Monthly Archives: March 2017

FYI

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From the Atlantic:

A President’s Self-Evaluation: In his Time interview, Trump brushed aside criticism that he doesn’t always adhere to facts and evidence: “I’m a very instinctual person, but my instinct turns out to be right.”

Donald has yet, and likely has never corrected his own error because he believes in all sincerity he has never made an error nor apologized for defaming someone with false accusations. If pressed, he blames someone else – like all of America’s military brass for the failure of the raid in Yemen that was on hold until he authorized it. – mariner

What Are Work Requirements For?: Politicians have long debated “the practical and moral utility of requiring people to work in order to receive government benefits.” Now, a last-minute provision added to the GOP health-care bill would impose these requirements on Medicaid enrollees. (Vann R. Newkirk II)

Every form of media and education is loaded with debate about a soon approaching future where there literally will be far fewer jobs than there are people who want to work.

Both political parties are comparable to hoodlum street gangs. There was a time when the citizen could at least believe that politicians were honorable statesmen responsive to the needs of the citizens and the nation. – mariner

– – – –

From Food and Water Watch:

By Mary Grant

01.25.17

The Trump administration has declared war on the environment and the safety of our drinking water. His team put together an aggressive action plan for the EPA, stripping away public protections and critical resources. 

According to a memo leaked on Monday, Trump’s team has proposed cutting $513 million from EPA’s “states and tribal assistance grants.” These grants support a range of projects to protect our air and water resources – from protecting wetlands and beaches to preventing radon-related lung cancer. It includes the Public Water Supervision Program that supports states every year to help enforce drinking water regulations. For example, Arkansas’s Department of Health received a $947,000 grant for fiscal year 2016 and $180,000 for fiscal year 2017 so far. Ohio’s environmental agency has received nearly $500,000 for fiscal year 2017 so far from this one grant program alone.

The State and Tribal Assistance Grants also form the backbone of the State Revolving Fund (SRF) programs, the primary source of federal funding for our water and sewer systems. Every single state relies on funding from these programs to assist community water and sewer projects – from helping the small town of Edgerton, Wyo. remove bacteria from its water supply to helping St. Bernard Parish, La., replace its old, deteriorated water lines. 

And:

While gutting these vital water funding programs, Trump’s team is also advancing a proposal to let Wall Street take over our public infrastructure. Trump’s policy advisors have outlined a scheme to give massive tax breaks to Wall Street firms that take over infrastructure projects. It would give Wall Street a tax credit of $0.82 for every $1 of equity invested into a project. 

This privatization scam will benefit only Wall Street. Widespread privatization of water systems would lead to large rate hikes, loss of local control, loss of transparency and accountability, loss of jobs and deterioration of customer service quality. Water bills would skyrocket to allow Wall Street to profit, leading to unaffordable bills and more water shutoffs. 

Privatization will not help Flint or other communities address their water problems. Private investors will not put money into replacing water lines in low-income cities. They would cherry-pick service areas to avoid cash-strapped neighborhoods where households can’t afford to pay the cost of privatized service. 

And, despite claims to the contrary, the tax-credit scheme will cost taxpayers a lot of money. The plan would not pay for itself. Wall Street players would just shift their investments to infrastructure and not necessarily increase the amount of money invested in the economy overall. There would be no increased revenue from income taxes on investor profits. 

Trump’s plans amount to a massive windfall for Wall Street, and combined with his proposed cuts, they endanger our public water systems.

See more at

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/news/trump-attacks-safety-our-drinking-water

The mariner could go on… and on… and on. Using a quote he has used before and likely will use again:

Remember Bob Edwards? He said one of mariner’s favorites:

Now I know what a statesman is; he’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen.

– – – –

At this moment mariner is consciously fearful of authoritarianism. The US Congress is antiquated both in age and culture. The “establishment” is broken and useless. We have forgotten how energetic, positive, and problem-solving this Congress was in the 1970’s and 80’s. Congressmen were young then, full of vison, in the midst of the culture they knew. The computer age left them behind – old in years, fragile in wisdom, not functional in the high speed, international world of a new culture, a new age. The Congress is defunct. Big money is taking over and will prefer oligarchy, authoritarianism, and even sharper, unfeeling capitalism.

 It is an ignorant, uneducated electorate who must save a democracy they do not understand in the midst of an alien and dangerous new world.

 Mariner is afraid.

 

Blame it on the Weather.

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The late winter weather in Iowa has been exceedingly warm. Consequently, many fruiting and ornamental trees have started to waken much too early and are subject to damage if the temperature drops to normal levels before spring really arrives. Weather all over the US has been temperamental this year. We have been conditioned to ponder whether the weather is affected by global warming. Meteorologists suggest that the weather is still just the weather but also suggest that global conditions are changing.

In other words, our major weather patterns still follow familiar seasonal patterns. What may be new are annual averages of temperatures across regions, stronger storms, and near the polar zones more ice and permafrost melting than in the past.

Global warming changes planetary conditions more rapidly than it shifts weather patterns. In the oceans, three significant global circumstances are apparent: (1) Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is absorbed into the oceans making the water noticeably more acidic – killing coral reefs and shellfish and generally making life difficult for ocean plant life. (2) Melting ice at the poles is altering ocean temperatures to the point that major currents that flow from the tropics toward the poles (e.g. Gulf Stream) are slowing down and further, the sinking cycles which recharge nutrients in the currents as they flow back to the tropics are not as defined as in the past and nutrients behave differently. (3) The change every one hears about is the rising depth of the world’s oceans due to melting icecaps, threatening shorelines by estimates between 9 and 30 feet; current measurements indicate that oceans have risen 3 to 6 inches at an unusually rapid rate.

Most scientists who study the Earth believe no one will alter the impact of global warming. It has been suggested that global warming is on a 2,000 year path that is the Earth’s cycle[1]; humans only have exacerbated the effect. This insight enables some oil-dependent politicians to deny that people cause climate change. In fact, people do – to a damaging degree. People make the next 2,000 years a lot, lot worse than they need be.

The insult added to injury is that H. sapiens is so trashy and disrespectful toward their planet. Elizabeth Kolbert[2] is right: we are the cause of the Sixth Great Extinction. Some thinkers, most notably Stephen Hawking, believe our species will be counted among the extinct.

Ancient Mariner

[1] Ends with major ice age due to orbit tugs from Jupiter and Saturn.

[2] Author of best selling The Sixth Extinction, stating that there have been five major extinctions during Earth’s history that wiped out 90 percent of all living species. Most are aware of the fifth extinction caused by a meteorite that killed off the dinosaurs. Humans are causing the sixth.

Dry Rot

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Do you know what dry rot is? Have you ever seen old wood that looks like wood but is hollow because there is no pith left? Have you ever lifted what seemed to be a piece of cloth but it crumbled into a dry powder in your hands? Have you ever found an old box of cards exposed to dampness and when you tried to read them they would fall apart in fragile disarray? It is a condition of decay. It looks okay until one tries to use it in a useful way. Suffering from dry rot, it is not up to the task. It is a ghost, an ash of its creation.

Humans are susceptible to the same decay.

We work from day to day surviving the constant pressure that wears us down until one day we are in dry rot. We look human; we look functional; we feel we are the substance of our birth. But we are a ghost who breathes, eats, pontificates, and pretends to be valuable. We are just dry rot. Called to task, we crumble into uselessness.

This is too bad. Just as in material things, there are defenses to prevent dry rot in ourselves. Just as we seek to prevent rust in our tools; just as we maintain our houses; just as we maintain functionality in our vehicles; just as we maintain static rituals that keep order in our lives – we can introduce defenses that keep our lives rich and full and pliable against the vagaries of living. We can avoid dry rot to our last day.

One way is to keep the mind flexible. Deliberately pursue new ideas that test your opinions. Deliberately allow yourself to be confronted by social progress. Deliberately investigate the value of lifelong beliefs. Deliberately pursue new physical experiences and challenges. Dry rot cannot accumulate in the presence of newness.

Another avenue is to pursue new information as literally as you pursue physical fitness. The precursor to intellectual flabbiness is lack of intellectual exercise. The best avenue is reading. Television will draw you away; Internet will draw you away; weariness will draw you away. Where can you find new nutrients to prevent the emptiness of dry rot?

The answer is both far reaching and personal. As a simple example of maintaining flexibility in our contemporary lives, the mariner and his wife scramble for first read of the Atlantic magazine. We have observed that the Atlantic, along with the New Yorker magazine, Scientific American and an array of Internet websites, provide us with a constant barrage of new ideas, new reports on a rapidly changing culture, new interpretations of old, dare we say sacrosanct rituals, and new views of the future that emerge beneath our feet.

Using the technology of broadcasting, deliberately check in on other news channels besides NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox. One would be surprised at the perspectives of news channels sponsored by China, Great Britain, Arabic broadcasting and European news networks. Even Canada has a different slant on the importance of news.

Certain channels like Bloomberg offer educational programs that broaden one’s understanding of the world. Exploring newness is the best defense against dry rot – even new physical experiences.

The mariner can attest that age is an ally of dry rot. It makes the challenge of being a purposeful human being in the world even greater. One must overcome frailties; one must garner strength from task to task. But one should never allow retreat from an active life about which to take control.

At the other end of the spectrum, the young have no perspective on the amount of energy wasted on frivolousness. The young must discipline themselves to ask what the future holds and how they will play a role. They, too, will be challenged by the willingness to recede into dry rot.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Yes, Virginia, there is more than Donald

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One grows tired of reacting to a failed democracy – especially when the faithful electorate hires a demolition expert to finish the job. Yet, we must be diligent; there is no second inning in this ball game. Nevertheless, the mariner must have a reprieve; who thought religion would be considered a haven?

Mariner was up late a few weeks ago browsing late night – AKA early morning – television. He stopped to watch one of those New Testament films about the life of Jesus. It was wholly graphic in nature, typical of these productions, with no nuances about philosophy, Judaism, Christianity, culture, dogma or doctrine. The kind with Jesus portrayed by a blue-eyed European with coifed hair.

Also typical was the straight-line portrayal of the best of the Synoptic Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (Admitting Matthew is mariner’s favorite gospel because it is a sociological dance between the Old Testament and the New Testament.) Poor gospel John is always denied recognition because he doesn’t tell the same story as the Synoptic Three.

PBS has an introduction to the Gospel John that is better than mariner can produce so he copied the paragraphs and inserted them below:

“John’s gospel is different from the other three in the New Testament. That fact has been recognized since the early church itself. Already by the year 200, John’s gospel was called the spiritual gospel precisely because it told the story of Jesus in symbolic ways that differ sharply at times from the other three. For example, Jesus dies on a different day in John’s gospel than in Matthew, Mark and Luke…. Whereas in the three synoptic gospels Jesus actually eats a Passover meal before he dies, in John’s gospel he doesn’t. The last supper is actually eaten before the beginning of Passover so that the sequence of events leading up to the actual crucifixion are very different for John’s gospel. And one has to look at it and say, why is the story so different? How do we account for these differences in terms of the way the story-telling developed? And the answer becomes fairly clear when we realize that Jesus has had the last supper a day before so that he’s hanging on the cross during the day of preparation before the beginning of Passover.

So here’s the scene in John’s gospel: on the day leading up to Passover, and Passover will commence at 6 o’clock with the evening meal, on the day leading up to that Passover meal is the day when all the lambs are slaughtered and everyone goes to the temple to get their lamb for the Passover meal. In Jerusalem this would have meant thousands of lambs being slaughtered all at one time. And in John’s gospel that’s the day on which Jesus is crucified. So that quite literally the dramatic scene in John’s gospel has Jesus hanging on the cross while the lambs are being slaughtered for Passover. John’s gospel is forcing us, dramatically at least, through the storytelling mode, to think of Jesus as a Passover lamb. Jesus doesn’t eat a Passover meal, Jesus is the Passover meal, at least within the Christian mind in the way that John tells the story.”

PBS did an excellent job of showing why John is less popular. Unlike Matthew, who plays ping-pong back and forth between Judaism and Christianity, John tells the gospel story in the context of the Old Testament. The reader must be familiar with both religions in order to see the spiritual differences. That being possible, the Old Testament, compiled in stages since 4000 BC, and the new New Testament being compiled as we read, have very different beliefs in God, spirituality, ethics, and doctrine.

If one of these late-night Jesus productions used John, not only would the storyline be different, the purpose of dialogue would be to articulate differences between Judaism and Christianity – which is the true motivation for John. John clearly does not intend to accept any Jewish dogma. Hence the reputation for spiritual clarity rather than historical sequencing.

That was refreshing, wasn’t it?

Ancient Mariner

The Wisdom of Frugality

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The Wisdom of Frugality is the title of a second book in a group of readings that may provide a general understanding of today’s world, its philosophical, financial, social, and moral incentives.[1]

Harari was tough reading.

The reader will have a completely different experience reading Emrys Westacott’s The Wisdom of Frugality. Emrys’ writing style is smooth, his points are philosophical, and his descriptions of frugality are expressed pleasantly.

An Evelyn Wood instructor once described Evelyn’s specific method for reading as “consuming and spitting out the book drained of all its information.”

One of Wood’s steps in quickly reading nonfiction and comprehending it as well is to read the author’s outline within the text. This means discovering which sentence in a paragraph contains the primary thought, read that sentence (habitually almost all writers designate the same sentence in every paragraph) then move to the next paragraph. Mariner uses this technique most of the time – not going back afterward to the beginning to read the text normally except to check some point in the text. However, Emrys’ book was so entertaining and filled with small gems of insight that mariner frequently found himself falling off the outline routine to read every word.

– – – –

In Emrys Westacott’s book, The Wisdom of Frugality, Why less is more, more or less, he examines why, for more than two millennia, so many philosophers and people with a reputation for wisdom have been advocating frugality and simple living as the key to the good life. He also looks at why most people have ignored them but argues that, in a world facing environmental crisis, it finally may be time to listen to the advocates of a simpler way of life.

The early chapters are definitional as any good philosopher starts an analysis. Living frugally is a surprisingly diverse subject. One must first distinguish between moral reasons and prudent reasons for advocating frugality. If we tell a child to share a toy, that is a moral reason, that is, it is right to share or a duty to share – that reasoning stands on its own and is moral in nature. On the other hand, if there is motive to share, perhaps we want the other children to like her and then they will share their toys with her. There is an ulterior motive in the reason to share. That is prudent in nature.

Westacott says that morality or prudence must be clear in one’s mind to sustain a clear sense of purpose for our frugality. Natural rules of behavior and implementation go astray and frugality becomes misguided if one does not understand why they are being frugal. Westacott goes on in his book to provide many illustrations of moral and prudential frugality that are full of refinement and further define frugality.

From Socrates to Thoreau we are told that ‘the good life’ is a moral and prudent life. This behavior is seen as beneficial to ourselves and wise, benevolent and trustworthy by others yet we consciously choose not to be seen as having these qualities. In a culture lacking in these qualities, society becomes weakened by greed, pride, and the degradation of its institutions. Inevitably society becomes fragmented and suffers the ignobility of economic classification that creates haves and have-nots.

Perhaps more than any other element of our culture, the issue of morality and prudence – frugality – lies at the base of our difficulties. Even on a quote calendar, the presence of morality and prudence pops up:

From Wednesday March 17 2017:

…On one level, we all know this stuff already. It’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. David Foster Wallace.

When you finish reading Westacott’s book, truth will mean something real and valuable.

The Wisdom of Frugality, Why Less is More – More or Less

By Emrys Westacott

published 2016 by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street

Princeton NJ 08540

ISBN 9780691155081

Mariner recommends giving to Princeton that which is Princeton’s and unto Amazon that which is Amazon’s. Order directly from Princeton at

www.press.princeton.edu

or visit your public library.

Ancient Mariner

[1] [The first was Homo Deus, by Yuval Noah Harari. It is a book about the future as Harari sees it. While the author is straight forward, logical and takes into account H. sapiens’ history and achievements, he offers little solace from a world chained to a primitive part of the human brain; we are not as morally flexible as we think when it comes to survival and domination in behalf of self. Contemporary greed witnessed in autocracies, oligarchies and growing separation between classes reflects Harari’s view of humankind. He believes the common man will be cast off because he is useless in an automated world.]

The Emerging Worldwide Government of Oligarchy.

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Ever since the Illinois Governorship was bought effortlessly by five billionaires…Ever since the Koch brothers manipulated the 2016 campaign…Ever since Donald came on the scene…and looking back, ever since the 2008 recession was caused by banking and investment behavior unconstrained by national policy…Ever since East European black marketing and money laundering reflected amounts soaring into the hundreds of billions of dollars – using authoritarian or illegal support from nations in most cases…Ever since the financing of war and conflagration receives half of its financial support outside the legal corridors of legitimate international budgeting, mariner has never had a clear picture of what the tides of power represent. One thing is certain: This is not your father’s cold war.

IT was Donald who made things confusing. A friend of the mariner’s suggested that Donald may have a serious affliction with Barack. Clearly racist, harassed by the Government because of Donald’s netherworld businesses, taking a skillful beating from Barack at the National Press Club dinner, unable to win clearly with tactical lying techniques, and unable to use bribery, in his own mind Donald was having trouble ‘winning’ against Barack.

Uninvestigated by the press during the campaign (intelligence agencies without doubt have had Donald in their sights for some time because of his relationships with others outside the US – particularly Russia and ex-Soviet countries where oligarchy holds national power), we saw nothing but buffoonery. Donald wasn’t good at this. How had he made it to the final round? And then elected President? It’s another rag to chew but the chief turtle and the vampire made certain that Congress brought the nation to a standstill for eight years. Perhaps this state of affairs would have allowed Bill the Cat to be President!

So Donald – for whatever reason – switched from big time mobbery to governing nations. He didn’t fit but he did bring attention to the fact that there wasn’t one but two political movements above control by national governments: corporations and oligarchy. Each had compatible ethical structures and the wealth to play together.

This is where the mariner has an incomplete picture. Governments are losing a grip on the shape of mankind’s future. A few hundred years ago, Kings, Dukes, Sheiks, and Far East warlords fought battles over the riches of the time. Sometimes there was even an overlay of ethos and morality. In today’s competitions, the entire planet is the battlefield and all living things that reside on this planet are fuel.

It’s no longer spears or gunpowder or nuclear weapons, it is wealth. How does one inculcate a dollar bill with ethos, divinity, morality, or even evaluate the true value of a pleasant “Good Morning.”

Ancient Mariner

 

 

The Rise of Authoritarianism.

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Chicken Little is whimpering in the henhouse. He whimpers more loudly when another indication of encroaching authoritarianism occurs. Online access to the press already is shut down. Now it’s the knowledge, documentation and historical application of policies that are being selectively destroyed – especially in the EPA and Banking Secretariats as well as Health and Human Services – in all areas of government that do not agree with the new administration and eliminated at the hands of its Secretariat henchmen. One thinks of the valuable statuary, temples, mosques, and ancient documentation destroyed by the several wars in the Middle East. Is Donald no better?

What is global warming? Look it up on government EPA websites; it has been summarily erased on order of the Secretary, an oil advocate of ill repute as States Attorney of Oklahoma. Scientists in every discipline are rushing to replicate and distribute scientific information so it can’t be completely destroyed. Even NASA and NOAA are losing data and functionality. At this point, Donald has unleashed the Four Horsemen to wreak their havoc on anything unacceptable to the administration.

The nation waits apprehensively as destruction of a political culture is dismantled day by day. Citizens expected a repair to the phenomenon called Donald, a socially misfit King; citizens expected it would take some time. It has been long enough; destruction of knowledge, Constitutional rights, and under-the-table shenanigans with US banking and international money payoffs already occurs.

One would think every elected politician would be committed to shutting down the authoritarian attack on our nation. Instead the republican Congress tries to tear apart the one success of civil legislation by removing the financial underpinnings of the Affordable Care Act while at the same time dragging its feet on anything smelling of removing Donald.

The mariner has had much grief over the decades with an electorate that fails him. He has no confidence in the electorate now. He would be glad to say, “You voted for it. You deserve it.” But not everyone deserves this. Will the 2018 election be any different? Lord bless us if Donald and the four henchmen aren’t out of office by then. If they aren’t, blame the Republican Party – if it’s still allowed.

Ancient Mariner

 

Here and There

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The mariner attended his county’s off-year caucus a few days ago. There were about 80 or so in attendance. As he told a friend, the room was full of millennials – from the last millennium. If the Democratic Party is to “capture” the Bernie crowd, the union crowd and the under thirty-five crowd, they have a long way to go in 20 months.

Credit is due the 20th century centenarians. They came from all over the county and the dialogue included fixing the election process across the state. A few comments focused on how to increase party voters but the insights were curtailed by the attendee’s ages and the chasm between 1940’s culture and that of 2017. In a letter to his Congressman a few weeks ago, mariner suggested organizing the party not from the core members but from the groups of advocates who already are vocal and active about important party centric issues.

As to Donald, his libertine and selfish lifestyle is beginning to weaken his command of the netherworld. Amos believes, though, the art of the deal will allow him to abscond without persecution.

Mariner can think only of Yuval Noah Harari’s philosophy[1] when he listens to Paul Ryan expound on the virtues of the new health bill replacing the Affordable Care Act. Paul was pleased that the funding scheme slowly squeezed out the poorer half of the citizenry and the elderly. As Seth Meyers asked, “Doesn’t he understand how insurance works?”

Still, as other nations can attest, an unbalanced population, whether economically or actuarially, is dangerous to a nation’s wellbeing. The US must identify the correct solution. Mariner believes the oligarchy must be disassembled. Harari would think the gesture hopeless.

 

LIBERAL ARTS SECTION

Mariner encourages the reader to develop a daily route of web sites that are useful, entertaining, informative, and feed the spirit. On the mariner’s route is an entertaining and sometimes whimsical stop called “Arts and Letters Daily.” The web site offers several articles in an email distribution once each week. Subscriptions are free.[2] This week’s list is replicated below:

 

Of Ice and Art

From Burke’s sublime to Freud’s unconscious to Hemingway’s theory of artistic ingenuity, the iceberg has come to represent the creative process. Why?

 

Against Everything

Professions colonize our imaginations. So thought Ivan Illich, who was against schools, medicine, transportation, law, psychotherapy, and the media.

 

In Praise of ‘Useless’ Knowledge

The best scientific minds — Einstein, Faraday, Planck — have been driven by curiosity and intellectual challenge, not practical applications.

 

Gender Matters

Think of a powerful person. You probably pictured a man. To empower women, a different way of thinking about power is called for. Mary Beard explains.

 

The Impediments of Style

Terry Eagleton’s writing proceeds by jokey elaboration, winking asides, and absurdist flights of fancy. It’s fun, but frustrating.

Copyright © 2017 Arts and Letters Daily, All rights reserved.

 

Ancient Mariner

[1] See recent posts, Samples that confirm Harari 3-9-17 and Yuval Noah Harari talks about the Future 2-22-17.

[2] See: http://us9.campaign-archive1.com/?u=8cbd654fc43afe6be9455ae3b&id=07ca33e09e&e=af427aa89f

Samples that confirm Harari

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A few posts ago, mariner introduced the writings of Yuval Noah Harari, a renowned futurist who has provided books, articles, lectures and opinions about how to interpret today’s reality and project the interpretations into mankind’s future. His new book is Homo Deus; he was interviewed in The Atlantic magazine for February 2017.

Harari takes a simplistic view of humanity, saying that humans may think fancy thoughts in the frontal lobe, but human behavior does not roam far from opinions controlled in the Hindbrain (Reptilian Brain). As you might guess from its name, it’s a piece of brain anatomy that we share with reptiles and is the most primitive. It’s in charge of our primal instincts and most basic functions – things like the instincts of survival, dominance, and mating. Freed from obedience to history books alone, Harari can project very broad patterns that are predetermined by the hindbrain. [think Donald]

Harari’s book is one of several new books on our culture, economy, morality and politics that, even as a small amount of material, provides the new core concepts that are driving H. sapiens history today and tomorrow. The handful of books is a fine college ‘major’ that will prepare you for judging new and sometimes disturbing values. Although touted as college material, all the sources are pleasant and frequently entertaining texts.

Mariner includes the above preface to aid in understanding the economic upheaval occurring today. There are two examples: the emergence of oligarchy and the phenomenon of the haves taking as much as they can from the have nots, specifically the Republican health care legislation designed to replace the Affordable Care Act AKA Obamacare or ACA.

The current emergence of oligarchy was launched by Ronald back in the 1980’s. It has exploded into our culture because of powerful advances in communication technology which naturally give an edge to those who have the resources to leverage rapid information; do not give credit for the healing GDP and historic stock prices to the election of Donald. Unpoliticized economists have long said the economy rises and falls regardless of who is President. Data storage and massive processing capability have allowed corporations to be virtually transportable, cutting costs and sending profits through the roof. Why hasn’t profit been shared with the lower income/little income/no income folks? Generalists say that this is just the cost of new economic growth; Harari says it’s the hindbrain protecting unfocused fears associated with survival and dominance – and sex if it applies. The hindbrain, incidentally, has little ability to manage morality; that’s managed by the limbic system. [think Donald]

This tennis game with the brain is informative but Harari suggests this leads to a troublesome future. It is simpler to ask readers to reflect on Bernie’s comment that 1 percent of the population holds 90 percent of the wealth. Over time, there will be less and less available to sustain this ratio. Overpopulation, diminishing resources, and increased imbalance in the biosphere will take its toll on “unneeded” people.

The second example, the new health bill, shows the same preference by conservatives to squeeze out humans who, not because they aren’t permitted but because they can’t afford the health services – a clear echo of hindbrain decision making. Conservatives rationalize that every resource must contribute to a safer economy or, frankly, it weakens the economy.

These examples are presented with the ideas Harari would utilize. This approach certainly has its detractors. What seems critical to the mariner is that if one takes a fair view of human history, it behaves very much like Harari suggests whatever the historical situation. That being the case, humans are in for some troubling times within a century or so.

Two thoughts predominate: overpopulation (implying disappearing resources) and globally based natural issues; near horizon is the effect of global warming; far effect is a major ice age (not that we have to wait for the ice age, the shift in orbit will catch the attention of tornadoes, volcanoes, earthquakes, and disruptive shifts in the weather.

See why some don’t like Yuval Noah Harari? There are no cuddle blankets. However, his no nonsense, no comforting fantasies about political theory and no guarantee about consistency, give us a clear image of the future for Homo sapiens, all things being equal.

Have a nice day.

Ancient Mariner

 

Wait, the Taxes are still being Audited.

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Adam Davidson, a freelance journalist associated with PBS, wrote an article for New Yorker magazine that exposes neatly why Donald didn’t want to give up his taxes. When Donald was unexpectedly elected President, he was in the midst of a real estate deal with crooked government officials in Azerbaijan, a small nation that sits between Russia and Iran. The particular officials in question are a front for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard – a militant political power in Iran that sponsors terrorism around the world. Donald backed out of the deal when he won the election.

It is an entertaining story in its own right, full of nonsensical arrangements and thinly veiled money laundering schemes.[1] Incidentally, any person or business, no exceptions, making private deals with foreign government officials is not allowed, period. Participating privately in foreign military affairs is not allowed, period. Privately aiding and abetting enemies of the state is not allowed, emphatically. Any of these will cost prison time and yuge, really yuge fines.

Learning of this business arrangement, and of two or three arrangements with Russian government officials, and another international deal involving the oust of the current President of Ukraine, the news broadcasts this week have had a pleasant element for a change. We must thank Donald for throwing in one of his pathological comments claiming Barack tapped his telephone. A comparison between Barack and Joe McCarthy was like an after dinner mint.

Lack of action to do something about their President pushes the Republicans further into a desperate corner. The less than victorious presentation of the replacement for the Affordable Care Act doesn’t help, either. Sooner or later dragging their feet will not be enough. Investigative committees and special prosecutors are in the wings. These special investigating teams have the authority to subpoena Donald’s tax records. He may well choose to resign the Presidency if his taxes are subpoenaed but he will not be able to escape prosecution for the type of behavior presented by Adam Davidson – unless Republicans offer him a deal…

Donald’s one dimensional view of reality is about to bring him down. Mariner suggests readers (to some degree) turn their attention to legislators in their own Federal and state districts. Remember redistricting will be performed by those who are elected 20 months from now.

Ancient Mariner

[1] See http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/donald-trumps-worst-deal