Category Archives: Culture

Ready for something new for a change?

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Ready for something new for a change?

Slowly crawling out of the darkness of shelter-in, we emerge to find a reformed world – a place of bizarre and unfamiliar phenomena. A new religion infests United States culture, something called Trumpism, an unsettling group similar to voodoo with conspiracies and denial of reality on a par with flat-earthers; people working from home in such numbers that large office buildings sit empty; the lingering death walk of Reaganism that brings Congress to a standstill; driverless 80-feet-long trucks on the highway; a grave, intensified class war pitting unbelievably rich against unbelievingly poor; collapsing colleges and universities with failed purpose, value and broken financing; empty shopping malls; veiled threats about rising oceans and storms; a flooded south, a burned west, a cold north and citizen migrations forcing changes in congressional representation; a weakening Europe, a rising China and still as it was before shelter-in, a pernicious Russia and a Middle East ravaged and ravaged again by imperialism, collapsed economy and extreme inter-religious/political confrontation.

It does seem similar to Charlton Heston seeing a sunken Statue of Liberty in ‘Planet of the Apes’, doesn’t it?

The pandemic can be blamed for concentrating a great amount of change into one single year. Working from home normally would have phased in over several years as new processes were tested, job descriptions changed and resettling home life with new work-at-home opportunities.

Donald Trump can be blamed for the Congressional crisis. Ordinarily, a change in the philosophy of government takes a decade or so but Donald crashed the primaries so badly that elected officials fear for their careers to the point of abandoning rational legislative work. Joining Donald in his abuses of due process are the victims of 40 years of Reagan economics – a working class distrustful of the US government for ignoring their plight. Throw in energized populist groups using gender rights, race and police brutality.

Reader, take a moment to catch your breath. With some luck, the nation may enter a period of boom economy if the infrastructure bill stays together and passes. The electorate needs to patch wounds, regroup its national identity and concentrate on getting an international momentum up to speed.

Oh, about something new, the wealthy nations of the world are preparing to switch to bitcoin accounts for government operations. Think about paying your taxes in bitcoin. The US calls theirs ‘GOVCOINS’.

Ancient Mariner

Environment

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We humans have become increasingly aware that we live in an environment not as a dominating owner but simply as just another renter who tends to trash the apartment. Perhaps it’s the global warming issue that helps with human awareness; perhaps it’s the growing scarcity of food resources for the planet; perhaps it’s the cost to farmers when they plow the soil which strips the fields of all nutrients and plants, especially in regions where there are strong winds that carry away the soil farmers just tilled and fertilized and put weed killer down – producing poor yield in the fall.

Evidence of growing awareness is all about. TV broadcasts about gardening, farming, waste management, and collaborative sharing with the environment are frequent. Extension agencies, libraries and garden clubs sponsor programs about collaborative gardening. Mariner has a relative whose hobby is planting colorful plants around the base of trees along New York streets; mariner has a friend who has decided to let violets stay in the lawn. And mariner himself is tinkering with a number of collaborative projects in his own garden.
֎ One example is the cursed Creeping Charlie, a very rapidly spreading weed that defies elimination. It still is a killing pest in the lawns but in some garden beds mariner has decided to experiment with Creeping Charlie as the ground cover to keep other weeds out and at the same time add to the décor of the garden. It turns out that Charlie has taken hold of his new job with relish. Not even the dreaded crabgrass can sprout beneath a robust covering of Creeping Charlie. In fact, mariner is saving money because he doesn’t have to buy mulch for those areas.

֎ Another experiment is mariner’s tolerance of a rambunctious mole. He must protect against the mole’s burrowing in vegetable beds where seedlings are emerging but otherwise he has let the mole venture about. Tolerance by the mariner is an experiment to see how many Japanese beetle grubs can be eaten; mariner has many fruit and ornamental trees on a property surrounded on all sides by large concrete pads and accompanying large garages. All beetles come to mariner’s garden.

An unexpected reward is the mole gradually aerates the lawn. Typically, a lawn keeper occasionally will need to rent an aerating device to pull plugs from the lawn so it can grow and accept water. Mariner keeps his lawn a bit high (another anti-weed collaboration rather than performing the typical buzz cut) so the lumps from the mole burrowing aren’t noticeable.

Mariner has mentioned in past posts that his town has lawn Nazis. It is of a different spirit, certainly not one of collaboration with nature but comparatively speaking takes more time, labor and cash to maintain. This difference between collaboration with and dominance of nature has existed throughout history from the first scraping of the ground to cast wheat seeds to the large open mining pits and deliberate elimination of forests today.

In just a few years many farmers have proven that any way to collaborate with the environment is more productive, less expensive, saves waste and is good for surrounding atmosphere, water and wildlife. One common practice by farmers that has been implemented for many decades is a natural easement by creeks and rivers rather than plowing closer to the water’s edge.[1] It is entertaining to work with nature as a partner – both existentially and philosophically. What projects does the reader have?

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] An excellent documentary on collaborative farming, ‘Kiss the Ground’, is available on Netflix but the reader must search ‘The Littlest Farm’ – the title is in error. The Littlest Farm also is an excellent film about how a family uses nature to transform virtual wasteland into a productive farm but mariner could find it only as a rental or purchase. 3 minute trailers are available online for both films.

Wealth is for the Wealthy

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Several of mariner’s news sources have begun to focus on issues that fall under the general subject ‘plutocracy’. Latest topics are from Florida, a government that sees itself as a partner with business, having passed legislation to protect obstetricians from lawsuits about botched births and now passing legislation to protect sugar harvesters from lawsuits about polluting the air.

On manipulations of the rich to stay rich, Elizabeth Warren just released her wealth tax legislation – she is back on the hunt and is the archenemy of the banking industry. The legislation targets the wealthy’s privileged investment practices that in fact are protected by Federal investment practices. Further, Banking has become more involved in partnering with nonbanking enterprises as a legitimate partner and not just a source of financing (Did you notice an American bank tried to launch the Super League in European soccer?)

ProPublica just posted an article that says “longstanding inequality in the U.S. has been exacerbated by the Fed’s role in touching off a multitrillion-dollar boom in stock markets — and stock ownership is heavily skewed toward the wealthiest Americans”. It is worthy to note that the average citizen’s IRA and 401(k) accounts don’t share comparatively in this boondoggle. [1]

Further, Social Security is the top source of wealth for most lower-income households with workers nearing retirement, according to Teresa Ghilarducci, an economist at The New School in New York City who specializes in retirement. If the guaranteed income stream of Social Security is treated as an asset, she estimates it amounts to 58% of the net worth for near-retirees in the bottom half of the U.S. wealth distribution. Other retirement savings represent only about 11% of their net worth, and stocks are just 1% – meaning that the wealthy have their own, federally supported economic world while the remaining US citizens still struggle with minimal income and no long term security. Apparently Andrew Yang’s chart about the distribution of income was correct.[2]

The most effective way to attack this plutocracy is to have term limits for all legislators state and federal and to outlaw party-managed redistricting, otherwise known as gerrymandering. In the meantime, the voting citizen will be caught in a battle between those who collect dollars for satisfaction and those who extol populism for satisfaction. It’s up to the electorate in 2022.

Ancient Mariner

[1] It is mariner’s opinion that ProPublica is by far the most honest, accurate AND the most thorough investigative reporting source among many online services. He recommends everyone subscribe to their email service at https://www.propublica.org

[2] See mariner’s post, “A Stipend for a Day Lived” published April 19, 2021.

Books

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It is a rare advantage to live with a working librarian. Mariner’s home is a sub-branch of his town library. Mariner’s wife maintains a steady stream of contemporary works moving on and off their library shelves. One book that has just come and gone is Lisa Genova’s popular book, ‘Remember – The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting’.[1] It is an easy-to-read book with a conversational style of writing. One tip she provides:

“Let’s start with what you eat and drink. Several studies have now clearly demonstrated that people who eat foods from the Mediterranean diet and MIND diet (helps hypertension) cut their risk of Alzheimer’s disease by anywhere from a third to a half.”

Another book in mariner’s personal library is the late U.S. Representative John Dingle’s book, ‘The Dean, The Best Seat in the House’[2]. John holds the record for longest continuous service as a Representative, sixty years! His book recounts his memories and the many historical moments between 1955 and 2015. John was a centrist liberal, very much driven by the human rights of American citizens. He was the first among many who have decried the imbalance of the Senate in terms of its representation of the U.S. population. He died in 2019 at age 92. Mariner recommends the book for its easy to read documentation of the United States through several notable periods of historic change.

Someone who took up John’s lamentation about the Senate and proposed a solution is Eric W. Orts. In the January 2019 edition of the Atlantic, he proposed a redistribution of Senate seats. Mariner reproduces the distribution below as information to ponder, “What would happen if . . .”.

Each state has one Senator by default.

26 states have only that one Senator.

12 states have 2 Senators, as they do now.

8 states gain 1, perhaps 2 Senators.

California has 12 Senators; Texas has 9; Florida and New York have 6.

One example: Wyoming would have one Senator representing 580,000 citizens while California would have twelve Senators representing 39 ½ million people.

It is mariner’s firm belief that the future success of the United States is based entirely on the redistribution of the Senate.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

[1] Remember, Lisa Genova, © 2021, Harmony Books, ISBN 978-0-593-13795-6

[2] The Dean, John Dingle, © 2018, Harper Collins, ISBN 978-0-06-257199-1

Moving South

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As regular readers know, one of mariner’s political dreams is to merge North and South America into a planet-leading powerhouse for economics, culture and science. This is fantasy of course; the United States considers brown people second class citizens – whether Mexican, Guatemalan, Puerto Rican, Columbian or the far reaches of Asia. If there were more Eskimos, they’d be thrown in as well.

But wait! As if it is the first creature to move out of a primordial sea, there is a glimmer, a faint, fragile thought that has emerged in Congress. Senator Tom Carper (D-Delaware) is traveling to Guatemala to meet with that nation’s president to discuss ways to eliminate the migration of its citizens to the United States. The subject of the visit is economic in nature, that is, how can the US help Guatemala’s economy.

Further hope comes from Tom’s close relationship with Joe Biden, himself an ex-Senator from Delaware. If white supremacists were rational, they would push the republicans to back these ventures to keep nonwhites below the border. (Yes, racist, but mariner is desperate; otherwise republicans will fight this idea for sure. Consider mariner’s effort similar to throwing a stick to entertain a dog)

It took a long, long time for aye-ayes to become humans. Mariner suspects the same will be true for unified Americas. Mariner asks that the reader be careful where they walk lest they squash this primordial thought.

 

 

 

 

 

Ancient Mariner

About the Police

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It’s a shame that the police slowly have changed from keepers of peace to keepers of discipline. Like many cultural shifts, the role of police slowly has changed due to similar subtle changes around them in economy, housing, family culture and attitudes about racism and elitism.

When mariner was a cub scout, a boy of eight to ten years of age, he remembers considering the local policeman a person of authority but not a person to fear. For one thing the officer walked the streets on a beat; he often talked with local citizens, businesses and did things that quietly protected his beat. He checked that business doors were locked at night; he stopped occasionally to watch a few pitches at the baseball diamond in the local park. Once, mariner’s father had a talk with the policeman about some trouble in a home at the end of the block. The policeman was a citizen of the community just like everyone else. It is likely he knew where trouble may lie. Certainly he had a feel for daily life on his beat.

What changed?

To make a long story short, class discrimination and accordingly race discrimination. Over decades of living, the suburbs evolved, wages were geographically dispersed as corporations emerged, government tax structures were modified, and neighborhoods became less heterogeneous. When mariner was young, every neighborhood was a town with its own GDP, schools, its own main street and had both working and professional families.

Slowly, mobility became easier for families – especially those whose jobs were outside the neighborhood. Families moved to neighborhoods based on income (class); in the old neighborhood multigenerational families began to disappear leaving no intergenerational history. Consequently, fewer and fewer residents were familiar and housing markets eventually dropped in value where the old GDP had disappeared.

The cop on the beat no longer knew everyone. Eventually it became cheaper to cruise a neighborhood in a squad car. Nobody knew anybody. The glue that made a community exist was gone.

When no one is sure what is happening, when no one knows anyone, when the mean income is dropping, paranoia becomes the dominant attitude. When no one knows ‘that’ person, the person is of less value and deserves less grace. Conversations become polar and accusatory. There was comfort in knowing that the police could ‘handle things’ in this social vacuum. Economically, some neighborhoods collapsed entirely, which led to vacant housing, slum conditions and criminal economies. Fortunately, the police could ‘handle things’.

While the US economy was growing rapidly, classism didn’t matter; everyone’s eyes looked to the future. The past was forgotten. Even so, many still lived in that past and did not share in the future. So society left the past to the police to manage.

In recent decades the future has not been so rosy. Society has begun to notice the disarray of classism. Recent news has begun to take notice of unrest in neighborhoods of the past. It is long overdue that society regroups and establishes more homogeneous rules. The police are part of this movement and need to know their customers personally and, figuratively, to walk the beat again.

Now if we could teach Congress this lesson.

Ancient Mariner

Don’t talk to my hand, talk to my soul.

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A couple of weeks ago, Mariner watched an episode of CBS Sunday Morning. It was a discussion about whether we should dismiss good art because the creator was an asshole. This was a follow up discussion to the recent PBS/Ken Burns special about Ernest Hemingway. It turns out Ernest qualifies as an asshole but has written some undeniably classic literature.

Mariner, though his opinion may be irrelevant, thought the CBS show was simplistic at best. The two primary guests were art critics. The first one took a clear stance that if the person is a misfit in social terms, their art should not be recognized. The second critic took a compromised position stating that we can acknowledge art in spite of the artist but the artwork is viewed by a jaundiced eye because of the artist’s behavior or, or, or because of the content of the artwork.

Of course Pablo Picasso’s fetish with breasts was brought up although his genius had nothing to do with breasts but with the bold use of composition, forcing the viewer to mentally battle between strong lines and distracting colors. The second artwork of note was ‘Thérèse Dreaming’ by Balthus, a magnificent example of art talking directly to the soul. The Metropolitan Museum of Art said this about the painting:

“Many early twentieth‑century avant‑garde artists, from Paul Gauguin to Edvard Munch to Pablo Picasso, also viewed adolescent sexuality as a potent site of psychological vulnerability as well as lack of inhibition, and they projected these subjective interpretations into their work. While it may be unsettling to our eyes today, Thérèse Dreaming draws on this history.”

Note the words sexuality, psychological vulnerability, inhibition and subjective. These are words about subconscious motive. Good artwork passes directly by the conscious mind to speak to the subconscious – the home of the soul. Only when the emotional bonding bounces back to the conscious mind is it a confrontation between private sentiment and the social decorum of the conscious mind. To many people,  emotional feelings may seem embarrassing if made deliberately conscious. The defensive measure is to call the artwork questionable.

Good art always draws its significance from the subconscious. It can be a painting, a song (Mariner equates Whitney Houston singing ‘I will always love you’ as excellent artwork in vocal music[1]), a speech, even good architecture can raise a response from the soul.

Ancient Mariner

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[1] The Bodyguard, 1992. It took many months of arranging and rearranging this song by three giants in the movie business. It was the collective awareness of their sensitivity to their subconscious feelings that finally identified the song’s transcendent quality.

Count your blessings even if there’s only one tiny one

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The Global Trends Report, which is compiled every four years, is an example of strategic foresight. Some clips:

“Driving the news: Many, if not most, of those trends identified in the new report from the U.S. government are trending negative.

“Shared global challenges — including climate change, disease, financial crises, and technology disruptions — are likely to manifest more frequently and intensely in almost every region and country,” the report’s authors write.

“They predict that those intensifying challenges will collide with a geopolitical structure that will become increasingly fragmented and fragile, as the U.S. competes with China for global leadership while citizens of both democracies and autocracies grow more dissatisfied with their leaders.

“Another fairly certain trend line is intensifying climate change which will lead to a less secure, more crisis-prone world that will strain global institutions.”

Axios put the full 156 page report online at

https://www.axios.com/global-trends-report-future-2040-f2d496d3-b393-4269-8756-5477379cdacb.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top

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The more mariner learns about Florida the more is his desire NOT to live in Florida. Minimalist government, ignorant governor and cabinet administrators on the take. Plus all the nuances of being located in Dixie. The following story takes the cake – but at least obstetricians are saving money on their insurance premiums.

Ruth Jacques, distraught over the fatal injuries her son suffered during childbirth, couldn’t sue her doctor because of an obscure Florida state law. When she protested at his office, she was told to cease and desist. [The reader should move on to:

https://www.propublica.org/article/she-cant-sue-her-doctor-over-her-babys-death?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter&utm_content=feature ]

Florida has its day of reckoning, though. Climate change is coming.

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Here’s a tidbit from the news: China owns $1 trillion of the US debt, that is, China owns $1 trillion in US Treasury bonds. The open question is whether this affects the power relationship between the two nations.

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Almost half of homes in the United States now sell within one week of being listed. In Austin, the median listing price has risen 40% in one year to $520,000. Across the nation housing costs are soaring beyond the reach of most Americans. America has a record-low number of homes available for sale — just 1.03 million, according to the latest NAR data. That compares to a peak of more than 4 million at the height of the last housing bubble, in July 2007. Where is Congress – or perhaps the sympathy of the Republican Party?

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The blessing we can all count is the increasing participation of private citizens who feel they must help out in these trying times. From wildlife rescue to autism to homelessness to health to house construction to food and shelter, private individuals are stepping up, contributing cash, home space, labor and legal support. Three cheers for the empathetic American!

Ancient Mariner

Movement

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Wow, just four days ago Justice Clarence wrote that there should be tighter regulations on social media – This from Axios:

New rules from tech companies are making it harder for users who commit crimes in the real world to become famous online, Sara Fischer and Stephen Totilo write:

“Twitch, the Amazon-owned livestream platform used primarily by gamers, yesterday unveiled a new policy to take action against users in cases of “severe misconduct” off its platform.

That can include deadly violence, terrorist activities or recruiting, credible threats of mass violence, sexual exploitation of children, sexual assault or membership in a hate group.

Why it matters: This more holistic approach may help tech companies protect themselves against criticism for hosting potentially harmful people or groups.

But it’ll be harder to draw the line on activity that’s harder to define as explicitly illegal, including bullying.”

From Protocol:

Pinterest has some new guidelines, called the “Creator Code,” meant to set the tone for how people operate on the platform. It’s also giving creators more tools to remove content and promote good stuff.

Facebook is all-in on context. It’s testing a system that adds labels like “satire page” or “public official” to posts in the News Feed, in an effort to give people more information about what they’re seeing and why.

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Also from Axios: America’s financial titans are coming to a consensus: We are on the early edge of the biggest economic boom since World War II, with the promise of years of growth after the privation of the pandemic.

Why it matters: They might be wrong. But all point to the same data: This expansion will be kick started by trillions in spending from presidents Trump and Biden, the Fed’s easy money, and piles of cash that consumers and companies accumulated during COVID shutdown.

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Amazon warehouse workers turn down union.

The majority of Amazon’s workers in Bessemer, Ala., voted against joining the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. 5,800 people work at Amazon’s Bessemer facility and 3,215 cast ballots in the election. The union is filing papers with the National Labor Relations Board because of unfair practices by Amazon in the campaign.

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China commissioned 38.4 gigawatts (GW) of coal-power plants in 2020. That compares to the rest of the world shutting down 37.8GW of coal plants – the first coal energy increase since 2015.

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It has been proven that muons have magnetic characteristics. This changes everything in particle physics.

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Does the reader feel like an earthquake is starting? Futurists claim this will be a turbulent century and it’s only 2021. Mariner believes this century will be as significant in change as the fifteenth century was for Europe.

Ancient Mariner

Tactics

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Tarun Chhabra, now a senior director on Biden’s National Security Council, wrote in Foreign Affairs in 2020 an article titled “The Left Should Play the China Card: Foreign Rivalry Inspires Progress at Home,” Chhabra argued that framing “large-scale public investment” as a way to counter China was the surest way to get conservatives on board.

Asia always has been perceived as a direct competitor. The increased, mindless abuse on US Asian citizens today by the socially inadequate Trumpists and racists reflects how misdirected the US electorate becomes when dealing with sophisticated, foreign diplomacy issues.

Mariner is concerned about Chhabra’s militant attitude. It is very true and proven throughout history that a foreign enemy unifies the home front. It is also proven, even back to the Mesopotamian wars in 2900 BC, that if the home front wins the skirmish, the losers are deliberately killed or made into slaves. (Did the reader see the news clip where a man shoved an older Asian woman to the ground and stomped on her face?) Today it’s a game of teamsmanship not survivorship.

During World War II, Asian citizenry was collected and imprisoned in internment camps until after the war – something like seizing a whole hay pile for fear there may be a needle. Innocent lives were ruined. The same was true for Germans and Italians although their appearance protected them to a great degree. The point is that militancy quickly will unify a nation but at great cost to civilized behavior and especially to a democracy. With the Trumpists running at large and with the nuclear warhead potency of social media, this is a dangerous strategy.

Mariner believes the real war will be fought with international economic liaisons, something like drafting the best players to make a championship team, otherwise known as supply chain economics.

It boils down to this: Who is our most dangerous enemy? Congress.

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But wait! There is another enemy: plutocracy. As if corporate graft weren’t already a major influence in legislation, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon urges companies to play a bigger role in fixing the world’s problems. He thinks government isn’t up to the job. Already Big Data has used the pandemic to install tracking devices in hospitals, police departments and corporate marketing activities with virtually no regulations. Does the American citizen want to place control over ethics, morality and citizen rights in the hands of corporations? God forbid they may be successful instead of our woeful government. (Note that JPMorgan is a prime target of the democrats who want to restructure the role of banks.)

We may appreciate the social awareness of today’s boycotting corporations; we shouldn’t let them be in control of social issues.

As a footnote, remember the TPP? It failed because it was written by corporate interests instead of government diplomats. They wrote it in a way that ignored human and national rights.

Ancient Mariner