Empathy in a Cynical Society

A couple days ago, President Obama paid a visit to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to witness the return of 15 war dead. When asked the President claimed that certainly such sights were going to influence how he sees the war in Afghanistan. While I don't know if Obama is going to be able to tie things up well in Iraq or Afghanistan or not, because ending a war with a decent outcome is among the hardest things a political leader can ever do. And because in our society there is a very strong faction and cultural attitude in many quarters, that plays into the idea that the US can achieve victories in these sorts of wars if only the country sorts of sticks together and doesn't show any "weakness" in the form of dissent within. Also the idea that ending a war constitutes a betrayal of the troops (ei. "Didn't let us win."), is deeply woven into post-Vietnam War America. Unfortunately, these factors are going to heavily influence what Obama is likely to accomplish and how portions of the public will react to it.

But looking at this reminds me of how certain debates are played out in America. One thing it brings to mind is the President's use of the word "empathy" in the context of choosing a Supreme Court Justice. Many peoples, especially those on the right, pounced on Obama for suggesting that empathy was an important quality. Indeed much of the debate about Sotomayor and her "wise Latina" comment boils down to a common idea in modern society: that empathy is entirely about having the same/similar set of life experiences, versus the competing idea that empathy is a sort of weakness-and is usually seen as "feminine". And indeed those are the dominant two assumptions in a society where cynicism runs rampant. Although science has found some unexpected correlates with empathy, most people hold more philosophical concepts of empathy. Some people either sincerely or cynically conflate this ability with a person who is very emotional, lacks reasoning abilities, and is often seen as weak. The other mostly cynical concept is the view that people can only empathize with those who are pretty much exactly like themselves, and to say otherwise is to talk nonsense. However, real world psychologists define lack of empathy as a mental illness, and the prevalence of such people in the human race creates a wide variety of problems from petty crime to local tyrants to genocide and so much in between.

Another thing that this President's reaction to seeing 18 caskets underscores for me is the contrast to his predecessor who often visited wounded soldiers and once brought a Thanksgiving Turkey to soldiers in Iraq, but who never considered the fact he might be wrong to have started the war in Iraq. Above all Bush never expressed any remorse over the uncounted numbers of Iraqis who died in his war. None at all. And many people blamed Bush's sitting out the war in Vietnam for this.

And yet, seeing 18 caskets appeared to have a very real effect on Obama, as hard as it is to determine how that will translate into action. While I'm making no predictions on that score, I doubt that John McCain would have reacted the same way. Although during election 2008, people tried to make so much out of his POW status. And those who knew the man was a hard core hawk with a terrible temper a special explanation was often sought, for why someone who had been in a war would be so eager to wage another one.

As I've written before, the last thing I would want to imply is that there are any easy answers here. But one thing is certain. In our cynical society, any concept of empathy that isn't either seen as a weakness or as an almost political "scorecard" is likely to be dismissed out of hand or even looked upon as insulting. In fact, I consider it a major commentary on our society that empathy was rarely seriously studied outside the area of gender roles, until an autism epidemic, an obsession with serial killers, and an increased awareness of the prevalence of sociopathic persons almost forced us to invest more serious resources in that direction.

So to what extent do we need empathetic leaders? Often of course, empathy has been considered a liability. And certainly, I spent as much time as anyone not paid to do so, making fun of Clinton's "I feel your pain" approach during the 90's. Perhaps more than most Republicans. But one thing we clearly don't want in a parent, police officer, mayor, CEO, or President, is the complete lack of response to humanity who has either held one or more of these positions or have at least been "considered" for them.

That much is certain.

Say Goodnight Readers

Fear of Crime

Hello Everyone!

I'd like to talk about the myth of "exploding crime rates" in our society and the consequences it carries. Recently, there was a lot of talk about a mother who let her nine year old son ride the New York Subway and received an immense amount of criticism for it. In my experience women who do things like walk or take the bus alone when it's dark are often criticized for it, as has been the case since the 90's-and probably a lot longer. Some parents will not let their children walk to school for fear that they will be kidnapped or assaulted.

Of course, driving in a car carries its own share of risks and therefore the issue largely boils down to risk perception. Yet many people largely ignore those risks, but let the fear of crime dictate their actions. This could be because we are wired to fear interpersonal violence, more than accidents or it could be because of the conventional wisdom.

And to many if not most Americans, the conventional wisdom is something like this. During the 1950's nobody really worried much about their personal safety. People felt comfortable leaving their doors unlocked and letting young children run errands for their parents. But sometime after the 1960's, things changed. People started to live in fear. Children could no longer walk to school and women could no longer go outside alone at night. Crime rates exploded, and the safety that had once been taken for granted, became a distant memory. And this view tends to predominate on both the left and the right.

Of course, the left and right never did agree on the causes. According to most conservatives the rising crime rates could be blamed on decline in the "traditional" family, lack on "old fashioned" concepts of child discipline including spankings or even corporal punishment in schools, working mothers, gay and lesbians raising kids, and of course a justice system that is "soft on criminals". The solutions in this view include harsh punishments for criminals often including the death penalty, stricter discipline for young people often including measures such corporal punishment in schools or instituting a universal military draft to insure that most young men (and in some cases young women) go through boot camp, and the promotion of "traditional family values" which can include discouraging gays from raising kids, discouring divorce, and even discouraging mothers from working outside the home. Criminals if they could be reformed at all, would only improve under harsh often physical discipline, and possibly religion. Robert A. Heinlein a conservative science fiction writer described a 20th century that fell apart because parents did not spank their child "even as babies", in a lecture made by a teacher to his students in the book "Starship Troopers" in which the teacher told a student that it was impossible for any human to develop a conscience if they hadn't been spanked as babies.
And historically most liberals have taken the view that crime is the result of bad life circumstances and deprivation such as poverty, racism, discrimination, abusive family lives, and such. In this view the solutions include things such as greater social welfare programs, spending money on schools and education rather than police forces or jails, promotion of more job/educational opportunities for the less fortunate, the dismantlement of racism and other forms of social discrimination, more public education in areas such as parenting or non-spanking forms of child discipline, and such. Also some versions of this view have at times claimed many/most criminals could be reformed or rehabilitated variously with work programs, education, psychological therapy or counseling, and in some cases prayer.

Of course after two centuries of liberals sometimes viewing conservative ideas about crime as callous and lacking sympathy for those unfortunate enough to fall into lives of crime, while conservatives have been known to look upon liberal view as softheaded, naive, and rewarding bad behavior.

But what would happen if both of these views were wrong?

That crime in America has NOT consistently exploded since the end of 1959, and has in fact dropped a great deal during the 90's, and has been dropping throughout 2009? That neither liberal, nor conservative, nor other theories about the causes of crime are terribly effective at explaining crime rates? Apparently that is our current reality.

One the whole comparing estimated and reported crime rates before the 1970's or so, to recorded rates in recent decades may be like comparing apples and oranges for several important reasons:

1) In the past police departments were often on the same page as city politicians in that they wanted to shoot for the lower estimates of local crime rates in order to make the community look good. In during the 70's police budgets became more influenced by perceived crime rates, and politicians found that exploiting fears of crime could be a way to get elected. This does not automatically mean that crimes were suppressed or fabricated. It simply means that estimates over large populations are not perfect, and that sometimes subjective choices are made over which one is the most reliable.

2) Often crimes were never reported in areas where the Mafia or KKK was powerful.

3) The installment of the 911 emergency number starting in 1968 (but it didn't reach some communities until the 80s) , along with the introduction of the National Crime Victimization Survey both added several crimes that were not reported to the police to the accepted crime statistics.

4) Some of the most dramatic increases in reported crimes in the 70's and early 80's involved rape, domestic violence, and incest. However starting in the late 60's the Second Wave feminist movement worked hard at encouraging women to report these crimes, to fight back, and to speak out against and the victim blaming/shaming attitudes that had prevailed for generations.

5) Modernization of statistical methods and the introduction of computers and more advanced communications.

6) Newer forensic methods made certain types of criminals (ei serial killers) easier to catch, and certain crimes easier to prove.

But whatever uncertainty might exist about actual crime rates in past decades, anyone who has seen the movie "Changeling" or read books like "Huck Finn" or stories about "The Old West" with a critical mind, can figure out that the past wasn't necessarily a crime free Golden Age, and that police corruption is nothing new. While we shouldn't ever take serious crimes like murder lightly, it clearly does no good to think that violent crime is particularly rampant or perpetually on the increase. It is true that the United States as a whole has a very high murder rate for an industrial nation, however this murder rate only applies to certain parts of the US, mostly in the Deep South. And that a recent decline in murder rates has shown a good deal of variation in different places.

Another interesting aspect of crime rates is that by and large what both liberals and conservatives have traditionally believed about crime rates both appear to be wrong.

See previously posted article.

In the 90's many people predicted that the decline in crime rates would reverse in the early 21st century because the number of young adults would increase. Yet with the coming of age of the hip hop generation, and the beginning of the Bush era, that didn't quite pan out.
So it looks like the children of working mothers and high divorce, who didn't face a universal military draft, and grew up listening to rap and hip-hop didn't turn into the violent homicidal maniacs, wanton thieves, and lost drug addicts that many conservatives feared. At the same time traditional liberal expectations that economic deprivation is a factor in crime have no been supported by a trend towards increased crime rates during economic hard times. The controversial theory in Freakonomics, which could be welcome or condemned by factions on both the left and right albeit for somewhat different reasons, that legal abortion lowered crime rates also doesn't fit the facts. Not only did this effect not show up in other countries, as the article mentioned, but also the increasing difficulty obtaining an abortion starting in the late 80's and early 90's, along with the high teen pregnancy rate in the 80's, should have led to a marked increase in crimes committed by young people starting in the past few years rather the the current decreases, if it were true. Another hypothesis advanced by some thinkers such as Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman that better EMS services and medical advances are creating an artificially suppressed homicide rate, and masking true levels of violence is also highly doubtful given the decline in other types of violent crime as well. Ideas suggesting that the levels of gun ownership cause or decrease crime, are generally not back up by any strong evidence. The notion that cultural attitudes are an influence could explain regional differences but not fluctuations in the national crime rate. Some might suggest that various political cycles or the "spirit of the times" could influence crime rates, but I've yet to see a clear working hypothesis that can be shown to fit the actual facts.

One of the things this situation reveals is that for over 200 years Western society has debated the root causes of crime in a highly politicized framework with surprisingly little basis in hypothesis testing, and beneath it all tantalizingly few clear working hypothesis that seem to explain much about crime rates. As an college student in the 90's, I was very strongly attracted to Ralph Nader's somewhat beyond left and right view, that contrary to popular opinion the poor did not commit the majority of crimes in America, and that the media failed to focus on corporate crime, white collar crime, and middle class drug abuse the way it did on crimes committed mostly by the poor. In the early years after 9/11, although no supporter of the Bush administration or its wars, I considered the link between the attacks on America and radical Islamic fundamentalism, to issues like world poverty to be questionable and the relationship to misguided US foreign policy to be at the very least less simplistic than was usually portrayed. In both cases, I found myself to be in the minority: assumed to be conservative by many leftists and seen as an iconoclast or a fool by nearly all conservatives.
Of course, in those days I was younger and relied mostly on facts and figures for this position, although they were far from uninfluenced by my own experiences. However, in more recent years, I've come to depend more on my own experience in life: Namely that basic decency among most people is much more resilient than liberal theories about deprivation and bad circumstances, conservative theories about the decline in values and lack of discipline, or iconoclastic Naderite views blaming the decline of civic values and the triumph of corporate selfishness, would have us believe. And the presence of malice and wickedness in some people is much more mysterious, than most of the explanations I've seen can do any real justice to.

But either way, I can see four possibilities with regard to explanations for crime rates:

1) That people will continue to debate the liberal/conservative frame of crime that has been in place since at least the early 19th century, even though it has little real value.
2) That a new set of theories with limited real world value will end up being hotly debated and politicized for some time-perhaps another 200 years!
3) That some new unforeseen model will arise that actually works, and if that happens, I doubt it will support either right or left wing politics in any neat and tidy way

But one thing is fairly clear. The realities of crime do not seem to fit the historical partisan framework. And any politician who uses fear of crime to get elected is operating on false premises. Improving job opportunities for the poor and funding schools are worthy goals, but not effective ways of reducing crime. Perhaps a better argument for creating opportunities for the poor and better school systems, is simply that they would benefit society and large numbers of people, most of whom were never likely to become violent criminals.

Equally important is bringing the public's perception of crime closer to the reality. Because a skewed perception has contributed to the public's reluctance to use public transit, abandonment of city center and urban sprawls, overprotection and lack of exercise among children, increased racial prejudice, the perception that women must avoid traveling alone and other social problems.

But in looking at the culture, I see some signs that the public might be more ready to engage in sophisticated discussions of crime than was the case in the past. TV shows such as "Cold Case" and "Law and Order" rarely portray criminals as sympathetic figures, but they tend to put the crimes in a historical or political context that reflects a largely liberal outlook. Newer crime films include portraits such as "Zodiac" with it's in depth character study of the people who were connected to the investigation of the Zodiac murders and how it affected their lives over two decades. And "Changeling" with deals very well with issues such as serial killers, a morally ambiguous portrait of the death penalty, police corruption, a feminist view of abuse of power, and a realist portrayal of children confronted with violence. These movies and others already deal with more multi-dimensional realities than the historical liberal/conservative dichotomies .

I'm confidence that our political discourse overdue for the same thing.

Say Goodnight Readers!

Desert Patriarchy: Global Warming and The Future of Progress

I'd like to wade into a rather thorny and potentially controversial topic today. One that raises more questions than it answers.

A number of observations and theories have suggested that human cultures based in the deserts tend to be more patriarchal, more fatalistic, more accepting of inequality, and tend to put more emphasis on military style "honor" than societal justice. So the questions I'd like to address here are whether or not those theories are accurate, whether or not they are relevant in the modern world, and what if anything they mean for human society and global feminism in the context of global warming, forest loss, and desertification. And what should be done about it.

The point of this piece is not to play alarmist, but rather to look seriously at the questions involved. If desert societies tend to be more patriarchal, is it possible that in a world troubled by climate change, forest loss, and desertification, that sexual equality may find itself on at the very least precarious grounds.

Of course, the observation that desert societies tend to be more patriarchal than the ones in forest, oceanside, and grassland areas, is nothing new. And there are different theories as to why this is the case. Some explanations simply point to the fact that closely related primates will behave differently in different environments. Many primatologists will point to the differences between the hierarchical, violent and patriarchal baboons on the harsh savannahs and the more egalitarian and relatively less violent bonobos living in much more lush forests. Of course, the savannahs are not deserts, but proponents of this view argue that primates simply become more patriarchal and violent from living in harsher environments. Of course, the main debate about this explanation is likely to center on the difficulties of going from comparing difference species to comparing different human cultures.

Another explanation for the tendency of desert societies to be patriarchal, is the claim that when resources are scarce it becomes more important to regulate fertility and as a result you see more stringent control on sexuality and marriage and more regulation on the females.

Of course, if these two explanations were the main reason it would be easy enough to say that they are not as likely to become an issue with global warming and forest loss. As serious as those problem are, humans now have modern tools to mitigate resource loss. And control of fertility should not require such stringent behavioral controls with the availability of modern birth control and family planning.

But what if the desert environment in itself does not promote patriarchal societies? Correlation doesn't always point to causation. Could it be that the development of patriarchy was not the result of the actual desert environment but of some historical circumstance that coincided with it? After all, many of the world's deserts lie in a sort of "desert belt" that crosses North Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. And many desert societies that are not as strongly patriarchal or warlike such as the Hopi or the San, are found in deserts outside of the main desert belt.

Could it be that when when grasslands give way to deserts, that more egalitarian societies may also shift to more patriarchal and aggressive societies? Could this be the result of dramatic climate change, rather than an actual desert? Of course, history has generally not shown famine to cause a shift towards patriarchy in modern countries such as China, Ireland, Russia or Ethiopia. So what was the case in the prehistoric or ancient world may or may not translate to modern times. If the disruption of climate change lead to widespread warfare could that have led to a long term cultural shift in a more warlike and patriarchal direction? Could the epidemicity of war be a factor in this?

And while it would be hard to translate between the rise of patriarchy in the ancient world, and how modern humans would react to global problems, it is worth noting that many modern liberal people see patriarchy and militarism as a practical responses to social adversity, regardless of logic or the actual circumstances involved.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the rise of patriarchy is how little we truly know about how it actually happened. And if we don't know that much about the origins, we might not be able to see a repeat of such conditions in the future, or on our changing and uncertain planet. But one thing is certain. Now we have the history to know about the evils of a patriarchal society. And while we may not know the preconditions, we can recognize the nature of the beast, and can choose to fight back against it. However, it could become the case that global feminism may increasingly have to operate in the context of global warming, forest loss, and water shortages. And that the consequences of those things on the culture could be worse than most have anticipated.

Say Goodnight Readers!!

Geo-Engineering: The Dilemna

There's been a lot of talk about where or not humanity should try to engineer itself out of global warming.

At this point the question isn't so much about whether or not humans should try to geo-engineer the planet, because unfortunately geo-engineering has started already. Most arguments against geo-engineering boil down to three basic ideas.

1) It's inherently immoral-
I would consider this a legitimate philosophical position. But the problem is that humans have already put the earth into a big unplanned geo-engineering project. As on Oregon teacher pointed out, "No matter what the outcome we're in the test tube." Some people might protest with a certain amount of the legitimately that not all humans are equally responsible. Certainly there are significant differences between countries, wealth levels, regions within the same country, and to some extent from individual choices. Also the leaders of certain industries such as the main US auto-manufacturers have made choices such as promoting big clunky cars, and working against public transit. Not to mention the unholy alliances between big oil, big coal, and the military industrial complex, which have consistently underrated any attempt to develop alternative or even low carbon energy sources.
However if not all humans are equally responsible for the problem, we are all stuck in the test tube. And often it's the poorest people who have historically been responsible for the least greenhouse gas emissions who suffer the most severe consequences of global warming such as hurricanes, droughts, and crop failure.
So if geo-engineering is immoral, unfortunately a geo-engineering fix for global warming wouldn't be the first experiment.

2) If we have a geo-engineering fix for global warming people will use it as an excuse to not cut greenhouse gas emissions.-
I admit a certain bias against that type of argument. Certainly there are people who think geo-engineering should be the whole solution, and that energy conservation, renewables, and low carbon energy sources needn't be explored. And I have no truck with them. But at the same time, earth may already be past the point where emissions cuts alone are enough. And some people carry this argument to the point of saying that humanity needs to experience the consequences of global warming, or even "bottom out" in order to have any real incentive to change. And frankly, I've never been a fan of "bottom out" style arguments being applied to large groups of people, including many who aren't yet born. Finally, I can't help thinking about scenarios where a degraded planet and low quality of life becomes "normal" for large numbers of people. Something which is found not just in eco-dystopian science fiction such as Soylent Green and Silent Running, but also in slums around the world and in drought ridden communities such as the one described by Xinran in her book "The Good Women of China".

3) The possibility of unforeseen consequences-
To me this argument is ultimately the strongest case against geo-engineering in order to stave off global warming. The Irish saying "Better the devil ye know.", may seem all to fitting with a look at history. Ozone depleting chemicals, DDT, endocrine disrupting pollutants, the introduction of rabbits to Australia, the removal of wolves from North America, introduction fire suppression, the Bhopal gas tragedy, and a long, long list of other cases that would lead one wonder about what sort of "side effects" could result from a geo-engineering fix for global climate change. Given the track record, one can't help but find the claim that adding particles to the atmosphere to reflect sunlight "shouldn't" have any unforseen effects on the atmosphere less than reassuring.

But that said, it should be noted that not all engineering fixes are equally high risk. Geo-engineering approaches can be as conservative as painting roofs white, and mass tree-planting, or as filled with unkowns as seeding the seas with iron, adding sulfur particles to the atmosphere, and putting shades in to lower the amount of sunlight hitting the earth at certain times.

Some of the arguments in favor of geo-engineering include:

1) Global warming is already happening and we may not be able to lower the amount of greenhouses gases in time to prevent earth from passing a tipping point, where the effects could become wild an unpredictable.-
Of course, the idea of a tipping point is somewhat uncertain. But there is little doubt that global warming is already here. Even some conservatives who object to drastic action have started to shift from arguing that global warming is non-existant to arguing that the consequences aren't going to be all that serious. Hence all the talk about "moderate global warming" in many new articles and even books. But the even with changes in greenhouse gas emissions we are already dealing with the amount of greenhouse gas that has been added to the atmosphere.

2) That geo-engineering can be implemented more quickly, than fundamental changes in the world's energy utilization. -
This may be true. However, questions must be asked about resource allocation and how much money that might go to a particular mitigating technique, might have otherwise gone to wind/solar energy, energy conservation, public transit, carbon recycling, development of newer 2nd/3rd/4th generation biofuels and new renewable energy concepts.

3) That geo-engineering will put most of the responsibility on the wealthier nations of the world, who are responsible for the most historical greenhouse gas emissions.-
This is no doubt true. But with some emerging economies such as China, conflicts over who should pay for what are inevitable. Other economic arguments have suggested that some concepts may create jobs. Another problem is that it could be used by some parties in poor or emerging nations as an argument to pursue a course of development that relies heavily on fossil fuel, and ignore the development of renewables, biofuels, and low carbon options.

Needless to say that the number of suggestions and concepts in geo-engineering are evolving and that not ideas are equally risky ecologically or equally likely to succeed. New ideas are being churned out all the time. In evaluating these concepts I would suggest some basic questions that would have to be asked if any attempts at geo-engineering are made.

1) Does it address all the effects of greenhouse gases or only temperature changes?
This is important, because some suggestions such as painting roofs white, white-topping streets, or putting up solar shades in space may address the issue of rising temperatures, but not deal with problems such as ocean acidification or the changes in plant physiology that can occur at higher carbon levels. So far we don't know much about the latter or the ecological ramifications.

2) Does it actually lower greenhouse gas levels from the atmosphere? Which ones? At at what price per tonne? How much energy would be consumed?
Needless to say that removing the offending gases from the atmosphere is the most effective way to solve the problem. That is assuming that we can do so in sufficient quantities to make a differences. And that is where the issue of price becomes important. The amount of energy used is important because otherwise you could end up defeating the purpose. Some examples of removal ideas include "artificial trees" in which various polymers are used to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then are either buried in old mines and/or are reused after the carbon dioxide is either sequestered or recycled into new fuels. More basic suggestions include massive plantings of old fashioned trees, or the opinion of some atmospheric scientists that stricter controls on carbon dioxide emissions combined with some technologies that increase the amount of hydroxyl radicals found naturally in the atmosphere can decrease the amount of time that methane remains in the atmosphere. Additional low risk concepts include ideas such as carbon dioxide absorbing concrete, speeding up natural geological processes where carbon dioxide in absorbed into rocks.

3) What is the probability of ecological unknowns?
This is obviously the area that generates the most doubts. But it is safe to say that not all risks are created equal. The environmental risks of white paint used to paint roofs or perhaps white wash rocks or mounts in parts of the world can be understood for the most part by conventional environmental risk assessments used for any other paint. Carbon dioxide absorbed into rocks for the most part is likely to remain inert. But pressurized carbon dioxide stored underground could at the very least escape, and perhaps create the kind of natural disaster that occurred when Lake Nyos released a large carbon monoxide bubble killing both people and animals. Concepts that could involve a large number of uknowns would include adding sulfur or other particles to the atmosphere to lower incoming sunlight, or seeding the ocean with iron to increase the productivity of algae. In the case of the former we've already learned from problem with ozone depletion that messing with the atmosphere is risky business, and besides lower the levels of income sunlight could also affect the productivity of plants or even PV cells and solar thermal power plants. And the potential for unforeseen consequences of messing with the oceans are greater still. It has been suggested that raising algal productivity could result in fish kills, jellyfish blooms, or other ecological disasters. Or worse that much of the algae could decompose under anoxic conditions and be released as methane-which is seven times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.

4) Are there other environmental benefits?-

Concepts such as planting trees speak for themselves. Mass tree planting might be severely labor intensive and may not be a total solution. But the benefits of trees as far as cleaning water, removing other air pollutants, preventing erosion, and providing various economic goods in certain places. Other suggestions with side benefits could include soil enrichment. The idea of mandating that a certain percentage (5%-10%) of algal oil or algal crude be injected into old depleted oil wells, could effectively provide a "ride" on the coattails of an industry that has promised to provide an alternative to oil and a method of cleaning water. More radical ideas have included creating rainforests in what are now relative wastelands or creating new coral reefs by adding old train cars into certain waters. In some parts of the Himalayas artificial glaciers are being used as a way of storing/gathering water for crops and trees. If this was done on a large scale it could provide some temperature mitigation much like white roofs, increase plant growth, and mitigate the costs of global warming.

5) How will it be financed? What sort of jobs will be created and where? Is it a one time shot or can it be done continuously?

Obviously these questions are likely to determine how "sustainable" the plan is economically, and how strong the political will to continue the plan will remain over time. On the other hand if negative consequences emerge, changing course could become unpopular among certain portions of the population.

6) Is it reversible if negative consequences show up?

In short the conversation might be shifted from if geo-engineering should be used, to what forms of geo-engineering are acceptable and which are not.

Say Goodnight Readers!

What We Have to Lose:Women in the Post-Bush era

Good Morning Readers!

Just recently, I saw something about the history of the Middle East which really amazed me. Namely, a bunch of photographs showing just how common it was in the 1960's and 1970's for women in the Middle East, Egypt, and even Afghanistan to wear miniskirts and other "Western" clothing. Of course the link I posted was interested in why miniskirts would go from being so common to the typical attire in the area being what it is, in such a short time. But two other things were just as conspicuous to me. One was that the pictures included not just miniskirts but also the kind of women's clothing with pants I remember my mother wearing when I was a small child (1970's), and a few women wearing more "conservative" attire which did not amount to a contemporary Hijab. Even sadder were the pictures of Iraq and Afghanistan not only with Hijab free women, but even more conspicuously in better condition than they are in now, thanks in no small part to the Bush administration.
On looking at those pictures, I am reminded of one passage in the book "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood, in which the main character Offred, a woman who among other things must be dressed head-to-toe with in red, while going to the market (the only time she can leave home), looks at a bunch of Japanese reporters. When she sees the women wearing short skirts and loafers she thinks "I used to dress like that."

When it comes to the situations that exist in certain countries, too many Americans react to hearing about it by saying "Boy aren't we lucky to be here instead." whether from the Left or from the Right. But when one looks at how various societies have changed over time, perhaps what more people need to reconsider the common assumption of "It can't happen here." This isn't to deny that some countries are more at risk for a severe dictatorship than others, or that Western society which has comparatively few traditions of forced veiling would be less likely to adopt that particular kind of backlash.

But yet, during the Bush years there was not only pressure to roll back reproductive rights, but they also tried to roll back things like Title IX. A very illogical proposition, when one considers that girls who play sports, are at a lower risk for teenage pregnancy. One would think that anyone who was against abortion would like the idea that something as simple as sports teams can be effective. If they are against that, then I'd have to wonder if this is as much about enforcing gender roles as preventing abortion-or maybe more so.

One obvious engine in the backlash is increase in the number of fundamentalists since the 1970's around the world.

But perhaps a deeper issue, lies with the fact that so many people in their heart of hearts believe that feminism is fundamentally an impractical movement or a luxury of a society with few serious problems.

Marlo Thomas once said that feminists were men and women who knew for a fact that the sexes were equal and wanted society to wake up to that fact, so humanity can stop running on half-strength. Or in other words, that gender roles made individuals and societies less able to deal with whatever problems might come along.

However, one lesson I've learned from post 9/11 America is how many people see these things very differently. Indeed, it is amazing how after 9/11, sort of feminist backlash seemed to be an almost automatic reaction. Early after the attacks there were many references in the media to how the attacks would make career women "re-evaluate their lives", and how things like knitting and baking were sure to become popular. Feminist Susan Faludi upon writing a book about the matter called "Terror Dreams", pointed out that this was a very strange reaction where the terrorist attacks had been committed by about the most anti-feminist group imaginable. Frankly, I couldn't imagine why people were even thinking about such things, at that time.

Equally amazing, is how quickly so many people backed both The Patriot Act and the Iraq War. If some people considered gender equality as only a luxury for a very privileged society, do they also think the same thing is true of democracy or civil liberties? Apparently, the answer is all too often "Yes". Fundamentally, they view female personhood and rights for the *man* on the street, to be not assets that a society can use to solve problems, but a liability.

And this is a point that most feminists have not paid all that much attention to, but could matter a lot in context that includes global warming, water shortages, economic/uncertainties, terrorism, epidemics, natural disasters, and nuclear weapons. Would many people in the US consider another backlash against feminism a logical response to global warming and the associated problem? That is after many of them figure out that it is a real problem after all?

Certainly the history of scapegoating women for just about anything that can go wrong in society is nothing new. When reading the book "The Handmaid's Tale" during the 90's, I had very serious doubts that the Western world could see the same kind of backlash as Afghanistan and Iran. After all did those cultures ever produce large numbers of women like my great-grandmother who immigrated to the US from Ireland all by herself as a teenager and thousands like her in the 19th century? In general the answer would be "Absolutely not".
But on looking at Middle Eastern women of the 60's and 70's dressed like my mother used to in those days, I'm not so comfortably certain about that anymore.
And at some point Western feminism may have to be not just about what women have gained, or how far we have to go. But also about what we could potentially lose, if the wrong factions came to power.

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The Mad Hatter's Tea Party!

Hello Everyone!

It seems that ever since the Inauguration of Barack Obama things have been getting curiouser and curiouser in terms of the charges made against the President. Of course, this administration deserves it's share of criticism as does any other. But the "birthers" and other conspiracy theorists who think Obama is a secret Muslim or isn't a citizen seem able to believe at least six impossible things before breakfast.

The absurdity of the things these people come up with will not be covered in any depth here. The question, I care to address are the causes for these peoples' behavior.

There's been a lot of debate about the extent to which racism is a factor. And of course, that is by its very nature hard to quantify. However one point that many people seem to overlook is the fact, that many of these tea-partiers were comparatively silent about Condaleeza Rice and Colin Powell during the Bush years or actively supported that administration and everyone in it.

Furthermore, there is a good to excellent chance that the majority of them voted for Bush over both Gore and Kerry. It's also a safe assumption that many of these people were among those who continued to support the Bush administration to the *bitter end*. And while it is possible that some of them were among the voters (less than 2%) who voted for Ralph Nader(I), Bob Barr(L), Chuck Baldwin(C), or Cynthnia McKinney(G), chances are that most of them voted for John McCain. That is assuming they voted. However, in my experience not too many people are going to show up at an event like a town hall meeting if they are too apathetic or disenfranchised to vote, so I'm going to assume most of them did.

While I have no way of knowing what the actual numbers are, I think it is safe to assume that we have a subset of Americans who fit the following profile:

1) Voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004.
2) Acted as "counterprotesters" against those of us who opposed the Iraq War and the Bush administrations policies.
3) Continued to support the Bush administration post-Katrina even the polls continuously declined.
4) Voted for McCain in 2008.
5) Is currently among the tea-partiers and/or the birthers.

Of course, I'm not making the claim that everyone who opposes the Obama administration and makes comparisons to Hitler fits this profile. For example, the lady who Barney Frank told off in a town hall, identified herself as a member of the LaRouche Movement. Now for those of you who aren't familiar the LaRouche Movement are the cult-like followers of the colorful Lyndon LaRouche. A group that sort of has to be dealt with first-hand to be believed!! There are differing stories about what that group has endorsed at different times. But they are both notorious for inappropriate and offensive comparisons to the Nazis, and have at times been known to deny the Holocaust. Other big shticks of that group have included conspiracy theories involving the Anglo-Swiss banking establishment, the claim that environmentalism is "dead" and an anti-human ideology, advocating endless infrastructure projects that would make the Three Gorges Damn look unambitious, boosterism for 1,000 new nuclear power plants in the US, and the claim that every political group outside theirs is morally and intellectually bankrup. Everyone who gets involved in political activism in a cosmopolitan city runs into this bunch sooner or later. To expect otherwise is like trying to be a hippie and expect never to be approached by the Hare Krishnas.

But I digress.

Despite various other factions, I think it is safe to say that there are some people who fit all five of the criteria listed. Having been involved in the anti-war movement through most of the Bush era, I can tell you that the behaviors of the tea-partiers and the more angry pro-war ralliers are very, very similar. In fact, one of the main reasons I don't think racism is the sole or even necessarily the primary cause, is the amount of venom I've seen worked up at anti-war demonstrations that tended to be predominantly and in some cases were nearly 100% white.

During the 2004 election, those who opposed Bush made much of the fact that Kerry's record as both a Vietnam Vet and protester ultimately counted so little, in terms of his ability to defeat Bush. Also a common rallying point among the most loyal Bush supporters was his faith. However four short years later McCain's Vietnam record seemed serve him much better than Kerry's did, as far as convincing the Right that he was fit to be President. In another reversal of Bush vs. Kerry you have the fact that Obama is by all accounts a much more religious person than McCain. For John McCain has a lifelong record as a very cynical guy, who tended to be rather apathetic about religion except when it became inconvenient for him politically. In fact, as much as Kerry's professed Catholicism "failed to convince middle America", he too is probably more sincere than "McCain the Evangelical". Yes, this time Obama did win. But in 2008 only a couple million fewer people voted for McCain than voted for Bush in 2004. And McCain actually got more votes in 2008 than Bush got in 2000, thanks to rising voter turnout in the 21st century so far.

One simple conclusion might be hypocrisy. But it is reasonable to suggest that for certain people Kerry was the "wrong kind of Vietnam Vet" and Barack Obama the "wrong kind of religious". One possibility suggested by a psychologist named Dr. Robert Altemeyer is that for some people patriotism, religiousity, and admiration of the military and its veterans are simply a named tagged on to an "authoritarian personality". Of course, like every psychological theory it warrants being taken with a grain of salt. In the 1960's many people tried to use the same theory to explain racism and fascism, at the time the Freudian model was the dominant way of trying to understandstand how such personality types would develop. Now there are a wider variety of explanations on the table.

But whether some of these people are Authoritarian personality types and indeed if that is a valid label (some psychologists are skeptical of terms like "type A personality" and such), it does seem that what they want is beyond some specific set of items such as faith, veteran status, patriotism (as it seems no liberal can ever be the "right kind of patriot"), and so on. Some of these people seem to be searching for a sort of narrow idea of what the US should be. Newer theories about what motivates people politically may yet show some surprises. Given Barbara Ehrenreich's book linking war to our heritage as a prey species, and the works of thinkers like Jerry Lembcke, Ira Chernus, and other our understanding of these things may take some unexpected directions.

If we dare to see how far the Rabbit Hole truly goes when it comes to the nature of the right!

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Healthcare Thenardier

Hello Everyone!

Today I'm going to write about what's wrong with our health system. Part of the problem is certainly that we are the only industrial nation that doesn't have a "public option" in terms of health coverage. But perhaps the larger issue, is the fact that Americans increasingly pay more and get less when ti comes to health care-as opposed to just health insurance. And many pundits have tried to blame it on things such as malpractice lawsuits, bad health habits, or even higher life expectancies than existed 200 years ago. (So much for saying it's the Obama administration that wants "death panels".) But the sad truth is that the Insurance Industry has just gotten greedier, greedier, and greedier.

Since I have been dealing with my insurance company lately, a certain tune from the musical "Les Miserables" keeps coming into my head.

That's right the health insurance industry is beginning to remind me of Master Thenardier: The greedy inn-keeper in Les Miserables.

The fact, of the matter is that not only are Americans on the whole paying more and getting less, but they are doing so largely as the result of unbriddled greed on the part of an insurance industry and HMO industry that has completely foresaken what's fair and honest, in favor of what fattens their profit margins.

I'm sure M. Thenardier would be impressed with the devious imaginations of certain insurance companies. That is the reason they come up with to limit coverage, to not count certain medical costs towards a deductible, and above all deny coverage. And that's before one even deals with something called copays. The main reason is that insurance companies want to maximize the amount of money they receive in return for having people on their policy, and minimize how much they have to spend on actually paying medical bills for their customers. And it's not just the patients that are getting squeezed, but the doctors are also experiencing pressure from insurance companies that are constantly seeking their reimbursements. And in contrast to the administration's desire to give the public more choices in terms of both public and private insurance while bringing down prices, the status quo has involved drastic increases in the profit margins of health insurance companies, as the industry has become more and more monopoly oriented. And as history shows, monopolies have always gotten to set whatever prices and terms they want without any fear of competition.

Another issue of course, has been the dramatic increases in hospital costs. While hospitals may not have gone as far to add surcharges for mice, looking in the mirror, or sleeping with the windows shut, they do come up with exorbitant charges for some very basic things. For example there was the case of a hospital charging $791 for a $12 pair of stockings. With no comprehensive plan to make hospital care more affordable the dominant solution has become for hospital stays to become shorter. But often that just defers the cost to other portions of society. For example if somebody is discharged from the hospital days or weeks early than they would have been 20 years ago, than often a friend or relation has to take care of them. And often at least one of those people ends up taking time off work for it. Thus, deferring the cost not only to friends and family, but often to the businesses, employers, and coworkers. Other non-monetary sacrifices end up being made by various members of society, be it the 3rd class who gets a substitute teacher because their teacher is taking care of somebody, the coworkers who have to take on extra hours, or the business that has to extend a deadline to the displeasure of a customer.

Furthermore, when medical bills have become the most common reason for bankruptcy, the economic burden gets spread around to every sector of society in both direct and indirect ways.

While most of the debate has focused on the number of people in the US, who have no insurance and no way of paying for any major health problems. But perhaps equally important is the loss of more intangible things.


One loss than many people lament is actual attention from their doctor. One amazing commentary on our current society is how what was once taken for granted by many people, including one Depression era coal miner's daughter is now regarded as a sort of privilege for the very wealthy.


For this reason we need reform. Or else Healthcare Thenardier is likely to only get worse, and worse, and worse over time.

Say Goodnight Readers!