Category Archives: Essay

A plea to filmmakers

Leave a reply

The quote below gives the most interesting explanation I’ve seen of gun culture in the US.

“Guns are at the center of a worldview in which the ability to launch an armed rebellion must always be held in reserve. And so in the wake of mass shootings, when the public is most likely to clamor for gun regulations, Republicans regularly shore up gun access instead.”

No matter your position on firearms, there is no point in scolding the opposite side since few if any people are ever convinced to join your side. It is a waste of time and energy. The grownups of America need to find a way to de-normalize violence in general. Guns happen allow a person to commit violence from a safe distance, plainly a reason for their popularity. Obviously, self-defense is a delicate spot, but if committing violence is not nearly viewed as normal by the broader population, the need to for lethal self-defense just might diminish a bit.

American gun culture as I see it is comprised of a spectrum of individuals ranging from violent criminals to paranoid militiamen to peaceful hunters and sport shooting enthusiasts. Criticism of gun culture should not bunch them together under one umbrella. Carefully chosen vocabulary should be used so as not to antagonize the more peaceful side of the spectrum.

When the European frontier was settled by stone age people 40 or 50 thousand years ago, there were no firearms. There were weapons that could only be energized by their personal strength. Fighting was more intimate in the sense that clubbing and jabbing had to be done up close to your adversary. Stoning could be done from a few steps back. Killing wounds led to exsanguination and a rapid death while others led to sepsis and a longer, agonizing death.

The invention and spread of gunpowder starting in 9th century China led to the development of guns, cannons and, eventually, exploding projectiles. It was lost on no one that firearms enabled the projection of lethal force from a safer distance. The first really big war, World War I, in Europe was when advances like the Maxim recoil-operated machine gun and high explosives like picric acid were first put to large scale use. When the Maxim machine gun came out, many predicted that the mere appearance of the weapon would frighten the enemy into submission. Of course, it didn’t work and over the years the result was more and more efficient and mutual slaughter of opposing forces.

Male humans in particular have always been drawn to weapons and the martial arts. There are exceptions obviously, but men seem to take a shine to guns early in their lives. When asked why they like guns, they usually mention something about protection from intruders or perhaps just being a good guy with a gun in general. Often heard is the argument-terminating reminder of the 2nd Amendment and the vow that their guns could be confiscated only from their cold, dead hands.

Some Americans do live their lives in dangerous places. With some training, having a handgun in the nightstand may indeed be necessary for protection. Speaking for myself, I have never lived anywhere that was so burdened with crime that I felt it was necessary to pack a handgun. So, I can’t criticize those who are threatened by crime.

What I can criticize, though, is the broader culture that idolizes the Hollywood image of a good guy (or gal) who resolves conflict with a firearm. We have the screenwriters to thank for this. They dream up the story arc in the screenplay to include some fancy gun play. Death is always immediate and without the off-putting cries of pain and writhing that comes with a serious wound.

Gunplay in European TV programming is much less common. I’ve watched TV police drama series from the UK, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy and Germany. The only significant shooting I’ve seen is in a show from Germany called Luna & Sophie. Surprise, surprise. It turns out that a compelling police drama screenplay can be written without a lot of shooting and gratuitous violence. Or even with none at all. Perhaps it is because guns are not very abundant in the general population in Europe.

An effect of repeated and detailed depictions of gun violence on TV is that it suggests that shooting people is, well, normal. It normalizes the notion that the shooter can be the judge, jury and executioner. Killing someone with a gun also bypasses all of that due process stuff that wastes so much time. We all know that this is a dramatic depiction and that shooting people in real life will have very serious consequences. In my idea of civilization, people would be safe without a firearm. But, this is a fantasy I never expect to see unless I move to Iceland.

Maybe you could say that gunplay on US television mostly depicts good guys with guns defeating bad guys with guns. I’ll agree, that is a positive spin. The problem lies with population distribution within a large group. It often happens that a classroom or a large population will distribute itself unevenly when certain measurable attributes like personality or other performance metrics are considered. It is referred to as the bell curve. In the ideal mathematical sense, there is the standard distribution. Below is an example of a bell-shaped curve of % of members of a population versus age.

What is interesting to note is that as the population increases in size and barring any other influences, you would expect the population of each of the individual age groups to grow in number, though not necessarily in percentage. The point is that as the population grows, so does the subgroup of younger criminals.

Credit: National Institutes of Justice. https://nij.ojp.gov/media/image/2776

So, as the general population increases we can expect the population of criminals to grow as well.

Reality

Clearly, America is in a pickle. Mass shootings have been increasing in number, unlike with most other comparable nations. But with every mass shooting the cries for gun control go unanswered no matter the number of bloody dead children strewn about the floors of American schools. What can be done?

  • Removing guns from citizens or blocking their ownership will not happen. This is completely unworkable and serious people know it. It will only lead to civil war.
  • More laws and tougher sentences for gun-related crimes. This has been done and hasn’t solved the problem.
  • Training teachers to shoot attackers. If you know many teachers, you know this is unworkable.
  • The congress will accomplish absolutely nothing but handwringing.
  • A president can do nothing without the support of the congress. Nothing will happen here.
  • The gun lobby and the National Rifle Association will continue to spew their cold dead hands rhetoric, shouting down voices in favor of even the faintest of gun control remedies, regardless of the bloody mayhem happening.
  • Citizens dedicated to maintaining the status quo with 2nd Amendment hysterics will continue to shout, wave their flags and demand freedom.
  • Republicans will continue to whip up hysteria by lying that gun rights are on the cusp of disappearing.
  • Militiamen will continue to gather in the woods hoping for civil war.

The US has planted itself into a sort of cul-de-sac of violence and extremism in regard to the possession of needlessly powerful weapons and there seems to be no way out. There is no viable political action on the horizon. Instead, let’s forget the damned guns and look elsewhere.

A simple suggestion

In the US we are bathed in violence as entertainment. There were 45,222 firearm-related deaths in the United States in 2020 according to the Centers for Disease Control. That is an average of 124 Americans dying per day from firearm-related injury. These aren’t misfires from gun cleaning.

While multiple factors lead to violent actions, a growing body of literature shows a strong association between the perpetration of violence and exposure to violence in media, digital media, and entertainment.

Credit: American Academy of Family Physicians, https://www.aafp.org/about/policies/all/violence-media-entertainment.html

I’m not sure that viewers are actually asking for all of the entertainment violence that we see- it’s just that if it’s there we’ll eagerly watch it. It resembles click-bait. It is easy to write screenplays with of violence in it. Violence is genuinely exciting to most viewers. Violent content in programming helps to sell projects to those who finance and buy it. It definitely draws eyeballs which sells tickets, subscriptions and advertising. This is a reliable money machine.

What applies to movies also applies to video gaming. Many games are chock-full of violent content where the gamer does the simulated killing personally. I’ve played it myself. It triggers something that compels you to keep killing. But, does that condition you to committing actual violence? Maybe it is an effective release.

Producers and writers of violent content know full well what it takes to kick up the excitement factor. It is formulaic. While they operate under some sort of content guidelines, they are motivated to push it to the edge. The question is, do shoot ’em ups have to be every 4th scene? Are writers unloading their responsibility for compelling content to the stunt coordinators of gun fights and other violence?

What is needed is for screenwriters, producers and directors to back off on the violence a bit. All of the violence on TV comes from the imagination of the writers and producers. Surely it is within their power to throttle back a bit on the shooting, blood and guts. Desecration of human beings as entertainment should have tighter limits.

The goal is a safer and less violent civilization. The people who portray violence in vivid detail and orgasmic revenge produce a commercial product idealizes violence. They should be expected to self-govern better.

A Plea to Filmmakers

Your advertisers know that a certain fraction of viewers are persuaded to buy their products because of advertising within your TV programming. If they are persuaded to buy widgets they probably don’t need, don’t you think that your portrayals of violence might also be effective in negatively influencing impressionable young people? Will half the violence really reduce your profits by half? Does reducing violent content really infringe on your creative freedom? How limited are your creative abilities that you must accurately portray the destruction of human life?

Gladwell on Power Distance

Leave a reply

Malcom Gladwell recently wrote a short essay titled “What I Found at a Mennonite Wedding”. While I don’t hold the iron age theory of the universe that the big religions have, I have always admired groups like the Quakers who practice simplicity and humility. Gladwell relates the idea of “power distance” that he observes at the Mennonite wedding he attended.

Power distance is an anthropological concept developed by psychologist Geert Hofstede. According to Wikipedia, this refers to “inequality and unequal distributions of power between parties“. Somewhat later the term was further refined by the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) project. GLOBE defined power distance as “the degree to which members of an organization or society expect and agree that power should be shared unequally”.

Once you see the definition, it’s meaning seems obvious. The phenomenon appears where individuals and groups seek control over others. It relies on the natural inclination of people to go along to get along or to seek affiliation. The recent MAGA love affair with president #45 carries the distinct smell of a public willing to turn more power over to a single person- the extension of power distance. It happened with Putin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and others.

The connection to the Mennonite wedding is that the wedding party themselves served up lunch to the guests. This is a power distance shortening action meant to recognize and serve the guests as part of the community.

Some people criticize Gladwell for being just a bit shallow in his writings. He seems to write the view from 5,000 ft rather than from an alligator’s viewpoint in the swamp. There is a place for generalization … if you want readers, that is.

Putin’s War of Conquest

Leave a reply

The US needs many things, but now in particular we need a government that will strongly support Ukraine’s efforts to defeat Putin. Containment of Russia’s latest brutal dictator is a must for continued liberal democracy in the west. The US/NATO partnership is the necessary bulwark from the world’s two giant, grasping autocracies- China and Russia. Both will continue to be a challenge to the very existence of liberal democracies around the world for many decades to come.

Both China and Russia are weary of US hegemony in the world and seek to knock the US down and replace it with their own hegemony. The widespread use of English as the “lingua franca” of the world, US popular culture as well as the preeminence of the US dollar in world trade grates on their national pride. To coexist with US hegemony is to give consent. Both nations want to be masters of the realm. Simple human nature.

Perhaps Russia will emerge on the world stage one day as a guiding influence for decent civilization. But, that event will happen only after Russian citizens steer away from their long tolerance of autocratic and brutal leadership. It is up to the Russian citizenry to fix the Putin problem. Putin will not peacefully die in retirement. He’ll die in power like most of the former leaders of the Soviet Union from Lenin onwards did. Gorbachev had the grace to step down peaceably after he dissolved the Soviet Union. Somehow the pillars of support Putin has constructed over the years will have to crumble away. However, there is no guarantee that his successor will be much different.

The US had to be shaken from its isolationist trance to join in with WWI and WWII. Today, president #45 and others were showing a definite trend towards isolationism in the years prior to the onslaught of Putin’s savage war in Ukraine. #45’s tolerance and admiration of Putin was peculiar and very suspicious looking. Treating Putin like buddy is the wrong tack. George W. Bush said he peered into Putin’s eyes and saw his soul. Bush later said he regretted having said that.

It is not in the interest of the US or Europe to stand back as Putin goes on a land grab along the Russian frontier. So far Putin’s war has not devolved into a WWIII. The NATO countries have wisely avoided actions that would trigger a direct shooting war with Russia while at the same time sending resources to Ukraine. Yes, it is a proxy war. This support is expensive but it must continue.

With China showing interest in supporting Putin, we may find ourselves in a proxy war with them as well. However, China has much to lose in as much as the US is one of it’s biggest customers. Whatever the case, we’re on the way with Cold War II.

Henry Kissinger (HK) made waves at the Davos Conference in May of 2022 when he suggested that Ukraine and Russia return to the status quo ante. In a July 2, 2022 interview with HK in The Spectator, interviewer Andrew Roberts reports-

“If Russia stays where it is now, it will have conquered 20 per cent of Ukraine and most of the Donbas, the industrial and agricultural main area, and a strip of land along the Black Sea. If it stays there, it will be a victory, despite all the setbacks they suffered in the beginning. And the role of NATO will not have been as decisive as earlier thought.

The other outcome is an attempt made to drive Russia out of the territory it acquired before this war, including Crimea, and then the issue of a war with Russia itself will arise if the war continues.

The third outcome, which I sketched in Davos, and which, in my impression, Zelensky has now accepted, is if the Free People can keep Russia from achieving any military conquests and if the battleline returns to the position where the war started, then the current aggression will have been visibly defeated. Ukraine will be reconstituted in the shape it was when the war started: the post-2014 battleline. It will be rearmed and closely connected to NATO, if not part of it. The remaining issues could be left to a negotiation. It would be a situation which is frozen for a while. But as we’ve seen in the reunification of Europe, over a period of time, they can be achieved.”

HK supports the “equilibrium” of status of quo ante to the pre-February 24, 2022, borders rather than an attempt to defeat Russia. I think Ukraine would only agree to this if things were looking bad for them. As Putin has demonstrated, he lies all of the time. He is in no way dependable in a peace agreement.

Whatever it is that Putin responds to, we have to assume that overwhelming and superior firepower are high on the list. The US and NATO must present an iron fist in reply to Russian aggression. Putin has established himself as one of the major bad actors in modern times. The man’s ambition and swaggering macho is and will remain a threat to democratic states.

Modern Russian leadership has a pattern of oppression and intelligence gathering along with institutions to apply it everywhere they can. They are masters of propaganda and the psychology of intimidation. America is outclassed in the propaganda field.

American notions of social order were influenced by the British. The oppression of monarchy on the American colonies served as a negative example of how to govern. But, the British have the Magna Carta of 1215 in their history which was an agreement between a group of barons and King John of England providing protection of certain rights. The original charter was quickly annulled but was reissued in 1216. Over the years the charter became a part of political life in England.

The point of this history lesson is to suggest that Russian history has no similar example of democratic leanings. What did happen in 1861 in Russia was the Emancipation Proclamation by Emperor Alexander II abolishing serfdom. This edict was one of many liberal reforms during his reign (1855 to 1881) and gave 23 million serfs their liberty. While not democratic, it was a positive step change in Russian society. Another step change for Russia came with the Bolshevik revolution if 1917. Unfortunately, this gave rise to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and all of the subsequent Stalinist and cold war turmoil that followed. Russia needs another step change to shake loose the dictatorship/kleptocracy model that Putin has put in place. Whatever it is that serves the needs of a peaceful Russia, it needs to arrive soon.

Guns, guns, guns! Oh, whatever shall we do?

Leave a reply

It is guaranteed that if you write anything on the internet that is less than high praise for the American 2nd Amendment to the constitution, you will shake the crazy tree and trolls will tumble out all around you. So, here goes.

A dear friend has been piping up on Facebook lately with urgent warnings about many of his ultraconservative beliefs. Today it was a somber warning about the danger of losing the 2nd Amendment. Like many, he truly believes that we are in imminent danger of losing it to some dark and secret government conspiracy. I could offer in the comments that this is highly unlikely, that trying it could lead to a civil war and the demise of our democratic republic. As far as secret conspiracies go, it is worth remembering that three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

Commenting would only be ineffective and inflammatory and would result in damaging our lifelong friendship if I crossed swords with him. I don’t want this outcome even though I believe that he has gone off the deep end. I won’t offer criticism to his plainly crazy rantings. Why do I feel the need to comment?

Here is where it all goes nonlinear. To people like my friend, not falling in line with his 2nd Amendment belief is equivalent to giving support for eliminating guns. I have always had a nagging suspicion that there can be such a thing as an unhealthy fascination with weapons and their use. Even though I am not a gun enthusiast, I realize that attempting to remove guns from citizens would be like digging up a badger’s burrow bare handed and trying to yank the angry creature out while avoiding its dangerous gnashing teeth and sharp claws. It would be a fool’s errand and would end in a draw.

My friend’s early fascination with firearms fed his interest in joining the Navy when in his 20’s where he served on a missile frigate. There he learned a valuable trade that would later lead him to a highly technical career in the semiconductor field with much international travel. He chose well and did well. He has a strong moral center based on deeply conservative principles. I’m proud to know him.

While my friend served in the Navy facing actual hostility, I was in college thrashing around studying chemistry. His time was spent honorably defending the country. I spent a year in Air Force ROTC only to realize that I wasn’t military material. He gets to speak about preserving our rights with some authority and I get to speak about organic chemistry, with questionable authority.

In reality, we both get to voice our opinions about our democratic culture but the greater credibility can often go to the military veteran. They put their lives on the line for all of us- a very concrete contribution. My choice of becoming a scientist and contributing to the understanding of the molecular universe is much more abstract and remote. It can be hard for many to see the social benefit of a lifetime of contributing to science. In some ways scholarship is very self-centered and even hedonistic. My contribution seems to have been to help in the safe operation of a chemical plant and to help fellow employees maintain a comfortable living. Seems pretty tame.

It has been my experience that many boys pick up an interest in the martial arts and weapons in middle school. I think there is a legitimate nature or nurture question here but that is for someone else to consider. Middle school is an awkward time of hormones and conflicting behaviors and feelings. The feeling of control over your surroundings with new skills in fighting and weapons is natural and strong. This is an awakening that many boys experience.

After an NRA course in hunter safety as an early teen, I recall walking around a river bottom in the countryside alone with a .22 caliber rifle looking desperately for something to shoot. It was exhilarating. Luckily for the wildlife, no living targets appeared. Just having the gun in my possession made me want to fire it. And therein may be the problem.

It seems to me that the pure exhilaration of handling and shooting a firearm is an irresistible attraction to some people. You know, like sport shooting. There are people who just need to shoot at things. I’ve experienced it. Within the limits of lawful behavior, it’s not wrong to shoot at inorganic things.

The problem arises when people shoot other people as a way to resolve conflict against a background of law and order. The ability to commit violence from a safe distance is a plus with firearms that is lost on no one. Perhaps we should just yield to it and bring back dueling with pistols between consenting parties?

So, here is my conclusion. The US will continue to suffer through individual and mass shootings well into the future. As a society, there will remain a critical mass of people who will oppose any sort of gun control despite the positive counter examples from other countries. Empirical evidence doesn’t matter, only voting does and even that is now in question. The mindless gun violence will subside only when we stop wanting to display our personal power with threats of violence. There must be a large-scale phase change in psychology and some reasonable alterations in the legal environment behind it. Perhaps after a devastating world war Americans, or whoever is left, will decide to lay down their arms and choose non-violence. But I doubt even then it would happen. Violence is a primate thing that is hard wired into our brains.

Cracker Barrel vs Cry Babies

4 Replies

I have nothing constructive to add here, but it’s just too funny to leave alone. A scandal has hit the news. Cracker Barrel has announced they are offering a new plant-based sausage on their menu. It has resulted in an flood of outrage on the interwebs. Here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, indignant customers are venting their outrage over an optional menu item as a menacing sign of what is to come.

The US Navy may be adding it to their menu, sparking righteous indignation from our very own pistol packin’ Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). It was proposed for the 2023 defense budget. Boebert cried out that it is “liberal woke garbage”. It’s a new food choice for our sailors, Lauren. You are crying wolf again.

According to a source that I don’t trust and never quote, the New York Post, Tejas Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) voted against it in 2021. In a Twitter thread, he exclaimed

“A woke military that drafts our daughters, wastes resources on Green New Deal garbage, holds no one accountable for Afghanistan disaster, and prioritizes playing leftist politics over destroying our enemies,” he wrote in the thread. “Rep. Roy voted no.”

Oh! The horror of it! A vegan meat substitute is an example of wokeness, they rage. To be woke is to be aware of social injustice and to tolerate the choices of other people. But to the lunatic fringe, it is a crime against MAGA land.

It will be interesting to see what the restaurant does about this, if anything. It is an amusing tempest in a teapot.

Earth Day on the Pale Blue Dot

2 Replies

This Earth Day of April 22, 2022, is a good time to stop and reflect a moment on our home in the universe. We live on a gleaming blue and white wet rock hurtling around a yellow star in a cosmos so vast that it is well beyond our ability to comprehend. On February 14, 1990, a photo looking back at Earth was taken from a distance of 4 billion miles by the space probe Voyager 1 on its way out of the solar system. This photo features a tiny, pixel-sized, blue dot. Our lonely home world.

So far, this decade of the 2020’s has begun with global contagion and a growing standoff by nuclear powers over culture and real estate. Many are saying that the conflict will lead to famine in Africa and economic chaos elsewhere. How it unfolds is the question on everyone’s mind. If there was ever a time for us to take a pause to look at the big picture, that time is now. We could all use a bit of humility from time to time.

Someone once joked that the international unit of humility should be called the “Sagan.” Carl Sagan the astronomer was a gifted and popular spokesman for astronomy and space science in a time of great discovery and space exploration in the latter 1900’s. Carl Sagan the writer is said to have published more than 600 scientific papers and 20 books for lay audiences. What’s more, in addition to co-writing and narrating a popular TV series, he wrote a piece of science fiction, Contact, that was turned into a popular movie.

Sagan wrote the following-

“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”

— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Copyright © 1994 by Carl Sagan, Copyright © 2006 by Democritus Properties, LLC.

Assorted Thoughts on our New Nuclear Age

Leave a reply

If you search Google News for ‘nuclear war’, you’ll find links to articles from a large variety of sources. Putin’s invasion and belligerent behavior has resulted in a great deal of media buzz which is rightfully spooking the world. Better relations with Russia began with the fall of the Soviet Union and has lasted to some degree up to now- about 30 years duration.

Along with the invasion of Ukraine, Putin has been making threats suggesting to some that we may be heading back to a world of nuclear brinksmanship. Nuclear sabre rattling largely disappeared sometime after the fall of the Soviet Union. For the past 30 years the world has carried on as though nuclear weapons don’t exist anymore. Everyone knows that the major powers have nuclear weapons and understands the rationale for Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). This has been in the background. Yes, there are outliers like North Korea and Iran.

Ronald Reagan took exception to the logic of MAD and in 1983 announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), sometimes derided by the name “Star Wars”. Reagan promoted the plan by asserting that orbiting SDI platforms would make nuclear weapons obsolete, at least with strategic weapons like the ICBM. It was a grand plan to make the world safer. It certainly made the world safer for defense contractors. Many of us think that the program was really meant cause the Soviets to go bankrupt in trying to keep up with the west in SDI technology. After the Soviet Union collapsed, enthusiasm for SDI in its original form faded away. You can read about it in the SDI link.

With Putin, steel must be met with steel. He only respects strength. For this reason it may have been a mistake to announce that there would not be a no-fly zone enacted over Ukraine. Handing over certainty to Putin only emboldens him. We should have said that it is on the table and left him guessing.

The big question is what to do if, in desperation, Putin uses a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine? How should NATO respond? Whatever it is, there must be an unambiguous response. The choice for Putin to use a tactical nuclear weapon will only be difficult the first time it is used.

On the lighter side, if you don’t already know, now may be a good time to familiarize yourselves with nuclear weapons effects and how the bombs work. If you’re in Vegas, stop by the National Atomic Testing museum. Get familiar with mankind’s fastest and most spectacular expressway to the collapse of civilization! Remember, nuclear explosions are effectively point sources of heat and pressure. The effects fall off as an inverse square law with distance. Distance is your friend.

On the personal level, try to come to terms with the stochastic nature of radiation damage and the existence and effects of background radiation. The dose/response curve to radiation gets quite fuzzy at the lower dose levels. Remember, exposure and dose are not the same.

The tragic effects of this invasion on the Ukrainian people is horrible. But I have Russian friends and have been to Russia. I grieve for the Russian people who are unwittingly on this dreadful misadventure of Putin’s. During the last 30 years of relative peace Russians have known a much improved quality of life. It is awful to see this ripped away from them. Russia just can’t shake itself free of despotic leadership.

David Brooks has an insightful article on Putin’s view of the world and Russia’s place in it. An excellent interview can be found in Der Spiegel describing Putin’s character by Ivan Krastev from the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.

WTF? Die to Abolish CRT?

2 Replies

So #45 is at his incitement game again. He asked spectators in a rally in South Carolina recently to be willing to die to abolish critical race theory, CRT. He said, “The fate of any nation ultimately depends upon the willingness of its citizens to lay down, and they must do this, lay down their very lives to defend their country …”, and then he said, “If we allow the Marxists, and communists, and socialists to hate America, there will be no one left to defend our flag or to protect our great country or its freedom …”.

Wow! Marxists and communists? In the USA? Really? An old bogeyman has resurfaced from the cold war days and has come to plague the hearts and minds of unsuspecting innocents going about their business. The horror! The horror!

When he says “to die”, what exactly does that mean? This can easily imply some kind of participation in violence. Does he mean to participate in a struggle to physically attack school board members who do not acquiesce to or even understand their demands? At what point should an opponent and a proponent of CRT fight to the death? With his usual cageyness, #45 leaves these details for individuals to sort out and suffer the legal consequences in his name.

The great and powerful Oz clearly hopes that fear and anger from the phony threat of CRT will translate into votes and political contributions. Fearmongering has been a conservative strategy for decades. And it works! Remember how Reagan turned the word ‘liberal’ into an epithet? Americans of a certain mindset will reliably continue to eat it up with a spoon. How disappointing it is to see so many countrymen be so gullible and persuaded by such transparent manipulation.

Will Russian Sanctions Work?

Leave a reply

It remains to be seen if the economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the west will have even a smidgen of effect on Putin. Western sanctions on the USSR had substantial effect on the Soviet people back in the cold war days, but the leadership of the USSR lasted for a very long time in this condition. It is naive of us to think that it will be any different with the Putin regime. Look at Iran and North Korea. They have lived under extreme sanctions for a very long time while under the tight control of their leadership and even have developed or will develop nuclear weapons.

One difference today in Russia is the relatively large middle class. They are accustomed to a lifestyle where goods and services are abundant. The smack down of the Russian economy will adversely affect them. But will it make a difference in Putin’s autocratic behavior? In the past, Putin’s response to dissent has been to crack down using the police and security services to enforce draconian law. Putin does not report to the Russian people. Like the old story of boiling the frog, he has cannily built a tight power structure around himself over time.

Will pinching the finances of the oligarchs make the difference? There is already talk of them turning to block chain schemes to park their money. Sanctions mean that money will begin to flow elsewhere. It seems doubtful that Putin would have allowed this kind of Achilles Heel of a powerful class to exist. Some think that the oligarchs report to Putin and not the other way around.

One beneficiary of this situation is thought to be China. It surely hasn’t gone unnoticed in China that the disconnection of western business will provide a great many business opportunities in Russia as well as an expansion of their sphere of influence. All we can do is to watch it unfold.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine will bring negatives to his regime. Whether it will bring him down seems unlikely. Historical precedence does not give much hope to the idea that Putin will have a ‘come to Jesus’ moment and cause him to relent.

Russia’s status as a nuclear power worries everyone, of course. Adherence to the strategic doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) between nuclear states has limited warfare to the use of conventional arms for generations. It has been the doctrine of the US to incorporate a fire break between the use of conventional and nuclear arms. Whether this is true for Russia is unclear. They may see nuclear arms as part of a normal escalation in force. This would be most unfortunate if true. How the west would respond to the release of nuclear weapons in Ukraine or against other states of the former Soviet Union is also unclear, but there are surely contingency plans for this eventuality somewhere in the pentagon. I hope.

The unifying affect on the west in responding to Putin’s aggression is encouraging but it may not be enough to stop Putin from further invasions. Let us hope that this madman can be contained.

Donny and Vlad

1 Reply

Yet another mournful lamentation on Putin and Trump.

Yesterday, 2/22/22, Trump had words of praise for Putin’s move into Ukraine with “peace keeping” forces. He used the word “savvy” in his praise of the tactic. This is in addition to his spoken admiration of Putin in past years. But he also said that if he were in office this wouldn’t have happened. Trump’s acolyte, Tucker Carlson, seems to be issuing forth the same kind of spew. So, what is Trump really saying?

During Trump’s term he proved to be cool on NATO and America’s place in it. So much so that he spooked EU countries. By most accounts, he had little if any recognizable foreign policy and left a great many important posts unfilled in the State Department. Foreign affairs just didn’t capture his interest. Yet, he says he could have prevented Putin’s invasion if he hadn’t been cheated out of the presidency. I guess the invasion is maybe the fault of Biden supporters.

I have come think of Trump as a wannabe despot who admires Putin the despot (and others) as one professional may admire the work of another. Putin as leader is accustomed to having considerable control of Russia. Trump was in control of numerous private companies and thus not accountable to public shareholders. Both characters are used to the exercise of unquestioned power. Maybe it’s not surprising that there is mutual admiration.

Will Trump followers be disappointed by his open admiration of Putin? It seems doubtful. His supporters have an evangelical zeal for the man. A great many of his followers are conservative evangelical Christians who believe that Trump’s appearance on the scene meshes with their end-times theology. His appearance is related to the beginning of the apocalypse of prophesy. These supporters believe that the man is here due to supernatural forces that must play out and cannot be dissuaded.

If this is your belief, then it must be comforting for you. For the rest of us, it is an incoherent and destructive kind of nonsense. How can it be that the same religion that preaches love and gave us the Beatitudes would also give us a leader the likes of the ethically disabled Trump. Somehow the creator of the universe, the one who set the galaxies spinning and knows the movements of every flea in the tail feathers of every sparrow, gave us a malignant narcissist like Trump. It is not a question shrouded in religious mystery. It is what it appears to be- absurd. Ambitious and destructive characters like Putin and Trump have appeared regularly throughout history. And through the lens of history we can make some good guesses as to what they can do. Both are threats to democratic civilization in their own way and must be contained.

As to the original question, what did Trump mean by his comments, I don’t know. He makes things up as he goes and lies profusely. I don’t think that even he knows what he means.