Before I Even Asked

Shortly after our severe storm of June 29, 2012, I saw posts on Facebook urging us to petition our state government to pressure AEP (American Electric Power) to restore electric service to everyone in the Columbus area.  I did not sign any petitions regarding AEP because I saw AEP as an instrument of the intelligence of the universe earlier in the year.

In March I heard that a good friend of mine was close to death.  His wife called people to tell them that if they wanted to say goodbye, that was the time to do it.  I was very busy at work at the time.  I am responsible for running a phone room.  The person who would normally be able to substitute for me was out of town.  Just as I was figuring a way to take time off work to visit Zach before he passed, several AEP trucks with cherry pickers entered the alley behind my office.  About half an hour before the evening shift was scheduled to start, one of the men from AEP told me that they had to replace a transformer on top of a pole in the alley and that they had to turn off our power for a few hours.

My boss convinced the men to wait half an hour so that he could save some data on his computer.  When people reported to work for the evening shift I sent them home and then called a buddy so that we could go to the hospice together.  I said goodbye to Zach that evening, but that was not the last time I saw him.  I was able to drive another friend to the hospice the next morning.  This was a person who did not drive and had not seen Zach in many years.  Zach died the next day.

Whether Zach welcomed these visits I cannot say.  He could not speak.  My ability to see him and speak to him before he passed helped me deal with his death much better than if I had not been able to do so.  I am sorry that it took his death to make me better understand a Bible verse I read many years before:  “Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.”  (Matthew 6:8)  Jesus of Nazareth said this just before he gave us an example of how to pray with The Lord’s Prayer.

This is how I will remember 2012.  I received other things I needed before I asked for them, but the image of several big trucks in the alley behind my office will stay with me.

A Real Letter

Thanks to the Columbus Dispatch for publishing my letter to the editor.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2012/11/27/justices-judges-should-be-appointed.html

That's Idolatry

I need to start this essay with a reminder to myself as I write words that could offend many who happen to read them:

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said unto him, THOU SHALT LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL THY HEART, AND WITH ALL THY SOUL, AND WITH ALL THY MIND. (Deuteronomy 6:5)

This is the first and great commandment. 

And the second is like unto it.  THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF.  (Leviticus 19:18)

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Matthew 22: 36-40

I wish to obey these commandments as I write.  The citation has the word "prophets."  Many people around the world feel deeply offended because of an amateurish video that mocks a prophet.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.  (Emphasis added)

The Arab League, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation and the prime minister of Pakistan have requested that the United Nations pass a resolution that would urge member nations to pass laws against blasphemy.  This latest effort has the support of the European Union and the Secretary General of the United Nations.  Muslims have been working on worldwide blasphemy laws since 1999, with little support outside of the Muslim world.  They were placated somewhat in late 2011 when the UN passed a resolution calling for an end to religious discrimination and religious profiling.

I may know more than most Americans about Islam, but that is not saying much.  I have known individuals who have converted to Islam.  I have seen the conversion bring about dramatic and positive changes in their lives.  It is important to keep in mind that a Muslim family holds the keys to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem because of continual squabbling among Christian sects.  I heard shortly after September 11, 2001 that the Prophet Mohammed said that the greatest jihad a man can conduct is a jihad against his own shortcomings.  These things lead me to believe that the teachings of Mohammed have been corrupted, just as the teachings of Buddha and Christ have been corrupted.

Defining blasphemy is part of the problem with blasphemy laws.  President Obama did a good job of addressing this point in his speech to the United Nations in September.  He pointed out that blasphemy can be so vaguely defined that blasphemy laws can be used to prosecute and oppress the powerless.

I would want to be confronted if I engaged in idolatry, so I say to my Muslim neighbors that they are idol worshipers.  Muslims are busy destroying idols in many parts of the world, but they worship the Prophet Mohammed as an idol.  The proof of this can be found in efforts to pass blasphemy laws and in killings of people who had nothing to do with the production of The Innocence of Muslims.  If people are willing to kill because a prophet was mocked, those people have turned a prophet into an idol.

Muslims will correctly state that we in the west have plenty of idols of our own:  Santa Claus, cats, bacon and celebrities.  Christians have shown great religious intolerance in centuries past by conducting crusades and inquisitions.  I hope that Muslims learn from these mistakes rather than imitate them.  I hope my Muslim neighbors keep in mind that many Christians regard the whole religion of Islam as blasphemous.  Many Jews might regard both Christianity and Islam as blasphemous.  The unintended consequences of blasphemy laws are difficult to imagine.  Jesus of Nazareth was accused of blasphemy and he started a whole new religion.

I used to think of the United Nations as an under-used vehicle for world peace.  If it takes positions on religion in the name of tolerance, I question whether the United States should be a member.

How Not to Persuade Undecided Voters

I have Facebook and Google+ friends from all over the political spectrum:  Democrats and Republicans, Conservatives and Liberals.  Some posts have helped me to be a more informed voter.  Discussions have helped me to clarify some of my own opinions and viewpoints.

I get the impression that many of my contacts never have conversations with anyone who has political views different than their own.  This is a mistake if they want to convince undecided voters to vote for candidates that they support.  Each side thinks the other side is crazy or deluded.  The undecided voters may be undecided because they believe that Democrats and Republicans are equally crazy and deluded.

My advice for people who want to use Facebook, Google+ or Twitter to campaign for a political candidate is to think about what you post.  I have seen posts that may have the opposite effect than the one the poster intends.

If you want undecided voters to vote for Barack Obama, it may not be a good idea to remind them that John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008 instead of Mitt Romney.  They may believe this was a mistake.  We are not over racism, neither are we over sexism or age discrimination.

If you want undecided voters to vote for Mitt Romney, you may not want to list the corporations Mr. Romney has helped to succeed.  They may have issues with Burger King or Burlington Coat Factory.  Many people perceive Mr. Romney as out of touch with the common person because of his wealth.

Childish posts about how the candidates performed in the debate may cause undecided voters to vote against your candidate.

If you already know that anyone who gets elected to office will be a corporate puppet, please do not discourage your Facebook friends from voting.  Convincing people that their vote does not count is how the plutocrats were able to take power a long time ago.  The Internet in general and social media in particular provide tremendous opportunities to help people become informed voters and get involved in the political process.  Encourage them to attend caucuses, help draft party platforms, run for local office or even establish new political parties.  If all of us participated in politics, we might have better candidates running for office and have a government that represents people instead of money.

Karma Waits Decades for an Opportunity

After ten years as a homeowner I finally got around to cleaning out the shed yesterday.  Some of the junk I pulled out of the shed belonged to the previous owner of the house.  I put these items - a barbecue grill and an office chair - on the curb for the metal scavengers who troll the neighborhood.  I also set out my son's old tricycle.

My wife woke me at a quarter of six this morning to tell me that the items I had put on the curb were in the middle of the street.  I went outside to put them back.  The barbecue grill had been tipped over and pieces of charcoal were in the street.  I ran over some of them when I moved my car to block the items.  I wanted to make it harder for the vandals to do it again.

When I got back inside my wife told me that she had been in the bathroom and could hear something being dragged and a girl laughing.  My wife shook her head and wondered why anyone would do something like that.

"It's Karma."  I told her.

"Oh God, John.  What did you do?"  She asked.

I told her about my visit to my uncle's dairy farm in Wisconsin in the late summer of 1976 or 1977.  I was about fifteen or sixteen.  My cousin, my uncle's oldest son, was a month younger than I.  One night my cousin and I went out after dark.  The corn in the field was getting tall.  We uprooted several stalks of corn and stood them up in a line across the county road that ran along the cornfield.  We saw the headlights of a car when we had the cornstalks lined up across one lane.

We headed for the ditch and waited.  The car came to a stop and the driver started yelling and cursing in case whoever pulled the prank was still within earshot.  We stayed quiet as long as we could, but when the guy continued to yell and curse we both broke out laughing and had to run through the cornfield for the house.

That was one of the biggest laughs of my laugh.  It took almost 40 years for me to pay for it.  Karma takes its own sweet time.

Heading for Higher Ground

Several months after the tsunami of 2004 I read about a man who survived it.  He remembered that his elders told him that if he ever saw the tide go out much farther than he had ever seen, to head to high ground.  He yelled "Run!" and got everyone in his village to safety.

The man was a leader of some of the hunter-gatherer people on the Andoman islands off the coast of Thailand.  They live what most of us would consider a primitive lifestyle.  Yet, this man and his people survived the tsunami while people with cell phones and instant access to weather information perished under the waves.

Since I read the article about the man who survived the tsunami I have often been unimpressed with news about advances in technology.  I read another article before that about how farmers who could recite the most weather proverbs are the most successful farmers.  I am not saying that we should get rid of our cell phones, but sometimes our own memories may be more helpful to our survival than gadgets.

One machine that we would be better off without is the automobile.  We built a dangerous transportation system on the need for everyone to have their own car.  Our need for powerful and impressive-looking automobiles and our juvenile desire to drive them at high speeds has led us into an addiction to oil that has made us warlike.  Humans die so that people in the United States can pretend that interstate highways are NASCAR courses.  We constantly put toxic gases into the air.

TV ads for CSX Railroad claim that they haul a ton of freight almost 500 miles on one gallon of fuel.  Why do we waste so much fuel hauling passengers and freight in cars and trucks?  Because of our ridiculous car culture and snobbery.  We think of ourselves as failures if we do not own a car, and we do not want to have to associate with lowlifes found on buses and trains.  The cost of this car culture is immense.

Telecommuting may someday relieve our need for expensive gasoline, but we need to stop thinking of our automobiles as extensions of ourselves or a form of self expression.  Trains and bicycles make more sense than cars.  Our need for exercise and socialization may help us to survive better than cars.

Pimpin' Ain't Easy

 
To Zach Johnson, who would have wanted me to record my street life adventures.

I do not drink like I used to. It just does not fit with being a responsible parent. However, I do occasionally permit myself the luxury of stopping at the local tavern for Happy Hour on Friday after work. That is what I did today.

It started out as an ordinary visit. I sat down at the bar and started schmoozing with one of the regulars. After I drank half of my first beer, I went out to the patio to smoke a cigarette. Two women were sitting at a table near the door. It was the only table I saw that had an ashtray, so I asked the women if I could sit with them. They told me to go ahead.

Just after I lit my cigarette, a man walked up to the patio from the parking lot. He was quite angry and asked one of the women "What the fuck is you doin'?" He jumped over the rail of the fence that went around the patio. The man pointed at me and asked the woman "Is this him?" The woman told him no, so he asked "Is he in there?" He opened the door to the bar and told the woman to tell him where to find the other man before he made a scene. She told him that the other man had already left. The man then ordered the woman to come with him and get in the car.

After they left, the woman's friend, Sara, explained what had just happened. She said that her friend had met up with an old boyfriend there at the bar. She had meant to send a text message to Sara explaining that the man she was talking to at the bar was an old boyfriend and that her current boyfriend, Anton, would flip if he knew she was talking to an old boyfriend. Instead, she accidentally sent the text message to Anton, prompting him to come back to the bar. Anton had dropped his girlfriend at the bar, telling her not to flirt with any guys.

I told Sara that this story reminded me of a passage in The Bonfire of the Vanities, in which the main character left his fancy Manhattan apartment to call his new mistress on a pay phone and ended up calling his own wife. Sara laughed at this and said "Yes, the universe directs us." Shortly after this Pauline, the bartender and a few other people came out on the patio and asked what was going on. Sara explained it to them. Sara told Pauline that she would take care of her friend's tab. Pauline expressed astonishment that the woman would continue to date such a man and volunteered to text her to see if she was okay.

After some conversation and video trivia and another beer, I went back outside to smoke another cigarette. On my way out I told Grant, Pauline's husband, about how Anton had asked his girlfriend if I was the other man. "Ha! Skinny old white guy, huh?" Grant laughed. Another guy at the bar commented "Hey, pimpin' ain't easy."
A little later Anderson told me that they would start calling me SWG, for Skinny White Guy. I told him that should be OSWG, for Old Skinny White Guy. Grant told me that if I wanted to sit with the old guys, I would have to be at least 60. I told him that I will be 52 in a couple of weeks.

I got a little adrenaline rush when Anton asked "Is this him?" It has been many years since anyone thought me capable of stealing his woman.

Yeah, right.

Some things happened today that made me give some thought to how we appear to others.

My son and I went to the park to play basketball.  I made that one-in-a-million shot that got the ball wedged between the rim and the backboard.  We could not reach it, even with David on my shoulder, and I am proof that white guys can't jump. 

I remembered that I had an ax in the trunk of the car.  Now, the reason it was there was that the handle and the ax head had become separated from each other while I was doing some work to clean up the back yard after the June 29 storm.  I tried to put the ax head on a new handle, but could not get it on all the way because I lack the proper equipment.   I have been meaning to take it to the hardware store to ask them to finish the job.  A man riding his bike past the basketball court saw me with David carrying the ax.  You should have seen the look on his face.  I think he was going to say something, but I believe he saw the basketball wedged between the backboard and the rim.

I got the ball down and we continued playing.  We also had a frisbee and a baseball, so we played with those after we stopped playing with the basketball.  We played catch with the baseball.  I threw the ball to David once, and it bounced off his hand and hit him in the nose.  Honest, it was a very soft underhand toss.  I want him to learn how to catch a baseball barehanded before I get him a baseball glove.  Anyway, his nose started bleeding and we decided it was time to go home.

We pulled into the driveway just in time to see a man bleeding from the head onto our neighbor's lawn.  He was with three other people working on a tree in the neighbor's yard that had broken limbs hanging from it.  I don't know what happened, but he had a nasty gash on his eyebrow.  I told him it would need stitches.  One of the man's coworkers got a first aid kit from their truck, and the guy asked me for a glass of water.

After I gave the man some water, I got a collapsible chair out of my car and told him to sit.  He went back to work after he got bandaged up.  I went in the house to do some chores.  My collapsible chair was gone after the tree crew left.  Oh well, I didn't do as much as the orignial Good Samaritan, and got off cheap.

Letter to President Obama

My Dear Mr. President;

The news that your re-election campaign filed suit against Ohio government officials disappointed me.  The attorney for your campaign filed suit against our secretary of state, Jon Husted, and our attorney general, Mike DeWine.  The suit demands that they remove an exception in Ohio election law that allows members of the armed services and other citizens overseas to cast early ballots. 

Currently, Ohio law allows early voting in the weeks before election day, with a cut-off of 6:00 PM on the Friday before election day.  The law is intended to make the availability of early voting consistent throughout all of Ohio's counties while giving some consideration to service members and others traveling overseas.  Early voting now makes voting quite convenient here in Ohio.

The argument that excluding service members and travelers from the restriction creates two classes of voters may pass a constitutional test, but it does not pass the "So What?" test.  If your campaign’s suit is successful, it may actually make voting less convenient for many Ohio residents as just six Ohio counties were able to offer early voting on weekends before the current law was enacted.

The argument that current Ohio voting regulations suppress the vote of members of racial and ethnic minority groups supports the point that former President George W. Bush made about "the soft bigotry of low expectations."  It is bigotry to believe that members of minority groups need to have the voting process made more convenient for them in order for them to be able to vote.  I believe that voter apathy is a much greater obstacle to participation in elections than voter suppression.

I respectfully request that you direct your campaign to withdraw the lawsuit against my state.  I regard it as a frivolous lawsuit.  Our state government does not need the legal expenses.  The suit makes you seem to be scrounging for every possible vote rather than serving the public interest or the interest of justice.

Very truly yours,

John C. Stevens

John Henry and Poptarts

When I first started to learn about Big Data, I worried that I would become the John Henry of data collection.  I am a supervisor and interviewer for a market research and public opinion research firm.  I have conducted tens of thousands of telephone interviews on a wide variety of topics.  I am able to get people to spill information because I have a pleasant voice and know how to ask sensitive questions without sounding shocked or judgmental.  I have learned how to probe for clarification of vague answers without irritating survey participants.

Vast amounts of data now exist about our opinions, beliefs, tastes and preferences from Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.  The software and hardware used to collect and analyze this data is becoming more sophisticated and robust.  It makes me wonder whether clients will be willing to pay for telephone surveys and focus groups if they believe they can acquire the information they need more cost-effectively by dipping into the river of information that flows through the Internet every second.

Walmart learned several years ago how to make use of their own records to run their stores more efficiently and profitably.  They learned from looking at sales records that they had better have plenty of Strawberry Poptarts in stock when a hurricane is moving toward the coast because that is what their customers want to stock up on when they are preparing for a hurricane.  More recently, investors have started to monitor Twitter and Facebook feeds to gauge attitudes about particular stocks.  As the field becomes more sophisticated, I can imagine many ways that analysis of Big Data could make telephone polling and focus groups obsolete – but not completely.  Some questions can be answered only by getting a representative sample of a population on the telephone and asking them specific questions.

One of the things I learned while researching Big Data is that those who expect to use Big Data to make business decisions expect a shortage of “data engineers,” or people who can figure out where to find relevant information and draw conclusions about it once it has been gathered.  Working in market research and public opinion research should be good preparation for a career as a data engineer.  Conducting interviews requires critical thinking skills in order to obtain information that clients can use to make decisions.  An interviewer has to determine whether a response actually answers a question, whether it is clear, and whether it is complete.  If not, the interviewer needs to ask appropriate follow up questions such as:

Ø      Why?

Ø      How so?

Ø      What do you mean by that?

Ø      Why is that important to you?

Ø      What can you tell me about that?

Ø      Such as?

Learning how to ask these questions in the appropriate context should be good training for anyone who wants to gather information from social media.  A business collects information because they need it to make decisions.  Understanding what kinds of decisions need to be made and where to find accurate information to make those decisions will require the same kinds of critical thinking skills required for conducting telephone interviews.

I can help anyone in Columbus, Ohio who would like to acquire the ability to ask appropriate questions in a real world setting.  Call or email me:

John C. Stevens

Saperstein Associates

(614) 261-0065

jstevens@sapersteinassociates.com

Literally

The severe storms of late June and early July of 2012 reminded me to be grateful for many things. Right now, I am grateful that our household regained Internet access today.

The whole adventure renewed my appreciation for the depth and richness of the English language. Many of us who spend a great deal of time online use phrases and clichés without thinking about what they mean or how they made their way into our language. Dealing with the aftermath of the storms exposed me to a few literal examples of some old phrases.

My son and I were grocery shopping when the first storm hit. We had to deal with some non-operating traffic lights getting home. When we got to our block we encountered felled trees blocking the streets. Our neighbor's tree had knocked down the line going to our house and our electrical mast. The top of the big spruce in our front yard had blown into our other neighbor's yard.

Several of the neighbors were already working on clearing the streets. I wanted to help my neighbors and make it easier for electric company trucks to have access to my street, so I grabbed my ax and my hand ax and pitched in. The next day I chopped up the top of the spruce that had blown into the neighbor's yard. I piled the branches at the base of the spruce. A few days later I chopped up the part of the trunk that had detached from the spruce and set the logs at the curb, hoping that one of the city crews would pick them up.

My next plan for my axes was to use them to chop up the tree in the back yard. I realized that I would need to have the blades sharpened, so I went to the hardware store down the street from my office. When I walked into the hardware store, I literally "had an ax to grind." All of the activity had weakened the handle of my long ax. Shortly after I got started chopping up the tree in the back yard, the ax head literally "went flying off the handle." I was able to finish what I had to do, but I had to keep putting the ax head back on the handle.

Today I noticed that the spruce branches I had piled up in the front yard were getting brown and dry. I know that evergreens can be quite flammable, especially when they are dried out. I decided to water down the branches. I have a garden hose, but rarely water my lawn. I consider doing so a waste of water. In order to use the hose to wet the spruce branches I had to untangle it and I had to literally "work out the kinks."

Axing downed trees has given me a deeper understanding of the clichés I mentioned. The experience should give me a deeper understanding of other clichés when I read them or use them.

Will robot drivers tailgate, too?

I would like to offer a few predictions based on my observations of traffic and information I read in a Washington Post article by Ashley Halsey III that was reprinted in the Columbus Dispatch.

The article describes advances in automotive technology - Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication - that will allow motor vehicles to communicate with each other by radio to help avoid collisions and traffic congestion.  The article described how pile-ups might be avoided by automatically applying the brakes on a vehicle if a vehicle several car lengths ahead had to stop abruptly.  The article also described how V2V systems might suggest alternative routes if a driver were to come upon a congested area.

I predict that the unintended consequences of this technology will be that we will realize that most drivers need to be retrained.  I also predict that many drivers will report V2V systems as malfunctioning when they work as intended.  Either that, or V2V systems will have to be configured to inform drivers in a diplomatic manner that they are not driving safely.

The illustration that accompanied Halsey's article showed an example of the driver of one vehicle being notified that the vehicle behind was following too closely.  This made me wonder if the driver of the vehicle in the rear would be notified that he or she was following too closely.  If so, would the V2V system override the driver's operation and decelerate or brake?

My experience while driving in traffic has convinced me that I am the only driver on the road who understands the concept of an assured clear distance.  If V2V systems are programmed to alert drivers that they are following another vehicle too closely, or to automatically slow the vehicle down so as to create a clear and safe distance, vehicle owners will report the systems as malfunctioning.  They will not believe that they are following too closely, and will not understand why they are receiving such alerts or why their vehicles are slowing down when they do not want them to do so.

Discrepancy in the understanding of a clear and safe distance is probably one issue that will cause drivers to believe that V2V systems are malfunctioning when they are not.  There are bound to be other issues.  These issues will greatly add to the cost of V2V systems and greatly reduce their efficiency and effectiveness.  It will probably take another two generations before V2V systems can bring about any real reductions in collisions or fuel savings.  By that time, drivers will have learned to drive with V2V systems in their cars.  They may even have a better idea of what a clear and safe distance is than present drivers do.

Everyone complains about religion, but Jesus did something about it.

The Crucifixion and the Resurrection are - and should be - central to the Christian faith, but Jesus chasing the money changers from the Temple in Jerusalem (Matthew 21:12-13) should be central to spreading that faith. That act addresses the contempt that many people have for religion.

Jesus was a revolutionary, but not the revolutionary that people expected Him to be. When He entered Jerusalem, people expected Him to lead a revolution against the Roman conquerors. Instead, one of the first things that He did was to rebel against His religion.

By chasing the money changers from the temple, Jesus acknowledged that religion was a racket. He signaled that a person should not have to have money to be saved. Jesus sent a message to those who most need to hear it that we should not have to pay to worship. God does not demand a price for His love.

Christianity has a bad reputation because church leaders through the centuries have used Christianity as a racket. Fortunately, we have the scriptures to tell us what Jesus really preached, if only we read them for ourselves. The Gospels provide many other examples of Jesus challenging the assumptions of the pious.

Zachary Louis Johnson, 1963 - 2012

My old friend, Zachary Louis Johnson, died from pancreatic cancer March 22, 2012. His wife told us that he did not want a funeral. This did not surprise me. When I asked him about ten years ago why he would not attend the funeral of Ricky Davis, he told me that he and Ricky did not like funerals.
Since Zach did not want a funeral, he probably did not want an obituary. I will not reveal details of his life, just some of my own memories of him.

Zach and I were business partners in Stevens & Johnson Communication Services in the 1990s. We did business to business telemarketing. He was a natural at networking. He was genuinely interested in people. We always say that a person had a great sense of humor after they have passed, but this guy really knew how to make people laugh. He was a jokester and a prankster.

I remember a Saturday in the mid 1990s when I was severely depressed. I was talking to Zach on the telephone, and he said something that made me laugh. I wish I could remember what it was. I started to laugh, and made myself keep laughing, and laugh hard. Zach was probably thinking, “C’mon, it wasn’t that funny!” Maybe not, but by making myself continue to laugh at Zach’s comment, I was able to start finding my way out of my depression. Nothing happened overnight, but Zach gave me the kick start that I needed. I wish only that I could have returned this gift of the healing power of laughter when Zach got his cancer. I did not learn of his problem until a couple of weeks ago.

We will miss him.

Am I Liberal or Conservative?

The recent controversy over funding of contraception has made me question whether I am liberal or conservative. I have always thought of myself as a liberal, though conservative on some issues. I have always believed that a person’s sexual behavior is his or her own business as long as it does not harm anyone else. The contraception controversy causes me to think that maybe I am more conservative than liberal. I believe that government should stay out of private business as much as possible. The government should get involved in private business only to the extent of protecting citizens who are incapable of protecting themselves.

The controversy over the funding of contraception is more evidence of a widespread sense of entitlement. Women may have the right to access to birth control, but that does not compel anyone to provide it for them. Not paying for something is not the same as denying someone’s rights. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees our right to say what we want, but that does not mean that the government or our employers are compelled to buy air time on radio or television so that we can say it.

Not only that, but health insurance provided by employers is a benefit, an incentive. Employers offer it because if they didn’t, they would be less competitive at attracting the employees that they need to run a business. If our government mandates what kind of coverage they have to provide, it seems to me that that employers will have more incentive to not provide health insurance. It is already getting to be expensive and complicated. If a religious organization or a private businessperson objects to paying for a morning-after pill on religious grounds, that is their business. They just need to make that clear during the recruiting process, so that anyone considering a job with them can make an informed decision.
If contraception should be between a woman and her doctor, then it should be between a woman and her doctor. It should be her responsibility. If a woman thinks that her employer should pay for her contraception, then it is up to her to negotiate that with her employer. If the employer refuses, the employer has not denied the woman her right to access to birth control. It just means that she needs to consider whether she wants to stay with that employer or find one who will hire her on terms that are more acceptable to her.

Sense of Entitlement

The protests about the decision of the Susan G. Komen forthe Cure Foundation to stop providing funds to Planned Parenthood is more evidence that many people in our society are plagued with a sense of entitlement.  The foundation is a private organization, and should be able to allocate their dollars as they see fit.  It is not the business of United States Senators to urge a private foundation how to spend their money.  It strikes me as particularly odd for a politician, namely New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, to say that “Politics have no place in health care.”

Mayor Bloomberg was probably referring to the politics of abortion, since the original reason that the Komen Foundation gave for stopping funding to Planned Parenthood was that Planned Parenthood is under investigation.  They are investigation because of allegations that they used federal funds for abortions.  The reason that I say that the protests over this decision point to a sense of entitlement is that if the Komen Foundation does not wish to fund an organization that provides abortions, that is their decision.  It is a private organization, answerable to its donors. 

It makes sense for the Komen Foundation to provide funds to an organization such as Planned Parenthood if Planned Parenthood provides screenings and information in such a way that it furthers the mission of the Komen Foundation.  At some point, though, the directors of the Komen Foundation must make a calculation.  If they receive feedback from donors that they do not want their dollars being used to help an organization that provides abortions, they must calculate whether they will lose donations if they continue to support Planned Parenthood.  Just because the Komen Foundation has provided funds to Planned Parenthood in the past does not mean that they are obligated to continue doing so.

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that a woman has a right to an abortion, but that does not mean that anyone is obligated to finance that abortion.  I have a right under the First Amendment to self- expression.  That does not mean that the Columbus Dispatch is obligated to publish my letter to the editor.  I may have a right to become a Rastafarian, but that does not mean that the government or anyone else is obligated to purchase ganja for me to practice that religion.  My son has the right to own a firearm under the Second Amendment, but that does not mean that I deny him that right if I decide not to give him a rifle on his eighteenth birthday.

How the Komen Foundation distributes funds is not public business.  Therefore, members of the United States Senate have no business writing letters to a private foundation about that foundation’s decisions on how to allocate funds.  Our senators need to pay attention to the nation’s business.

Please Do Not Tailgate

We have had snow and sleet fall here in Columbus, Ohio recently. Such weather usually brings about comments from people I know about road conditions and how bad people drive here in Central Ohio. One comment I remember from last winter still gnaws at me. A Facebook friend asked other drivers not to stop too fast when the roads are slippery. If you think the drivers in front of you are stopping to fast, you are following too close.

I have mostly overcome my road rage, but I still have an issue with tailgaters. I overcame my road rage by assuming that I am invisible whenever I get behind the wheel of a car. This technique is not always effective when dealing with tailgaters. I pull over and let tailgaters pass whenever I can, but sometimes it would be dangerous to pull over to the side of the road. I have the impression that many drivers do not understand what a clear and safe distance is. They seem to think that they are supposed to follow as closely as possible to the vehicle in front of them. They do not seem to understand that they would not be able to stop in time if the car in front of them were to stop suddenly.

Snow and ice make maintaining a clear and safe distance between your vehicle and the vehicle in front of you even more important. A good way to avoid tailgating is to observe the three second rule. Maintaining a clear and safe distance is much easier to do if you are not texting or talking on the phone while driving. Please do not tailgate.

Racism and Bigotry

A Facebook friend commented on my last blog post. She argued that we are not born racists, but are taught racism. She asked if we do not continue to teach or children to be racists, can we finally be free of racism. I see her point, but I have the impression that we are born racists. I believe that early humans had to be leery of people who looked different than they did. This is a survival mechanism. 100,000 years ago, if you saw someone who looked radically different than you did, it would be a signal that you have new competitors for resources.

There is a difference, though, between racism and bigotry. An educated and open minded person can quickly overcome the shock of seeing another person who looks and sounds different than anyone else they ever met. A person can be racist and still have love for his or her fellow human beings. Many abolitionists believed that Africans were intellectually inferior, but believed that slavery was not justified under any circumstances. Bigotry is different. A bigot has malice in his or her heart for those who are different. Bigotry is learned. I do not believe that we are born bigots, but learn it from our parents, teachers and friends at school. We do need to be careful about what we say around our children about other races, religions and lifestyles. The best way to teach our children not to be bigots is to remember to “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” (Matthew, 7:1) and “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.” (Matthew 7:5)

Everyone is Racist

A recent article inthe Atlanta Journal-Constitution reminded me that one of the reasons I started a blog was to address racial issues.  I fear that the more I write about racial issues, the more likely I will be called a racist.  My qualifications for writing about racism and racial politics are that I am the parent of a biracial child and that I have been asked by both black people and white people if I thought they were racist.  I believe that most people perceive me as open minded and not bigoted.  I am a white man who needs to teach his mixed-race son what it means to be a black man in a white man's world.  The place to start is to teach him that everyone is racist.  Some people are openly racist.  Other people may not give racial issues very much thought.  Still other people think they are not racist, or do not wish to be racist.  In our heart of hearts, though, we all think that our own race is superior in some way to the other races of men.  There may be some enlightened individuals who are completely free from racial and ethnic bias, but they are extremely rare.

I believe the teachers who wrote the math worksheets mentioned in the Atlanta Journal Constitution article fall into the category of people who do not give much thought to racial issues.  They did not think through what might happen.  I know from doing market research interviews for textbook publishers that educators value instructional materials that can be used for more than one subject.  The teachers probably came up with the worksheets so that they could use them in history or social studies classes as well as math classes.  Just from reading the article, it seems as though the word problems were not well thought out if the idea was to generate questions about slavery.  The sentences quoted in the article give the impression that whoever wrote the worksheets has a rather flippant attitude about slavery, like they think it is cute to make students figure out how many whippings a slave might receive in a certain period of time.  Without actually seeing the worksheets, a person can get the impression that whoever wrote the worksheets does not take issues associated with slavery as seriously as they should.  That is what happens when you are a person who does not give racial issues very much thought, but has to teach children about racial issues.

Becoming not racist takes a great deal of effort.  It is an effort that must be taken before anyone can hope to teach children to be free of bigotry.  That is one reason we have approval procedures, which the teachers who wrote the math worksheets ignored.

The Columbus Dispatch published my letter to the editor

If you have comments, please post them through the blog.  Thank you.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2012/01/05/dont-let-politics-divide-facebook-friends.html

Hospitals should not advertise

I heard a story on NPR this morning about how hospitals associated with medical centers have been increasing advertising and marketing themselves more lately.  I have always been irritated with hospitals conducting any kind of advertising.  I doubt that it helps anyone make an informed decision, and it adds to the cost of medical care for everyone.

I believe in a free market, but the provision of medical care is one exception.  Hospitals should not compete with each other.  Advertising will not help us to evaluate which doctor or hospital does a better job of treating a particular condition or providing better care overall.

In a previous post, I proposed the idea that we get rid of health insurance and make the provision of medical care a public service, like police and fire protection.  If a person wants an opinion on which hospital is best for them, they should talk to their doctor.  If they think their doctor is biased because he or she has privileges at a certain hospital, get a second opinion.  I do not see how anyone can get useful information about a hospital from a television ad.  I also have the impression from seeing advertisements for hospitals that they are pandering to hypochondriacs.