Fake News in a Righteous Cause is Still Fake news

        There is currently a video making all those side bar “click here” areas of the computer screen in which a beautiful light brown skinned girl smiles as she tells us that tipping is an American institution created to disadvantage former slaves by getting them to work for low hourly wages (if any). She continues by pointing out that 60% of ‘servers” are females and 40% of those are Black. As in too many of such “educational” videos, it plays fast and loose with the truth, primarily (and unfortunately) because, of course, racism does exist in America, just not under every conceivable rock or integrally with every institution. Understand - this video, to the uninformed or the eager to accept, comes across as an indictment of the US for inventing tipping in the post-Civil War South, claiming that former slave owners created the system to avoid paying former slaves.

        So, what’s my beef? It is simply that it dilutes the real cause of racial equality and respect by lying about issues such as this. For the bigot, finding one such allegation to be false serves as a talking point to negate them all. So, then, what exactly am I talking about?

        The history and origin of tipping is European and predates the US Civil War by centuries. The practice of tipping began in Tudor England. (mid 1500s) By the 17th century, it was expected that overnight guests to private homes would provide sums of money, known as "vails", to the host’s servants. Soon afterwards, customers began tipping in London coffeehouses and other commercial establishments. The etymology for the synonym for tipping, "gratuity" (because we all feel “gracious” when we tip, right?), dates back either to the 1520s, from "graciousness", from the French gratuité (14th century) or directly from Medieval Latin gratuitas, "free gift", probably from earlier Latin gratuitus, "free, freely given". The meaning "money given for favor or services" is first attested in the 1530s. So hardly American, hardly Southern, hardly post war. While it may well have been discriminatory based on social class, it certainly wasn’t race based.

        By the 1900s, Americans considered tipping to be the norm and, in fact, were frequently criticized for over tipping (yeah…right!).  Englishmen complained that "liberal but misguided" Americans tipped too much, leading servants to feel shortchanged by the British.  Similarly, a 1908 Travel magazine found that Americans over tipped but received poorer service because Americans “did not know how to treat servants and service members.”  Why include this information? Because it points out, that, contrary to the thesis of the video, that Americans actually tended to tip service persons, race irrelevant, better than Europeans. This statement is also relevant to metropolitan, urban areas, where race of serving persons varied over an extreme spectrum.  It was Benjamin Franklin in 18^th century Paris who said, "To over-tip is to appear an ass: to undertip is to appear an even greater ass."

        As tipping became widespread in America, many found it to be antithetical to democracy and American ideals of equality.  In 1891, journalist Arthur Gaye wrote that a tip should be given to someone "who is presumed to be inferior to the donor, not only in worldly wealth, but in social position also."  "Tipping, and the aristocratic idea it exemplifies, is what we left Europe to escape,” William Scott wrote in his 1916 anti-tipping brochure, “The Itching Palm,” in which he argued that tipping was as "un-American" as "slavery

                Prior to 1840, Americans did not tip, or at least it wasn’t considered tipping to reward a service person for good service.  But, after the Civil War, newly rich Americans visited Europe and brought the practice back home to show that they had been abroad and knew genteel rules.  A New York Times editor grumbled that, once tipping got hold in the United States, it spread rapidly like "evil insects and weeds." Now here’s where the Berkeley study cited in the video goes off the rails. With no historical citation or justification, it posits that former slave owners “miffed” (my word) at the loss of free labor (Slavery wasn’t “free” labor in any case, just uncompensated to the slave, but costly to the slaveholder) invented (we now know that’s blatantly false, so let’s say “implemented”) the system of tipping to avoid paying regular wages to Black employees on railroads and in hotels. So, you ask, “What’s wrong with that statement?”

        To begin, most freed former slaves in the South were agricultural workers.  While the number of slaves owned varied from one to hundreds, most worked the soil, with a significant but much smaller percentage owned by city dwellers and serving as house servants.  While there is no extant research which details the numbers regarding how and where these former bondsmen and women became employed and how they were compensated, this is nonetheless true: The majority of former agriculturally utilized slaves, male and female, remained on the land as share croppers. A high percentage of former house servants remained in service, but we simply have no data on how, or how much, they were compensated.

        Making some assumptions: first, the video continues to the end to indicate that tipping is still racist today and states that 60% of waitresses are women and about 40% of those are Black.  Unfortunately, they have a conflict in that statement with those well-known pollsters, the US census bureau. As of 1991, the last year for which I could find data, the numbers are waaay different.  While 81.6% of food servers were women, a mere 4.2% were black. 7.1% were Hispanic, which means that food service females getting tips as part of compensation were 70% Caucasian!  This directly contradicts the assertions made in the video. I also need to stress that the not so thinly veiled implication is that tipping is a way to pay less (it can be for the employer) and then goes to the illogical conclusion that those working for tips are under-compensated.  While this may be true for some cases, in most it is not.  Waitresses in metropolitan areas average about $15 hourly in tips, to which is added the (ludicrously low and insulting minimum allowable in all but 7 states) $ 2.13, for even in those states, an average $17.13 hourly wage for unskilled labor. In the seven states requiring higher minimums for wait staff it comes to over $22 hourly!  In truth, many make significantly more, depending on where they work.

 So, recapping:

 Tipping wasn’t a Southern invention but was centuries old when Americans travelling overseas were exposed to it.

 Most freed slaves were not equipped to work in areas of employment where tipping was the norm.

 Tipping was far more prevalent in the North.        

Most workers earning tips today are not minorities, but many are female. Most make more with tips than a minimum wage would provide. Yes, tipping does allow employers to pay less, but that “extra” cost is borne by the customer  

Finally, tipping, although common and much more generous in other areas of personal service (massage therapists, hairdressers, etc.), is primarily associated with low skill, minimum or zero training jobs, which would in any case be minimum wage jobs.

       Does that suck? Perhaps, but in a nation with free public schooling and vocational programs there are other opportunities. The choice to avail or not to avail oneself of said opportunities is personal.

       Overstating the impact of race in areas where the validity of such attribution is questionable, at best, dilutes the cause of racial justice and equality in those areas where there is legitimate and pressing concern.  Automatically injecting an allegation of “racism” into areas where other factors may well be in play weakens, rather than strengthens the moral stance of those opposing racial bias and discrimination in America. Faulty “history” is no excuse for “Fake News,” even in a righteous cause.

No Time Travel Option

         

https://www.facebook.com/InTheWoodsWithPhil/videos/231127270896442/

The video above was posted to public media by someone who believed it to be demonstrative of reality in the world today. Unfortunately, this indicates ignorance of economics more than any other single concept,

        The real message here isn't that the Chinese are producing "cheap junk" since there is, and has always been, plenty of American made cheap junk. Same materials, same machinery, higher labor cost. In Trump world, the bad guys are the people who, understanding economics, (which he demonstrably doesn't - can you say "five bankruptcies?") supply the US demands for cheap products. One of the major players in this charade is ...wait for it.... that icon of conservative Republican support, Walmart.  Sam Walton made his rep with "Made in America" signs all over the stores. Find one now if you can.

        Historically, Walmart has pushed US companies like Rubbermaid to shift production to China and elsewhere by telling them what they (Walmart) would pay for a product and that if they couldn't produce it domestically at that price, then they'd have to make it elsewhere. Bye-bye American made Rubbermaid products, hello cheaper Chinese made Rubbermaid products. A note here, many of these Chinese products, especially sports team logo wear are marked up tremendously by the American company and Chinese workers get relatively little of the upcharge. A golf shirt with logo which Under Armor manufactures in China for about $9  is priced at  $96 dollars in the US Naval Academy gift shop. There are American shirt makers who produce as good a product but are shut out because Under Armor outfits the football team as well.  Under Armor is American owned.

        The tragically ignorant thread here, is that headband wearing, redneck, cousin lovers such as those in this video shop where? Walmart, because it's cheaper. Blaming China for meeting the demand of Americans for cheaper products is ludicrous, and sadly, indicative of the many of our citizenry who have almost no cognizance of Economics. These are the same people who, at an auto dealership only care about "How much is my payment?" and jump at the offer to wait three months before making the first one, not realizing that the interest will be added to the final cost anyway.

        There will continue to be a market in certain sectors for luxury products made in America and elsewhere, but the majority of minimum wage, two jobs families aren’t the market for those products. Of course, Trump bitches about “cheap, Chinese” products, since he will never buy any of them for personal use. This, however doesn’t meant that he and his practice what he preaches.  Since Election Day, the apparel brand run by Trump’s daughter has imported 56 shipments of Ivanka Trump products from China and Singapore, part of a total of 215 shipments from Asia since Jan. 1, 2016. In Trump’s signature DC hotel (from which he was supposed to distance himself due to potential conflict of interest but hasn’t) the four-story American flag in the lobby towers over Swarovski chandeliers made in Austria. Lamps lining the hallway are from China. Small decorative boxes on the coffee tables are marked with stickers that read “Made in India.” In addition, the majority of items in the $800 per night rooms are not “American made.”  In all, 21 of the 31 products whose provenance could be identified come from outside the US. Here's a partial list: Lamps (China), Glasses (Italy), Phones (Malaysia), Remote control (China), TV (South Korea), Soaps and shampoos (Canada), Towels (India), Scale (China). Hair dryer (China). Sheets (Italy), Tissue container (UK), Umbrella (China), Robe (China), Tray (UK), Ice bucket (UK), Dishes (Germany), Chandeliers (Austria).  

        Now here’s the paradox which makes my head hurt. The majority of Trump supporters who cheer at his jingoistic speeches about economic issues have several huge lapses of logic at work in their thought processes, whatever they may be:

First: Their “default position” is, “If we manufactured these things here in “’Murrica” instead of overseas there’d be more jobs, we could make more money! Of course, this leads to logic lapse number two which is:

Second: These same naifs would expect American wages, which when added to higher domestic overhead and materials costs would make these products much more expensive. Over the entire manufacturing spectrum, this means a rather large increase in cost of living for those who can least afford it, most of whom ignorantly support this convoluted and retrograde notion. Of course, Trump and his ilk couldn’t care less, since they don’t shop at Walmart.

Third:  These folks, like their President, don’t “get” that the economic balance and nature of the world has changed and cannot be “reset” simply because they want it to be.  We are no longer in possession of all the raw materials which forged the world’s most robust economy in 1946, when Trump and many of his supporters were born. [One quick example is the rare earths required for many of the electronic systems prevalent in almost every aspect of modern life, from cell phones, to jet fighter weapons control systems, to satellite technology. China and Brazil control almost 75% of proven sources of those minerals currently known to exist!] The US economy cannot simply click its heel, chant “There’s no place like home” and return to that economy. The era of manual labor supporting a family is pretty much over.

Fourth, and just as troubling: The sub plot in much of this is Trump’s carefully orchestrated, implied “fear of the ‘other’” scenario. It’s not just xenophobia, because he has managed to make many of his sycophant base see their fellow Americans as the “other” as well as those of brown skin, almond eyes and strange accents. Somehow “they” are to blame, whether it’s “taking American jobs” which is a blatant lie, since immigrants are in most cases taking either high tech jobs because they have the training, skills, and motivation Americans lack, or entry level jobs which many Americans are too (“good”, proud, whatever) to take. Meanwhile crops rot in fields in some areas because those who have, in the past, picked it, are afraid to come to work. The other “other” is those of us who see the man for what he is and more importantly, for what he isn’t. If we mention the racism, ignorance, and general lack of respect for others exhibited by the Trump administration, we are now the enemy as well. Reporting factual data becomes “Fake News.”  In fact, anything not specifically pro-Trump is likely to be labeled as such. Trump consigliere/mouthpiece Rudy Giuliani even recently stated that truth is, “Not necessarily,” truth. Say what?

        A trip to Arnold’s Drive In, if we could hop in the Delorean and make it, would reveal that, for better or worse (but forever, in any case)  Ritchie Cunningham, Potsie, Ralph and the Fonz have been gone for decades. In many cases, so has “Made In America.”   

Any Questions?

          I have, from time to time, been perplexed, disappointed or irritated (and sometimes all three) by the sheer stupidity exhibited by some professional athletes. Coaches can sometimes come in a close second. It is unfortunate, but all too frequent, that sometimes the attitudes of these grown children percolate into the population in general, displacing such adult concepts as reason, restraint, civility and self-awareness.

       It is troubling to me, as exemplified by a most recent incident that, when an athlete is performing well and exercising their skills developed over years of practice, others will consider them deserving of being injured or hampered, simply because they are winning. Tonya Harding and her husband injuring Nancy Kerrigan is one such an example. Professional football and hockey abound with such louts, (Ndamukong Suh, Lyle Alzado, Conrad Dobler, Bill Romanowski, are a few of football's "roid rager" examples.)     

        While many sports require skill and coordination, there are several where high achievement is measured by being successful only about 1/3 of the time. Golf is one such; baseball is another. If a golfer won just a third of all tournaments entered, he’d be iconic. A baseball player who reaches base safely on a hit just a third of the time is a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, with a lifetime .333 batting average. In fact, in the modern era only eight individuals have managed such a lifetime batting average.

        When a golfer is doing well, leading a tournament field, what is the setting? Generally, the crowd is urged to be quiet, and the golfer will step back and wait if that doesn’t happen. Tournament officials and will intervene if conditions are not appropriate. No one runs out of the crowd and hits the golfer in the shins with a putter. His or her playing partners are respectfully quiet and appropriately congratulatory when the player executes well.    

        Now let’s look at a professional baseball game which took place two days ago in Atlanta, Georgia. The division leading Braves were home standing against the hapless (21 ½ games behind them) Miami Marlins. For the Braves, a highlight of the season has been the performance of young left fielder Ronald Acuna, Jr. Acuna entered Wednesday’s game having hit 5 home runs in the previous four games, the last three of those games against The Marlins. Each dinger had been a leadoff home run.

        This brings me to the point of this essay. As manager of the Marlins, what are your options with regard to Acuna?  Well, you could intentionally walk him, or perhaps tell your pitcher, one Jose Arena, a journeyman, with a 3-12 record to date, not to give Acuna anything in the strike zone, even simply have your pitcher do his best and allow whatever happens to happen, or, and here’s the issue at hand, tacitly let him know it’s appropriate to throw at the batter, which Arena did, “plunking” Acuna in the elbow so blatantly that the league has suspended Acuna for six games and fined him an “undisclosed amount”.

         All of Arena’s protestation to the contrary is belied by the fact that it was the first pitch of the game to (and at) a guy who has owned Marlins pitching. It was almost assuredly not a decision made by Arena himself, although he’s been hung out to dry for it. It was not a “back him off the plate” throw either, but exactly what it looked like, hitting a batter as punishment for his skill. It was Happy Gilmore on the mound. Fortunately for Arena, Acuna was the adult on this occasion and did not go to the mound, bat in hand.

        The practice of throwing at (“plunking”) a batter for doing his best in the face of your team’s inadequate pitching has long been a nasty part of the game which good managers decry and poor pitchers and managers defend. It should be punished to a far more serious extent and consequence than it is. A baseball at 85 to 90 miles per hour is a deadly weapon, and while helmets now protect the heads of batters, other parts are unprotected. In the last 40 years at least 20 major league players have had careers ended or diminished by thrown baseballs. Fortunately, X-rays showed no joint damage to Acuna’s elbow in this case.

        So, enter one Keith Hernandez, former National League MVP and New York Mets broadcaster. The following night he actually said this: “You got (sic) to hit him. They’re killing you, you lost three games. He’s hit three home runs; you got to hit him. I’m sorry, people aren’t going to like that. You know, you got to hit him, knock him down.”   To the credit of others, these comments weren’t well received by most baseball folks, but they are indicative of an attitude which exists in baseball and other sports as well as recently seeping into much of public discourse.

         Let’s translate Hernandez’ comments into general terms: “This person, because of hard work and training has achieved a degree of skill which allows him to perform his job at a high level. He’s doing his best and we’re doing our best, but our team sucks, and we are not as capable. Rather than do what we can within the rules of the game to make ourselves better, let’s hurt or disadvantage the other person.”  Now read most recent “presidential” tweets. Any questions?     

Don't Act Surprised!

       This is a follow on to an excellent post elsewhere, by a friend, a married female  lead pastor of a large progressive Protestant congregation, related to the recent  Willow Creek megachurch scandal involving multiple incidents of sexual abuse, and the Church consistory's (eventual) response. That response was their mass resignation, probably because they had known, but resisted acting on that knowledge for too long. One excellent point she made was that having met the individual (male Senior Pastor, sexual predator) in the center of all the controversy, she was relatively unsurprised. It made me wonder how prevalent this sort of thing really is and the results of my brief research were revelatory, but not particularly surprising to me. 

                        Don't Act Surprised!

        Some 15 years ago, a scholarly study by a moderate religious seminary concluded that: 10% of all psychologists have had an affair with a client; while 30% of all pastors have had an affair with a member of the congregation. Four, more recent, (2007) self-reporting surveys of pastors (“High Risk Factors in Pastoral Infidelity,” by Carder, D., Christian Counseling Connection, 2007) were summarized thus: “14-18% of pastors admitted to an affair and an additional 18% admitted to an emotional affair.” But because 14% of the pastors admitted that they lied on the survey, the surveyors assume the rate of either physical or emotional infidelity among pastors is at about 40%.

         The shocking (to some, not so much to others, including myself) numbers would seem to be borne out by the current frequency of “outing” of poor pastoral self-control nationally. In too many cases, initial reports have been pigeonholed by Church hierarchies unwilling to confront the inevitable attendant publicity. (Note: this is not a study of priests (another, perhaps even more sordid, tale) , but of major non-celibate Protestant clergy, and does not include anything which would be classified as pedophilia).

       This issue has recently re-risen to national  notice because   one of the growing numbers of large congregations known as “Megachurches,”  Willow Creek Community Church which had already agreed to pay more than $3 million to settle lawsuits over the sexual abuse of two developmentally disabled boys by a church volunteer, was revealed by the Chicago Tribune to have made a second settlement,  for $1.75 million, in February, before the Tribune revealed that the evangelical megachurch’s founder, the Rev. Bill Hybels, engaged in inappropriate conduct with women, eventually leading to his early retirement and, this month, the resignation of the church’s two leading pastors and its entire board of elders.  

       Back to the statistics: we may be able to account for the difference between the 10% and the 30% in this way: Psychologists have to take a course in ethics, which includes teachings on how to draw boundaries with clients, how to seek counseling for themselves in order to understand their how to gain victory over personal flaws, how to avoid temptations in the office, how to make appropriate referrals, learning professional consequences of inappropriate behavior (losing one's license), grasping the importance of "doing no harm" to a client, learning about the requirement to report another psychologist that you hear about that's having an affair, and other important ethical and legal teachings. Perhaps a more meaningful query would be to determine why intensive bible study and seminary training would leave the recipient in need of ethics training.

        If one studies the principal role of a “real” pastor, meaning one who actually deals with parishioners as a spiritual counselor and mentor, it is far different than that of the televangelist frauds whose contact with the faithful revolves around having staff open the envelopes, save the checks and throw away the prayer requests. (Robert Tilton’s fraud exposed by ABC News in 1991). As bad, are the many “business opportunities" hyped by these men and women such as Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, another megachurch pastor, a United Methodist yet, (former advisor to Bush 43) and a business partner, Gregory Smith, who sold millions of dollars of worthless Chinese bonds, telling investors to "remain faithful and that they would receive their money," and of course Jim Bakker the shill supreme. In fact, when scanning the dials for televangelists it’s more likely that you’ll find frauds than righteous men.

        Like most of the televangelists and perhaps as great a percentage of mainstream evangelical pastors (if that’s not self-contradictory), many pastors are undereducated for their chosen field by comparison. This is especially troubling when, in truth, much of a pastor’s principal job is in loco mental health counselor. A Psychiatrist would have at least 8 years of job specific training, a  licensed counselor would have a minimum of a master's degree (6 years post secondary education). 

        This is not an indictment of most principal protestant seminary programs, but of those Evangelicals who seem to feel a $100 haircut hair and a fake smile are all it takes to minister to a congregation. (see: Osteen, Joel, studied Communications at Oral Roberts, did not graduate, has no seminary training or divinity degree).  Two years of seminary and three years of “Bible College” just don’t cut it. If any Fundamentalist/Evangelical seminaries and Bible Colleges presently even provide such real courses (as in practice based and justified by current Medical and Psychological theory) in Counseling and ethics, I'd be mildly surprised.

        So, what do we know about these clergy offender characteristics? Unsurprisingly, the one universal trait that has been found in prior studies pertaining to both sexual misconduct and abuse is that the overwhelming majority of known offenders are male (Studies in: 1998; 2004 and 2010). This, of course, shouldn’t be considered surprising since most Christian denominations (88%) only allow males to assume leadership positions within the church. The “best” estimates that exist are from faith-based insurance companies that have released data on claims paid for religious institutions. Specifically, three faith-based insurance companies that provide coverage for 165,500 churches—mostly Protestant Christian churches and 5500 other religious-oriented organizations—reported 7095 claims of alleged sexual abuse by clergy, church staff, congregation members, or volunteers between 1987 and 2007 (Seattle Post-Intelligencer 2007).

        Another key characteristic found regarding clergy who have been known to have engaged in sexual misconduct is that most have had significantly higher-than-normal levels of narcissism when using Raskin and Hall’s (1979) Narcissistic Personality inventory.  Narcissism is seen as a key trait that can amplify instances of sexual abuse for individuals in positions of power. Obviously, this power/narcissism connection has ramifications for the human race as a whole and is not limited to clergy, as the current US political atmosphere would indicate. Unfortunately, the clergy, to a greater extent than most are seen as “safe”, “trustworthy”, “moral” (and other reassuring adjectives) by most of their flocks.

       Findings also revealed several key characteristics pertaining to offender characteristics being mostly white males. Offenders being male should not be a surprise since the majority of known adult sex offenders are male (Rennison and Rand 2003) and males occupy 88% of all Lead Pastor positions in US Protestant Christian churches (Cooperative Congregations Studies Partnership 2010). Thus, women in most congregations may not be in positions of power that can influence the propensity to engage in sexual abuse. That offenders are mostly white also mirrors what is known about most sex offenders (Ackerman et al. 2011) and those who identify as Protestant Christians (Pew Research Center 2007). With the average offender age at 40.4 years, these findings are considerably younger in comparison

        As categories of the final offender characteristic measured in the present study of offender-role, there were several individual roles represented - volunteers, non- clerical employees, etc. However, nearly two-thirds of all offenders held the roles of Pastor or Youth Minister (a clerical position in most churches).  

       To summarize, I feel it relatively unsurprising that persons with fairly little accountability and a large pre-assumption of moral fabric on the part of their charges, coupled with far too little actual preparation for the “real” job of day to day pastoring, take advantage of that position or allow themselves to exert that implied power through bad behavior. It may be that those in the primary position of power and control in the church are those that are the most likely to offend in this environment. It is also possible that those in the primary position of power within their church view sexual offending as a mere extension of their power and control over their environment and their congregants. (the narcissism factor) This is especially probable since power and control have been identified as key traits for male rapists with female victims.

        In any event, don’t act shocked that clergy are no better and perhaps even worse than the average person in the area of personal sexual responsibility and moral behavior. Remember, as Admiral H.G. Rickover used to say, (I paraphrase only a bit) “Personal integrity or lack of it, is exemplified by what you do when no-body’s watching!”

So Let's Get This Straight

        The body of the essay that follows was written in response to an individual who, after a lengthy discussion of the divisive nature of Donald Trump's almost continual stream of invective aimed an anyone with the temerity to disagree with him, opined that it was really  Barack Obama who "divided the country."  This is an all too frequent "fall back" position for Trump supporters. Try as I might, and I have several times attempted to engage in civil dialogue on this particular point, no one has even tried to parse a cogent support of that statement. It seems almost a rote recitation , sort of like "Well, oh yeah?"  

                 So; exactly what did Barack Obama say or do (other than be born black) which as you claim, "divided the country?" I've heard this statement made numerous times but have yet to get a real answer that makes any sense. Certainly nothing legislatively did that. I've been politically aware through Eisenhower's second term to the present.  I've seen presidents who had Congressional majorities against them and with them. I have voted for both Republicans and Democrats. None of them has ever felt the need to publicly deride others simply for disagreeing with them. None has been so childish as to believe that their fifth-grade level rants were more important because they use all capital letters.

         Many disagreed with Bush 43. Many criticized him, some viciously in print media. He initiated a military action in a country with which we were not engaged (Iraq) based on fallacious allegations, urged and abetted by his aides. Tens of thousands of American casualties as well as more than 4,000 deaths occurred there as a result. Despite the harsh criticism of others, including some in his own party, he remained civil.  FDR was hated by most Republicans and was brutally and publicly attacked by people like Father Coughlin, Walter Lippman and Joe Kennedy and many others but remained civil. What is different in this case is, as Lindsey said, too much access to public fora (like FB) by people who have little to say but are all too willing to say it.

         Even more to the point is that the current president has been far more vile and abusive of his power than as any sane American would ever have imagined.  This is a direct reflection on his personal mental makeup, having never been told “no” and believing those who have praised him. This manifests as simply declaring that any media statement, even if totally factual and verifiable, which disagrees with or contradicts his position or a statement on the issue is “Fake.”  Reality is that of all the verifiable public statements the man has made, just under 70% are mostly false or worse! A recent example, He states “US Steel is opening six new plants in the US.” No, US Steel isn’t, not even one and they said so, after Trump’s bold-faced lie, which he hopes you’ll believe.  This difficulty with the truth is compounded by  his appointment of incompetent cabinet members and aides, many of them gone now, who abused the public trust and its money.

         Our  foreign relations posture with the rest of the world, many of whom used to be our allies, has never been worse in the last 60 years, even during the Viet Nam war.  In our travels over almost all of Western Europe over the past five or so years, I have been frequently amazed by persons who, having decided I was American, complimented Barack Obama simply offhand, sometimes even initiating conversation to do so. You won't hear anything like that now with regard to our current POTUS. Sixteen years of good will and sound alliances built by both Reagan and Clinton have been grievously eroded in under two years. He has poisoned the well of foreign relations. This isn't opinion, but simply fact.

       In summary. If one believes that Barack Obama “divided the country”, one should be able to substantively point out something bad that he did. Now, if that immediately brings The Affordable Care Act to your mind, well, then we simply have a difference of opinion regarding the general welfare of our fellow man. On the other hand, if you, for whatever reason you rationalize your dislike, simply “don’t like him,” then it is you and your kind who divided the country. In other words, if you agreed with Trump that there were “good people on both sides” in Charlottesville, then the issue is your racism.

       If you consider it "divisive" when someone points out the huge racial disparity of police shootings or killings of unarmed persons, then consider this. That's simply data, not political race baiting. It isn't "Fake News." Likewise highlighting the massive incarceration and severity of punishment gulf between persons of color and others charged with identical crimes is just data. It is, lamentably, a fact of life in America.  If you think pointing out real racism by the numbers is "divisive" then the problem has been isolated. It's you!

        If you have issues with anyone who says we should evaluate people one by one as we interact with them rather than simply dismissing “them” or “those people” as inferiors because of their race, religion, gender or sexuality,  then you are the divisive one. In 26 years in the military and another 20 in the public schools, I learned better. 

       Of course, I had a distinct advantage; I was raised by parents who valued and evaluated people individually on their merits and made sure their children did too. Racism is a mental defect. So is malignant narcissism. Trump is a poster child for both maladies.

An Artisanal, Hand Crafted Essay.

        Sometimes I reach the point where something which I generally have found merely annoying just hits me right (or wrong) and I have to say something here.

        There seems to be an increasing plethora of claims made in print by various merchandisers, brewers, and purveyors of food which just grate on me. Start with “Hand Crafted.”  There are certainly things in this world which are hand crafted. The word “craft” is defined as: an activity involving skill in making things by hand.  Furniture might be handcrafted, so might clothing, even if made with a machine. Leather goods, even upscale shoes and jewelry also fall into this category, which conveys a sense of art in the process.

        Here’s what isn’t “crafted:  Ruby Tuesday’s “Handcrafted” Steaks and Burgers, Martinis, Drafts, Bottles of beer. Likewise, using “Craft” and as adjective for beer brewing is pushing the envelope, since it involves shoveling stuff into a large container, adding water and letting it cook. This isn’t to say that small breweries using “different” flavorings aren’t producing good beer, but the implication that they do so because they’re “Craftier” than the folks at say, Sam Adams, is iffy. I any case I find it doubtful that anything a Ruby Tuesday’s employee adds to it between brewery and table qualifies as “crafty.” Of course, unless the barkeep juggles the bottled beer, he adds no “craft either. The same is true for the martini. Any “craft” involved is that of the distiller. Period.

        A similar “usage abusage’ is seen by the myriad restaurants who boast of “hand carved” steaks. As opposed to what? Karate chopped? Blown apart with explosives? All steaks are cut into serving sized portions with some tool or other. So, what?

       Every bit as overused and demonstrably more far-fetched is the blatant overuse of the root word “Artisan.”  Here’s the def: “A worker in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making things by hand.”  Starbucks, not content apparently with purveying over-roasted, burnt tasting coffee for huge profits, has practically copyrighted the word. First it was “Starbucks Artisanal, (Artisan Coffees and Pastries.)” Six months later it announced the arrival of “Artisan-Style Chocolate.”) yeah, really.

         I’ve been to several Starbucks (when desperate, usually choosing mocha because the coffee sucks) and there were no artisans baking or making chocolate – ever. This is not to demean the skill of the baristas who dexterously make every conceivable flavor combo possible, apparently to dull the shitty coffee flavor. (personal observation here: We were recently in Seattle, home of a Starbucks on every corner. When we left the coast and crossed the Cascades into central Washington, we found, to both our surprise and delight, that while there were still Starbucks in some places, the locals and every hotel we stayed at disdained Starbucks in favor of other and far better tasting brands)

         Beefeater 24 gin was introduced with the words “artisan cut” stamped on the label. What’s an artisan cut? Tea added to the gin makes its flavor profile much too tannic during the last leg of distillation, so approximately one third of each batch gets “cut,” by which we mean tossed (or rather, “hand-tossed”). I can hardly imagine how much skill that task must entail.

        Likewise, based on a recent Panera Bread commercial: “At Panera we start with artisan bread, handcrafted by professional bakers using fresh dough.”  Not sure what artisan bread is, but I know my wife makes it at home. Of course, those who bake Panera’s bread are not volunteer amateurs, but are paid to do so, hence, even with little or no culinary experience and on the first day on the job, they would rightly be designated “professional bakers” a distinction hardly worthy of braggadocio. As for the dough; yes, I agree “stale dough” would hardly be kosher, but the bread you buy at the local store is shipped there , not mixed there.

        Even Chick Fil-A, not content with their religiously driven and smug “closed on Sunday” policy has embraced the new trendy slang. (I say that because they post in the store that they close so that their employees can worship. I assume their official attitude toward Jewish or Muslim employees is “Fuck ‘em, let them convert”) They ballyhoo their “hand spun” milk shakes. I have watched many times and they use a machine every time! Hand spun, my ass.

        There are other, equally pretentious terms in use with various shades of meaning, generally aimed at snob appeal, including: “free range”, “cage free”, organic (all food is organic), and “line caught” which is a distinction which I doubt very much the fish in question ever makes in the short time before he’s cut into filets and flash frozen.  

        There, now I feel better.

Undeserved Credit

       So, today’s local newspaper did it again. What exactly is “it?” Allow me to set it up for you.

       We live in a planned retirement community called “The Villages.” Let me be clear; we like it here. It is a good place to live with numerous cultural events, such as concerts, national tour Broadway shows, continuing education and volunteerism opportunities, and more golf holes than anywhere else in the world, and if you can’t find something to do here that captures your fancy, you’re just not trying. We are far more active here than we would be had we stayed in Orlando.

      The Villages is the creation of a Republican Party mega donor (now deceased) and his family has continued that agenda. The local newspaper is also markedly Right in its leanings. The op-ed page has discontinued publishing letters to the editor, apparently because some (like this writer) wrote the occasional literate, researched, letter denouncing actions of the current administration. Most responses to such letters were semi-literate, rife with falsehoods, and inflammatory. All in all, halting printing of these might not have been all that bad.

       So, what am I talking about? Well, every year about this time, just before the commencement of election season in these even years especially, the Villages Daily Sun runs a front-page story declaring that taxes in Sumter County, presumably due to amazingly adept fiscal stewardship by a Republican county administration, are not increasing (actually slightly decreasing!) yet again (14th year in a row!) As a taxpayer, of course, I appreciate that. As a sentient being, however, I also realize that the thrust of the article is gratuitous chest thumping, claiming credit where none is due.

       Sumter County, Florida was the poor man of Florida, pre-Villages. The capital, Bunnell, a whopping 3,000 or so folks (still today) was, and remains, representative of the generally depressed agricultural nature of the county, which, while it has several landed ranches and farms, was generally, to be charitable, not “well off.” Consequently, school and real estate taxes generated less revenue than was required to maintain the school system and other county services at the desired level.

       All this began to change with The Villages. In the early 1980s, the Villages began building new homes to the west side of US 441, initially within a weirdly shaped corner of Lake and Marion counties. Both Lake and Marion counties have other and larger municipal areas within their borders. Consequently, while significant in size, The Villages is in no way the dominant economic or political driver of county politics in either.

       However, within several years, now the fastest growing new housing community in America, which it still is, new homes were being built in Sumter County. Within a relatively short period (less than 10 years, The Villages represented the majority of the population of Sumter County and at one time elected all of the Sumter county commissioners as well as a State Representative, a military retiree. That majority has increased markedly to the present. Since that time almost all new construction in the community has been in Sumter County with about 20,000 more homes planned.

       Ok, so what about the newspaper article? Relax, Bruce, I’m getting there. There are several commonalities which make the Villages unique. As a community, the Villages in Sumter County totals at least 80,000 of the total county population of 118,000 residents. Essentially everyone who lives here has been able to afford, by whatever means, to retire here. There are very few, if any, “Villagers” in Sumter County who use social services paid from Sumter County’s coffers other than the Library system. Even more significantly, all Villages residents pay their county tax bill on time and in full. A significant portion of said tax burden is school taxation. Understand this critical data point: at least 40,000 Villages households in Sumter County pay school tax. None of these households has children in schools in the county.

       This isn’t a complaint. I believe, as I would hope most rational folks do, that it is our obligation to insure we educate all our children to the best extent we can, and that paying school tax is one of those things we do in furtherance of that societal aim. My point here is that ballyhooing “Conservative Republican fiscal policy” as the reason there is no tax increase is mindless political drivel, considering the huge input from the Villages without use of school and social services taxes.

       In fact, the real story would be if there was ever a tax increase in Sumter County, Florida, one of the few counties in the USA which, thanks to The Villages, actually has more tax revenue that it knows what to do with.

See For Yourself, While You Still Can

        Having recently returned from Glacier National Park (an incredibly beautiful place one should see while it’s still “glaciated”) I have been reflecting on some of the more ludicrous statements on climate change I have heard or read in recent days. 

        Glacier National Park’s ice formations have been around for more than 7,000 years and have survived warmer and cooler periods. But they have been shrinking rapidly since the late 1800s, when North America emerged from the “Little Ice Age,” a period of regionally colder, snowier weather that lasted for roughly 400 years. This time frame coincides with an exponential increase in industrialization and the attendant use of fossil fuels to power it. At its founding in 1910, the park had at least 150 glaciers, most of which are now gone, having become so shrunken that they are no longer considered glaciers. Even under natural conditions, these small, vulnerable mountain glaciers would have lost ground over the past 50 years — but they would have eventually stabilized at a reduced size. Instead, the park is on track to lose its glaciers within a generation.

        Unless one is willing to consider those portions of Montana and southern Canada which include the park as thermally isolated from the rest of the world and a completely unique microclimate, which of course they are not, then statements such as “I don’t believe in climate change/global warming” are simply insane. In any rational analysis the loss of glaciation over the last 80 years or so is absolute proof of the general warming trend which science confirms is real and present. Note: I didn’t say what may or may not cause it, just talking about climate change.

         I understand that there are those who are unwilling to attribute to humans any shared responsibility for the acceleration of climate change. I believe that these folks fall into two categories. The first is the group who, for primarily economic reasons, are unwilling to consider, even in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus, that the actions of humans are accelerating the process, since doing so would open the door to changing some things we do, which might cost money. More to the point, it would be detrimental to the balance sheets of some sectors’ large corporations, especially those which are energy related. As proof of this I offer the suppressed Exxon Mobil in-house memos to that effect: “Although appreciable amounts of carbon dioxide have undoubtedly been added from soils by tilling of land, apparently a much greater amount has resulted from the combustion of fossil fuels”–indicating company scientists understood the link between fossil fuel use and rising CO2.(1957) and, later:  "Among the possible sources of rising CO2 in the atmosphere, “none seems to fit the presently observed situation as well as the fossil fuel emanation theory.” (1968)  Finally and unbelievably, in 1982:  “The consensus is that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from its pre-industrial revolution value would result in an average global temperature rise of (3.0 ± 1.5)°C [equal to 5.4 ± 1.7°F]…There is unanimous agreement in the scientific community that a temperature increase of this magnitude would bring about significant changes in the earth’s climate, including rainfall distribution and alterations in the biosphere.” 

        Wanna know what's weird about those statements? Ever since, Exxon Mobil has suppressed these memos, only recently re-discovered, as part of their continuing effort to absolve their products of any role in global warming, which they now grudgingly admit exists, while denying any responsibility.  Even more recently, the occupant of the White House referred to “Beautiful, clean, coal.”

        The other group is primarily composed of those who out of religious conviction simply cannot allow themselves to think that their particular sky magus would do such a thing, or that we as humans can actually exhibit any effect on a world which (holy writ claims) was created a mere 46oo years (or so) ago by a perfect creator. These are the same folks who, seeing the topographical indices of the numerous strata created and land sculpting done by the Bonneville and Missoula floods (completely different in nature and layered sequentially over millennia both before and after the last ice age), simply cite them as proof of the “Noah” flood. These folks, devout and sincere in their lunacy, are truly frightening to me.

        A subset of these are those who, when told by  someone representing either cult, that global warming and climate change doesn’t exist or cannot be moderated, simply nod agreement because it’s easier than thinking.