I had a friend who is very much into Biblical literalism and is convinced schools in not teaching the Biblical literalist account of creation is undermining our society. To my point of view, not teaching science would undermine our society.
The description in Genesis (Bereshit) is from the Jewish scriptures, and yet for a thousand years, Jewish religious leaders have said it is not meant to be taken literally. Jewish belief (among the majority of Jews) is that the account in the Tanakh (the Old Testament) is more akin to a parable to show that G-d is responsible for the existence of the universe, and is not literal truth.
The estimates in certain Christian communities as to the age of the world arose because in the Middle Ages, a monk, who believed it was literal truth, added up the ages of the Biblical patriarchs and used that to estimate the age of the world.
Certainly, you are free to believe as you wish, and teach your children accordingly. Schools are bound to teach science and what has been demonstrated by scientific analysis and the scientific method. That is no evil conspiracy hatched by Satan or by any "New World Order", it is just teaching what has been rigorously proven through research and testing.
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Samsung Galaxy J7 phone
My wife and I recently broke down and got smart phones, after so many years of using dumb phones. We each got Samsung Galaxy J7 and bought protective cases for each phone. Just over two weeks after buying them, my wife's phone screen went black.
Although the phone is supposed to have a one year warranty, Verizon Wireless, our carrier refused to replace the phone under warranty. They said Verizon only warranted it for two weeks, and we'd had it 17 days.
After considerable wrangling with Verizon, one customer service rep arranged to have my wife return the phone to Samsung. Samsung returned the phone, neither repaired nor replaced, saying that due to the manufacture date, it was no longer under warranty.
We got copies of the purchase documentation and my wife called Samsung and got a return authorization. She sent the phone back again. Shortly after the phone was again returned neither repaired nor replaced. They said the problem was a stress fracture, or some such thing. Now mind you, there is no visible damage to the phone and it is in a protective case.
She is still fighting with them, but so far to no avail. I am very unhappy and will be damned if I'll pay for another Samsung phone when they won't stand by their products.
Although the phone is supposed to have a one year warranty, Verizon Wireless, our carrier refused to replace the phone under warranty. They said Verizon only warranted it for two weeks, and we'd had it 17 days.
After considerable wrangling with Verizon, one customer service rep arranged to have my wife return the phone to Samsung. Samsung returned the phone, neither repaired nor replaced, saying that due to the manufacture date, it was no longer under warranty.
We got copies of the purchase documentation and my wife called Samsung and got a return authorization. She sent the phone back again. Shortly after the phone was again returned neither repaired nor replaced. They said the problem was a stress fracture, or some such thing. Now mind you, there is no visible damage to the phone and it is in a protective case.
She is still fighting with them, but so far to no avail. I am very unhappy and will be damned if I'll pay for another Samsung phone when they won't stand by their products.
Friday, November 11, 2016
Autopsy on a Failed Campaign
The Democratic establishment backed Hillary. Lots of members of the Republican establishment backed Hillary, or at least refused to back Trump. Nearly all newspapers left, center, and right backed Hillary. All any of it did was to brand her as the status quo candidate in an election when too many people wanted a change. She was an insider and a member of the establishment, when too many wanted an outsider to shake things up.
Hillary played to not lose, and as in many sports, that is often a losing strategy. She sat back and waited for Trump’s campaign to implode, which it did more than once, but recovered each time. She never played offense – never gave the voting public a reason to vote for her. She needed to set out a vision for America, and sell that vision to the voters. She just played to be a continuation, when the voters wanted change.
There are too many people in the country who feel it is heading in the wrong direction – polls showed that consistently through the election. Telling people you will continue in that direction, would never fly. Between automation eliminating manufacturing jobs and off-shoring eliminating both manufacturing and service jobs, people are scared for the future. Hillary needed to give them hope, and a new direction that would let them feel secure. She never did that.
Would Bernie Sanders have done better? There is no way to know. What we do know is that Bernie had a far higher approval rating than either Trump or Hillary. Bernie had his own set of baggage, but a very different set from that of Hillary. The GOP would have tried to brand Bernie as a communist, but that might not have hurt him as much with the center, and neither Bernie nor Hillary ever had a chance to garner right wing votes.
I suspect in spite of what the GOP would have tried to tar him with Sanders might well have done better. He had a vision, and communicated that vision in the primaries – just not well enough to win enough primaries to get the nomination. Large part of the problem was that he didn’t connect with black voters, where Hillary did. Unfortunately those black voters didn’t come out in large enough numbers in the general election to take Hillary over the top. Better black turnout in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan would have brought a different election result.
I love Elizabeth Warren, but wonder if she’d have the same issues connecting with black voters that Bernie did. As much as I like Warren, I wonder if Kamala Harris, running with a Latino VP would connect better with both those demographics. They would still need some way to connect with disaffected white voters, particularly white male voters. Still 2020 is a long way off, and we have to survive four years of Donald Trump. G-d help us all.
Hillary played to not lose, and as in many sports, that is often a losing strategy. She sat back and waited for Trump’s campaign to implode, which it did more than once, but recovered each time. She never played offense – never gave the voting public a reason to vote for her. She needed to set out a vision for America, and sell that vision to the voters. She just played to be a continuation, when the voters wanted change.
There are too many people in the country who feel it is heading in the wrong direction – polls showed that consistently through the election. Telling people you will continue in that direction, would never fly. Between automation eliminating manufacturing jobs and off-shoring eliminating both manufacturing and service jobs, people are scared for the future. Hillary needed to give them hope, and a new direction that would let them feel secure. She never did that.
Would Bernie Sanders have done better? There is no way to know. What we do know is that Bernie had a far higher approval rating than either Trump or Hillary. Bernie had his own set of baggage, but a very different set from that of Hillary. The GOP would have tried to brand Bernie as a communist, but that might not have hurt him as much with the center, and neither Bernie nor Hillary ever had a chance to garner right wing votes.
I suspect in spite of what the GOP would have tried to tar him with Sanders might well have done better. He had a vision, and communicated that vision in the primaries – just not well enough to win enough primaries to get the nomination. Large part of the problem was that he didn’t connect with black voters, where Hillary did. Unfortunately those black voters didn’t come out in large enough numbers in the general election to take Hillary over the top. Better black turnout in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Michigan would have brought a different election result.
I love Elizabeth Warren, but wonder if she’d have the same issues connecting with black voters that Bernie did. As much as I like Warren, I wonder if Kamala Harris, running with a Latino VP would connect better with both those demographics. They would still need some way to connect with disaffected white voters, particularly white male voters. Still 2020 is a long way off, and we have to survive four years of Donald Trump. G-d help us all.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Hypocrisy in Politics
I got in a pissing contest with someone who I thought at one time was a friend. I no longer consider them as such, and am sure they likewise do not consider me as one.
What bothers me most about many on the right is not their principles, though I often may disagree with those. I am bothered by their hypocrisy. There is a verse in the Christian Bible about straining at a gnat but swallowing a camel. They strain at the gnats of those on the left, but swallow the camels of those on the right. They easily accept lying, cheating, sexual misconduct, and drug use by their right wing icons. At the same time they rail against peccadilloes of left wing leaders. They have two standards – a much harsher one for people on the left, but a very forgiving one for those on the right.
To me there should be one set of standards, not two. Yet we have people excoriating Bill Clinton for his affairs, yet quite unconcerned about the affairs of Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, Rudolph Giuliani, Dennis Hastert, and so many more. I will very freely say that Clinton was wrong to have affairs and to use his office to seduce young women. He is far from alone in that. As I recall, the historian Theodore White, who followed many presidential campaigns, said there were only two nominees for president who did not have affairs during their campaigns – one was Jimmy Carter, and for obvious reasons he refused to name the other. We know Roosevelt, Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Johnson had affairs, and one knowledgeable biographer says Nixon did as well. No less than Henry Kissinger, who was hardly an attractive man, said there was no aphrodisiac like power.
The right wing has been obsessed with Benghazi, which indeed was a tragedy. Yet there was never any outcry when the US embassy in Lebanon was attacked and 63 people killed under Reagan, or the follow up attack the next year killing another 24 people, or the Marine barracks bombing that killed 241 American and 58 French soldiers. That amounts to nearly 400 people killed in one country under Reagan, with no blame attached to the president. But Benghazi with 4 deaths has become a major scandal?
Now I take issue with Obama on some of his actions – his expansion of drone warfare with extra-judicial killings, for one thing – his expansion and increase of deportations of undocumented immigrants, for another.
I think Hillary was phenomenally stupid to use a private email server and effectively try to cover that up. On the other hand they only found a very small number of classified documents among those emails, none of which were properly marked as classified, and many of which were only classified at a later date. We’ve since found that Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney all used non-governmental email servers. Furthermore Bush and Cheney “lost” some 22 million emails, contrasted to the 33 thousand missing from Clinton’s server. There was some stir about that, but nothing like the accusations against Clinton.
I could go on and on, but I find that the right is very forgiving of the sins of its leaders, while very unforgiving of the sins of its opponents. The left often does not seem especially concerned with the sins of either side, but appears to me to be more balanced in its denunciations.
What bothers me most about many on the right is not their principles, though I often may disagree with those. I am bothered by their hypocrisy. There is a verse in the Christian Bible about straining at a gnat but swallowing a camel. They strain at the gnats of those on the left, but swallow the camels of those on the right. They easily accept lying, cheating, sexual misconduct, and drug use by their right wing icons. At the same time they rail against peccadilloes of left wing leaders. They have two standards – a much harsher one for people on the left, but a very forgiving one for those on the right.
To me there should be one set of standards, not two. Yet we have people excoriating Bill Clinton for his affairs, yet quite unconcerned about the affairs of Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, Rudolph Giuliani, Dennis Hastert, and so many more. I will very freely say that Clinton was wrong to have affairs and to use his office to seduce young women. He is far from alone in that. As I recall, the historian Theodore White, who followed many presidential campaigns, said there were only two nominees for president who did not have affairs during their campaigns – one was Jimmy Carter, and for obvious reasons he refused to name the other. We know Roosevelt, Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Johnson had affairs, and one knowledgeable biographer says Nixon did as well. No less than Henry Kissinger, who was hardly an attractive man, said there was no aphrodisiac like power.
The right wing has been obsessed with Benghazi, which indeed was a tragedy. Yet there was never any outcry when the US embassy in Lebanon was attacked and 63 people killed under Reagan, or the follow up attack the next year killing another 24 people, or the Marine barracks bombing that killed 241 American and 58 French soldiers. That amounts to nearly 400 people killed in one country under Reagan, with no blame attached to the president. But Benghazi with 4 deaths has become a major scandal?
Now I take issue with Obama on some of his actions – his expansion of drone warfare with extra-judicial killings, for one thing – his expansion and increase of deportations of undocumented immigrants, for another.
I think Hillary was phenomenally stupid to use a private email server and effectively try to cover that up. On the other hand they only found a very small number of classified documents among those emails, none of which were properly marked as classified, and many of which were only classified at a later date. We’ve since found that Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney all used non-governmental email servers. Furthermore Bush and Cheney “lost” some 22 million emails, contrasted to the 33 thousand missing from Clinton’s server. There was some stir about that, but nothing like the accusations against Clinton.
I could go on and on, but I find that the right is very forgiving of the sins of its leaders, while very unforgiving of the sins of its opponents. The left often does not seem especially concerned with the sins of either side, but appears to me to be more balanced in its denunciations.
Peace and Love?
I’ve been told by a variety of people that I should embrace peace and love, and that I should give the president-elect a chance to prove himself.
I’ve just sat through eight years of the vilification of the first black president of the United States. He was never given a fair chance by most of the right wing. He and his family were subject to racist comments and lies for all eight years.
I’ve also sat through about a year of the campaign of the president-elect. His campaign was typified by racism, sexism, xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia. His supporters have committed hate crimes, which he has effectively condoned. They have been both emboldened and empowered by his hateful rhetoric and by his victory. The haters are already acting out based on his win.
I do not hold hatred, nor act out of hatred, nor do I condone or abet violence of any sort. Still it takes more than simply embracing peace and love. Martin Luther King, Jr. was non-violent, yet he still led marches, protests, and boycotts. He spoke clearly and forcefully against segregation and racism. He acted out of a vision of something better, but did not simply turn the other cheek.
Mahatma Gandhi was non-violent, yet he forcefully opposed British rule over India with marches, protests, non-cooperation, and clearly speaking out against British rule and its abuses.
Embracing non-violence does not require one to cooperate with one’s oppression. It does not mandate one’s silence in the face of that oppression. It does not mean one should not peacefully protest the ills of society.
I am free to express my dismay of the president-elect and what he has clearly stood for. I am free to protest, march, or blog to demonstrate my concerns and objections to his programs. And I have no intention of giving up the fight.
I’ve just sat through eight years of the vilification of the first black president of the United States. He was never given a fair chance by most of the right wing. He and his family were subject to racist comments and lies for all eight years.
I’ve also sat through about a year of the campaign of the president-elect. His campaign was typified by racism, sexism, xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia. His supporters have committed hate crimes, which he has effectively condoned. They have been both emboldened and empowered by his hateful rhetoric and by his victory. The haters are already acting out based on his win.
I do not hold hatred, nor act out of hatred, nor do I condone or abet violence of any sort. Still it takes more than simply embracing peace and love. Martin Luther King, Jr. was non-violent, yet he still led marches, protests, and boycotts. He spoke clearly and forcefully against segregation and racism. He acted out of a vision of something better, but did not simply turn the other cheek.
Mahatma Gandhi was non-violent, yet he forcefully opposed British rule over India with marches, protests, non-cooperation, and clearly speaking out against British rule and its abuses.
Embracing non-violence does not require one to cooperate with one’s oppression. It does not mandate one’s silence in the face of that oppression. It does not mean one should not peacefully protest the ills of society.
I am free to express my dismay of the president-elect and what he has clearly stood for. I am free to protest, march, or blog to demonstrate my concerns and objections to his programs. And I have no intention of giving up the fight.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Election 2016 Aftermath
Today, I am in mourning for America. I am sad and depressed when I think about the future of this country. Too many people have bought into an authoritarian fantasy, spread by a sociopathic narcissist. I am reminded today of the words of Dick Tuck, after losing a bid for Congress:
“The people have spoken – the bastards.”
I do not understand my country. I do not understand the motivations of a large number of American citizens. To be fair, I never loved Hillary. I thought Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders would have been far better. But Donald Trump is a gasoline fueled dumpster fire. He is a liar, who cheats his contractors and employees, games the system, and abuses women. The closest thing I can find to a redeeming feature is that he changes his positions so often, no one really knows what he believes or wants.
The GOP campaign was a deluge of lies. Trump would utter falsehoods at the slightest excuse – and his followers believed or excused them. He would deny he said things for which there was clear proof that he had said those things. Non-partisan fact checks found that his statements were more often false than true – but too many people never seemed to care, or accused the fact checkers of bias.
I heard Clinton called ‘Lying Hillary’, though fact checkers found her to be the most honest candidate in the election, followed closely by Sanders. They called her ‘Crooked Hillary’, though some 25 years of investigations have found nothing to even warrant charging her, much less convict her. There is no doubt she was the candidate of the establishment, and this was very much an anti-establishment election.
People want to “Make America great again.” But what really made America great? To my mind, it was a willingness to embrace the new – a willingness to look forward – a willingness to work for the common good – a willingness to work together in spite of party.
Today, all that has been thrown aside. Worse yet, it has been thrown aside by an archaic electoral system. Hillary won the popular vote by 165,000 as of the last I checked. I guess I should be slightly reassured by the narrow popular vote victory, but the election was still lost.
Where do we go from here? The biggest problem is that the election and Trump’s rhetoric has emboldened and empowered bigotry, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, and anti-Semitism. These are the people who have ‘taken their country back’. But what about the rest of us? What about those of us who believe all of us were created equal? What about those of us who believe we are all entitled to equal rights, equal opportunity, fairness, and a justice system that does not discriminate against anyone?
As of January, the Republican party will control the presidency, the Senate, the Congress, the Supreme Court (as soon as they can approve his pick), a clear majority of state legislatures, and a clear majority of governorships.
What happens next? We know that Trump and the GOP want to repeal Obamacare, but have no clear program to replace it. We know that Trump and the GOP want to slash taxes on the wealthy, which will either mean soaring deficits or higher taxes on middle and working classes. We know that Trump and the GOP want to repeal marriage equality, though that would take at least two Supreme Court justices to do. We know that Trump and the GOP want to overturn Roe vs Wade, which may only take one justice to do.
They have already shown their hand in many ways. Under the guise of voter fraud, which in truth is virtually nonexistent, they have curtailed voting rights for minorities – and even bragged about their success in keeping blacks away from the polls. They’ve passed laws requiring welfare recipients to take drug tests, even though that has been both costly and ineffective. They’ve passed so-called religious freedom laws, to allow people to freely discriminate against gays and minorities.
They are firmly opposed to an increase in the minimum wage. They want to break unions and reverse laws and regulations protecting workers. They want to gut environmental protection, though Republicans were among the notable people establishing those laws. They want to gut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Education will only be those who can afford it.
Today I can only weep for my country and despair over where it was headed.
“The people have spoken – the bastards.”
I do not understand my country. I do not understand the motivations of a large number of American citizens. To be fair, I never loved Hillary. I thought Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders would have been far better. But Donald Trump is a gasoline fueled dumpster fire. He is a liar, who cheats his contractors and employees, games the system, and abuses women. The closest thing I can find to a redeeming feature is that he changes his positions so often, no one really knows what he believes or wants.
The GOP campaign was a deluge of lies. Trump would utter falsehoods at the slightest excuse – and his followers believed or excused them. He would deny he said things for which there was clear proof that he had said those things. Non-partisan fact checks found that his statements were more often false than true – but too many people never seemed to care, or accused the fact checkers of bias.
I heard Clinton called ‘Lying Hillary’, though fact checkers found her to be the most honest candidate in the election, followed closely by Sanders. They called her ‘Crooked Hillary’, though some 25 years of investigations have found nothing to even warrant charging her, much less convict her. There is no doubt she was the candidate of the establishment, and this was very much an anti-establishment election.
People want to “Make America great again.” But what really made America great? To my mind, it was a willingness to embrace the new – a willingness to look forward – a willingness to work for the common good – a willingness to work together in spite of party.
Today, all that has been thrown aside. Worse yet, it has been thrown aside by an archaic electoral system. Hillary won the popular vote by 165,000 as of the last I checked. I guess I should be slightly reassured by the narrow popular vote victory, but the election was still lost.
Where do we go from here? The biggest problem is that the election and Trump’s rhetoric has emboldened and empowered bigotry, racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, and anti-Semitism. These are the people who have ‘taken their country back’. But what about the rest of us? What about those of us who believe all of us were created equal? What about those of us who believe we are all entitled to equal rights, equal opportunity, fairness, and a justice system that does not discriminate against anyone?
As of January, the Republican party will control the presidency, the Senate, the Congress, the Supreme Court (as soon as they can approve his pick), a clear majority of state legislatures, and a clear majority of governorships.
What happens next? We know that Trump and the GOP want to repeal Obamacare, but have no clear program to replace it. We know that Trump and the GOP want to slash taxes on the wealthy, which will either mean soaring deficits or higher taxes on middle and working classes. We know that Trump and the GOP want to repeal marriage equality, though that would take at least two Supreme Court justices to do. We know that Trump and the GOP want to overturn Roe vs Wade, which may only take one justice to do.
They have already shown their hand in many ways. Under the guise of voter fraud, which in truth is virtually nonexistent, they have curtailed voting rights for minorities – and even bragged about their success in keeping blacks away from the polls. They’ve passed laws requiring welfare recipients to take drug tests, even though that has been both costly and ineffective. They’ve passed so-called religious freedom laws, to allow people to freely discriminate against gays and minorities.
They are firmly opposed to an increase in the minimum wage. They want to break unions and reverse laws and regulations protecting workers. They want to gut environmental protection, though Republicans were among the notable people establishing those laws. They want to gut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Education will only be those who can afford it.
Today I can only weep for my country and despair over where it was headed.
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