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THE DOGS OF WAR

March 21, 2015

I needed to see Dresden.  The Stammtisch group I attend Tuesday nights in Eugene recommended I see it, for it is a beautiful rebuilt city.  The beauty wasn’t the primary reason I went there, however, although I was not disappointed.  The fact the city was rebuilt after the February 1945 firebombing did interest me.  I expected to see a lot of memorials in the city.

The only memorial I saw was outside of Frauen Kirche, on a piece of rubble.  There was a plaque with a comment by a man who had walked through the “dead city” on 15 February 1944, witnessing the final collapse of the dome.  Those monuments is where I remove my hat, as I did when I went into the rebuilt Frauen Kirche.  I am not religious, but I lit a candle and wrote in the guest book “Gedenke für die Opfern Februar 1945.”  Dresden didn’t need to be bombed.  I say that, not in hindsight, but because even before and during the raids, many Allies questioned the need to bomb it.  Much industry was outside the city, a cultural center, and many fleeing the Soviet Army passed through Dresden.

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I walked throughout the new and old cities, and when my wife and I went to dinner the last night, I again looked up in the sky, as I had many times, and wondered what it must have been like the night of 13 February 1945, when there were so many bombers that when they were first spotted, it was described as a giant dog was about to swallow the city.

It was worse than being swallowed.  The city was burned to the ground.

We walked through a square and stopped by a raised area, which had an opening for underground parking. I almost missed it.  I saw writing on the concrete that was part of the barrier.  This didn’t appear to be a monument.  But I was certain I saw some writing.  I was correct. I then read what was on it.  Translated, the last sentence was poignant:  “War went out from Germany to the rest of the world and came back to our city.”

Here, 6685 bodies were cremated.  Most of them had already been burned in the firestorm, so this was really a second, final cremation.  The dogs of war had been let loose in the world, and war had returned with a vengeance.  The people did not blame the Allies for bombing Dresden.  The statement simply stated that war had begun here, had spread from here, and had come back here in spades.  I needed to read that.  It mattered that there was an acknowledgment of war.  It mattered that the people actually wrote it on a monument, not without controversy, for there was some, but they did write it.  Indeed, it matters as much as the fact that there was a resistance museum, for it is clear that people did protest what was happening.  They were shouted down, attacked, deported and murdered.  The lucky ones fled.

I thought it ironic that a right-wing group had held a rally here the night before, including an American flag with “US go home” painted on it.  Dresden had been shut down by demonstrations earlier in that month, and more were planned.  The right wing wants its way; most of us do.  The difference is I’m willing to look for solutions, willing to give, but not willing to always give in.  The right wing I know has to have everything their way.  The right wing in Germany forced their way in the 1930s, and almost brought down civilization.  The right wing in the US had incredibly gone around the President’s back and told Iran that any deal negotiated by the US would be null and void after the next election.  Had Congress done that to the prior president, they would have been labelled traitors.

Additionally, inviting the Israeli prime minister to speak in front of Congress, and is coming, was a massive breach of protocol, torpedoes hopes of negotiation of Iran, frankly boorish, and incredibly stupid, since the senator who wrote this letter was later quoted as saying the Iranians were “in control of Tehran,” as if the capital of the country were somewhere else.  I may not be a US Senator, but I know what and where Tehran is.  I correspond with several people who live there or who have escaped from there to other countries.

I find it astounding that a country where balancing the budget is given so much press and so little effort to do what could easily—yes, easily be done—is actually considering unleashing the dogs of war on a country three times the population and area of Iraq.  We were told that war with Iraq would cost $1.7 billion and be paid for by oil revenues.  To date, the cost has been one thousand times that.  Yes, one thousand.  Several thousand Americans have died, uncountable Iraqis, and tens of thousands of American soldiers maimed for life.  The numbers of Iraqis are again uncountable.

I don’t think we can prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and even if we could, the fact that nuclear material has been smuggled out of former Soviet republics, that Pakistan, India, China, Israel and North Korea are among those countries with nuclear weapons, to loose the dogs of war on Iran is beyond my comprehension.

Elections matter.  Too many Americans sat out the last one because Mr. Obama hadn’t fixed everything that the recession and two wars he inherited had caused.  Further, Mr. Obama is faced with a rapidly changing world that America no longer can control with troops, CTF (that would be carrier task forces), or bombing.  Further, he is being asked to cut spending, taxes, and destroy the environment in the name of jobs, which need to be different from ones we have had before, because the world is changing rapidly.

It’s difficult to walk out of the Jewish Museum in Berlin without realizing that the world has been at war a good deal of its history with a few relatively short periods of peace.  Peace in our time will sooner or later devolve into war.  At least two thousand years of history support this contention.

Unleashing the dogs of war immolated Dresden.  It did the same to Tokyo, where fire killed more people than Hiroshima.  The dogs of war, once unleashed, are not controllable.  One might be extremely cautious before letting them loose.

One might even visit Dresden.

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CHEWING AN APPLE

February 23, 2015

Yesterday, while looking for a pair of walking shoes, I was helped by a saleswoman who chewed an apple the whole time I was there.  I know people often need to eat while working.  I did it for years.  But eating in front of a customer one is helping seems rude.  I wondered about her education.  It was a good day to wonder, for the Sunday paper had reported that Lane Community College received a “scathing report” during their accreditation.  They are accredited, but there is a lot of work that must be done in the near future; a repeat visit is planned.

There are issues that clearly relate to Lane, regarding course structure, how students are evaluated, and a need to establish clearer goals.  There are other issues, however, not mentioned in the article, which I think need to be discussed.  I wrote a letter to the paper, but after finishing realized I had already used my allotted one letter per calendar month.

I am not an educator, only the son of two.  I have, however, taught at a community college and at a for-profit university, leaving the latter, because I thought it intellectually dishonest to pass students in statistics when they had neither the necessary math skills nor adequate time to learn it.  Not understanding the slope of a line makes linear regression impossible to learn. 6 E-5 on a calculator is not 6 but 0.00006.

I volunteer at Lane twice weekly tutoring math.  Yes, I eat lunch while there, but I put food away if a student needs help. In Arizona, I volunteered in 3 high schools for 9 years, eventually becoming a substitute teacher, because I wasn’t utilized enough as a volunteer.  I ate on the job there, too, and I barely had time to use the bathroom.  We need volunteers in the schools, but they must be kept busy.  Establishing such a system should be a national priority.

At Pima CC in Tucson, 80% of the incoming students flunked the math placement exam.  In a high school in an affluent district, I spent two years helping students do “accelerated math.”  The euphemism was an attempt to help 10th graders, with elementary school math knowledge, reach standards allowing them to graduate from high school, standards that have since been removed, after first being watered down.  We want math fluency; we just don’t want to hold students back from graduating if they don’t have it.  One may argue the test wasn’t good, but at least there was a way to evaluate students.  Now there is none.

The students I taught needed multiplication tables beside them, which I think should be known by everybody reaching junior high school, let alone 10th grade. I think students should know 8 x 6 or how to divide 3 into 12 without using a calculator.  I’m not exaggerating.  Each had been passed up the line despite their not knowing basic arithmetic.  They got “participation points,” “trying hard” was important, and some of their parents demanded they be allowed to finish high school with their peers who did know these basics.  Watch Suze Orman sometime, and it becomes clear what happens when people don’t understand finance.

Community colleges have become de facto high school finishing institutions.  I don’t know whether community colleges pass students to the next level—the workplace or a 4 year college—with the skills they need, like making basic change at a cash register.

Or not chewing on an apple when one is helping a customer.

I have three fundamental questions:  1.  What are we trying to do?  2.  How will we know we did it?  3.  What changes can we make that will solve the problem?

Funding tied to number of degrees awarded increases pressure to award degrees.  How do we know if the degree is worthwhile?  One can pass students up the line, but eventually I want a doctor, a mechanic, a pilot, or a computer specialist who is competent.  The piper must be paid.  Competence must be definable and proven.

It includes not chewing apples in front of customers.

I don’t believe a four or even a two year stint in higher education is necessary for all.  Many important jobs in our service economy don’t require college.  Education’s primary role might begin by teaching early and often that complex 21st century problems are not addressed by catchy phrases.  We need to grant meaningful degrees, not just count them, teach the myriad skills required today, pay for them, and keep education affordable.  Climate change, ocean acidification, immigration, religious fundamentalism, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, competition, environmental degradation, defense, can’t be addressed by “America first,” “boots on the ground,” “I’m not a scientist,” “deport all of them,” “de-regulate,”  “let the market do it,” or “allow parents to decide.”  None of these and other issues have clear answers.

We need to determine what courses are needed for today’s workforce and for those jobs we believe we will have in the future.  In 2045, people will be doing work that today not only doesn’t exist, we can’t even imagine what it will be.  Streaming video online, wi-fi and smart phones weren’t things I thought about in 1985.  Indeed, the words “streaming” “wi-fi,” and “online” didn’t exist, smart belonged with people, and video was defined in millimeters and called “film”.

How we certify students needs to be changed.  We need a required, sensibly structured way to state that an individual is prepared for the next step. These changes will be painful to higher education.  We have to pay for this as students and as taxpayers.  The debt load is burdensome; people need to learn what is necessary for a skill, which may not require 4 years, or even 2.  Stampers don’t need to know Chaucer, not if it is part of their $50,000 student debt at graduation, but they need to know enough math to do finance, enough English to communicate, and enough science, history and geography to be able to vote intelligently.  Professional golf management as a major once sounded like a joke, but given the popularity of golf, I’ve reconsidered my position.  By the way, learning to reconsider one’s position on a matter should be taught, too.

What are we trying to do?  Have an educated populace in the 21st century.  What is an educated populace?  I don’t know.  I offer my thoughts, and if our country were a place where we could discuss complexity with civility, not with talking points and shouting, we might be able to answer this question better.

How will we know we have done it?  We need better measurements than we have, ones that will tell us the bitter truth, which we all know exists.  We have millions of poorly educated citizens.  Let’s neither allow gaming of the system nor get hung up upon punishing schools.  The solution will be expensive, requiring money, volunteers, good ideas, but most importantly evaluating students honestly. It will be painful.  The truth usually is. We need multiple career pathways to accommodate variability in learning and intelligence.

How do we move forward?  Ask the right questions. Then answer them.  Honestly.

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SECEDE DOES NOT EQUAL SUCCESS

October 7, 2014

A significant number of people in America would like their state to peacefully secede from the Union.  Not surprisingly, the percentage is high in the western US and rural areas, home of rugged individualists, who want to be left alone, at least until something happens they don’t like, when they say, “somebody ought to pass a law against that.” My fellow doctors were like that, too.  They wanted to be left alone, until somebody muscled in on their turf, then wanted “administration” to do something about it.  Don’t get me wrong.  All of us are hypocrites at times.  I am.  But I admit it.

I am open to new ideas but seldom like those that were tried and failed, unless circumstances have changed.  A non-peaceful split resulted in the bloodiest war in American history.

I certainly can empathize with secession:  when I lived in Tucson, I was subject to laws passed in Phoenix, where progressive voices were drowned out by the Maricopa County crazies.  Many of us said, “Free Baja Arizona”  as a joke.  Our governor vetoed the bad laws, until she got tapped to head Homeland Security, part of the decimation of good Democrats whom Mr. Obama picked for cabinet positions.  Not counting him and Mr. Biden, at least four good senators and two Democratic governors in red states were lost, hurting the Senate, Kansas, and Arizona, which has never recovered.

But back to secession.  As a joke, in 1982, Key West declared itself the Conch Republic, declared war on the US, surrendered, and wanted aid.  The then mayor, if I remember correctly, actually got death threats.

I use Europe and the former Soviet Union to state my case against breaking a union.  Europe is a patchwork of small countries; the strongest, Germany, is one that unified.  Yugoslavia, once a powerhouse in southern Europe, run by the cagey Tito, is now seven smaller states.  The UN still has troops in Kosovo, keeping an uneasy peace for the past two decades.  Like Mt. St. Helens, the Balkans will erupt again.

Is Moldova really better off not being a part of Romania?  Perhaps. Is it a player on the world stage?  No.  Closer to home, Quebec tried to secede from Canada, fortunately not succeeding, which would have been disastrous to both.  Scotland almost left a three century old union.

The problem the secessionists don’t seem to understand is that there is a lot of work necessary to form another country, even another state.  Two northern counties in California want to become the state of Jefferson.  Their combined population is 50,000, about one-fourteenth the number needed to get a seat in Congress.  Anybody think of that?

Let’s look more closely at the “devil is in the details,” some of which apply to those who want to have a new state:

  • Constitution and governance:  Who writes it, and how is it ratified?  Who gets to vote and why?
  • Currency and how it will be backed: Gold bullion?  Who weighs, who certifies?  Cheating does occur; gold plating is easy to do.  Don’t laugh; Arizona has passed bills twice (fortunately vetoed) allowing for gold and silver to be used as legal tender, despite the hassle (ironically, big government) of having certified scales so that one can buy beer or bullets using Grandma’s earrings.
  • Ah, yes.  Taxes.  What is taxed and how much, who decides, who collects, what are they used for, and who enforces?
  • Defense: You may now follow the part of your beloved Second Amendment that you have ignored, because you will require a militia. By the way, the flag you love so dearly will no longer be yours.  The star will go, too.
  • Trade agreements with America: You may be subject to tariffs.
  • Safety nets, for a significant percentage of older Americans require Social Security as their primary source of income.  Have you thought about that?  Do you boot them out or let them “self deport”?
  • Healthcare delivery and payment.  Do doctors get paid with earrings or chickens? If I were still practicing, I wouldn’t take JSD (Jefferson State Dollars).
  • Payment for public land, which currently belongs to the American people, including folks like me, and I am not willing to sell it at any price.  I have rights, too, or are they now abrogated?
  • Dealing with natural disasters, like fire and severe storms, many of which affect states or areas more likely to favor secession.  Remember, FEMA isn’t coming any more.  Let’s discuss FEMA:  Maybe some think that passin’ the hat at church on Sunday will collect enough singles to pay for rebuilding a town. Good luck.  That is why we have FEMA, at least Mr. Obama’s FEMA 3.0, the one that works.  FEMA 2.0, under Bush, led to “Heck of a job, Brownie.”  Some of the 67 Republicans (no Democrats) who voted against federal aid for Hurricane Sandy rebuilding were themselves from states that received federal aid from natural disasters.  Katrina required 10 days to get an aid package passed; it was two months for Sandy.  Lot of hypocrisy out there.
  • Finally, JUSTICE.  Who arbitrates when two rugged individualists clash about land, roads, weight of gold or silver, taxes, responsibilities?  Who will ensure there is no cheating in the marketplace?  Who arbitrates when somebody is a nuisance, pollutes the land, shoots another, or even carries a firearm into a place where somebody like me doesn’t approve?  Who is right?  Who decides what the supreme law of the land will be?

The small town of Weed, California, in the heart of the state of Jefferson (a large sign stating the name is on the roof of a barn further north on I-5), lost 200 homes in a few hours from the Boles Fire.  Yes, passing the hat got $180K four days later.   They got assistance from Sacramento and the Red Cross. This won’t happen in the New Divided America.  These folks may charge tolls on roads that run through their land, and they may put checkpoints around them.  We in the rest of America will do the same.  Oh, the remaining US will be hurt, I don’t doubt that.  But not as hard as the next Weed, Joplin, New Orleans, or the Central Valley, when the next Cat 4, EF5, or Haines Index 6 + a cigarette tossed out a car window occurs.

Finally, I return to the basic tenet of the United States of America.  Secession to me has a simple one word synonym:  TREASON.  When I peaceably protested the Vietnam War 45 years ago, I was called a traitor for exercising my First Amendment rights.  Bumper stickers said, “Support the President”, then Mr. Nixon, under whom “a secret plan to end the war” caused 28,000 additional Americans to die. Other bumper stickers said, “America, Love it or Leave.”

We’ve come full circle, folks.  Support the President, and if you don’t like America, then you may freely leave.  But you don’t get to freely take your piece of America with you.  Nope.  You may try Moldova, Albania, or Turkmenistan, since European countries are socialistic, and 2000 languages are spoken on the African continent, along with Ebola and malaria.  You certainly don’t want anything to do with Spanish.  Maybe the Aussies or the Kiwis will take you. Or not.

Much as I don’t like you or want to be around you, I’d rather you stay, and a unified country.

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BE AFRAID; BE VERY AFRAID

August 26, 2014

“Tanks at the Ukrainian Border.  World War III?” was posted, and I just shook my head.  Today, it was “Hamas style tunnels going under the Mexican-US border.”  There is so much fear out there, I wonder why only 7% of Americans have served in the military.  It sounds like we all ought to be conscripted, for terrorists appear to be everywhere.

We have become a nation of fear, afraid of the boogeyman, who will bring nuclear weapons across the southern border, infect the country with Ebola, blow up our nuclear plants, abduct thousands of children a year, drive millions of Americans out of work, raise a black flag over the White House, take over our land, allow Russia to run unchecked, ISIS to control the whole Middle East, Iran to have nuclear weapons, which they will use on Israel, and Texas targeted by North Korea (which it actually was, although the missile blew up shortly after launch and didn’t have the range).  Every time Mr. Obama speaks, people buy guns to add to the 310 million in the country, yet if any gun has been taken away illegally by the Feds, I have yet to see credible evidence.  How many guns do we need in this country?  A half billion?  A billion?  Ten billion?  A trillion?  Is there a top number?

The President has created fewer national monuments than his predecessors, yet the Organ Mountain Monument was a “federal land grab.”  I AM the federal government.  ALL OF US are.  I LIKED the monument.  I DON’T LIKE people’s grazing cattle on federal land for free, then calling for people to fighting against “them.”  I AM THEM.  I don’t eat meat, and I pay land use fees.

Make no doubt: inciting fear wins elections.  George W. Bush won in 2004 by campaigning on fear, when most Americans still believed 9/11 was caused by Saddam Hussein. Perhaps most of Americans still do believe it.  Iraq kept Bush in power, until the war became costly, “dead enders” were very much alive, and more Americans came home permanently maimed or in body bags.  Congress changed; the response to Hurricane Katrina, which was scary, was a contributing cause.  Who but the federal government would have rebuilt New Orleans, or Joplin?  We saw what happened without a decent FEMA in 2005 and with a decent FEMA in 2012.

I have fears, but nothing on the above list.  Almost anything is possible, but I can think of a many things that would easily wreak havoc in this country that nobody has mentioned; I won’t mention them here, except for rolling back safety nets.  Get rid of Medicare, Social Security, food and water inspections, and we will be the newest member of the Third World.  I find that scary.  We know enough about Ebola and other infectious diseases that we bring our living soldiers in the infection war home alive to be treated.  I can understand one’s wanting to have the body of a loved one returned home; to decry bringing a living infected body home for treatment is a contradiction.  The probability of a child’s dying from a motor vehicle accident is over 10 times that of their being abducted by a stranger, yet I see no ads for strong enforcement of child safety restraints in cars.  Scary news sells.  In 1979, during the Iran crisis, the media showed screaming protesters outside the embassy.  A block away, all was quiet.  

Muslims in America are not about to take over the country, except maybe in mathematics, where Dr. Mirzakhani, a 37 year-old Iranian citizen, full professor at Stanford (at 31), won the prestigious Fields Medal in mathematics.  Our high schools are full of students who can’t do basic division, don’t know their multiplication tables or how to write an English sentence, let alone cursively,  have no idea where Canada is, let alone Iran.  I fear ignorance.  We don’t teach critical thinking, so people are easily swayed by rumors deliberately fomented by good-looking people, nice sounding “news” outlets.  Ten children families scare me. We are straining our resources and our space.  I hear no, and I mean no, comments about that.

Russia will do what it wishes, and there is not much we can do about it.  The world has changed; American troops are not the answer to problems that can be created by a few thousand people using complex armaments supplied them by developed nations (like us).  As I write this, I am flying in an aircraft over a foreign country, but I’m not worried about being blown out of the sky.  The very notion of war continues to change. 

ISIS is controlling land, but radical Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, scare me more, especially Christianity’s influence here.  If people want to pray, fine. It is scary—and insulting— when a Congressman sends a Bible, a book with hundreds of contradictions and false interpretations, to other Congressmen. The constant use of “God” and “prayer” in speeches scares me, rather than offering ideas open to modification.  God sells here; ideas that take time to articulate are ignored. “Just give me the bottom line” is one of the scariest phrases I hear.  Major problems, like immigration, public education and the national debt, can’t be summarized in 30 seconds.

I do not know whether Iran will develop nuclear weapons.  Pakistan has them, and yes, that is scary.  So is the environmental catastrophe about to engulf China, in the name of our “requiring” a completely unsustainable 10% annual growth.  That statement is on a par with “the stock market always goes up,” based on 60 years of data. What scares me is that we in the US will do nothing about climate change, despite 650,000 years of data, until nature gives us—and forgive the term:  a “come to Jesus” moment.  

I am not scared of illegal immigration.  I am scared of drug runners, who will bypass any fence we can build, but I worry less about being shot by them than being in the wrong place at the wrong time in my city.  I am more scared that we are trying to take in much of the world.  I am not scared that Spanish will become a second language; I am more scared that Americans are not working to become fluent in another language—any language.  I am not worried that the dollar will no longer be the reserve currency in the world, but German’s becoming the lingua franca in central Europe ought to give us pause, along with the oft-cloudy nation’s out-producing us in solar power.  The world likes a lot about America, when they stop laughing at us long enough to look.

It’s time to cool it on “disaster is right around the corner,” or “We’re Number One.”  We aren’t.  If one believes all is Obama’s fault, then run for office.  If the opponents win, I give them 90 days to fix everything, since they believe the world is simple. More helpful would be quietly working to improve justice in the world, addressing population control, and dealing with climate change.  There are a few others I would throw in, but the current attention span is limited until the next tweet or upcoming disaster posted on Facebook.  Messenger is probably beeping right now, so I  better go.

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