which is code for hallucinations. I might suggest any easier way to have these experiences; go pick some magic mushrooms. You can probably pick up a field guide to these for around 20 bucks, saving $8,980. But then again, you wouldn’t get to say you were at a “Spiritual Warrior” event.

What exactly does “spiritual” mean? I hate to even open that can of worms. You could probably ask a hundred people and get 99 different answers, some of them in the twilight zone of outer “new age.” One can claim to see spirits, as in ghosts. People can be in good spirits, have spirited conversations, drink distilled spirits or even believe that there is some nebulous thing within a person that is eternal and not part of the body, as in a soul.

I guess these people were spiritual seekers with money to burn, and to paraphrase P.T. Barnum, there’s a seeker born every minute. So, as much as I would like to see the organizer of the retreat, James Arthur Ray, thrown in prison, I have to put much of the blame on the people who paid for the right to be tired, hungry, disoriented and physically ill. When people are that credulous, how tempting it is to offer them some mystical song and dance and laugh all the way to the bank.

And if anyone still thinks all this “Spiritual Warrior” stuff makes sense, I have an actual recording of a choir of angels that will cause you to transcend your mundane daily lives. Just send me a check.