Category Archives: Culture

Speaking Generationally

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If it weren’t so depraved, it would be funny. Donald has fired his pollsters when the polls show Donald is behind Joe and other Democratic contenders. He calls the polls ‘fake polls.’

Joe Biden presents an interesting choice for President. Like Hillary, he clearly represents the status quo establishment. He has a smoother personality and he isn’t a woman so that may help with those voters who switched or stayed home in 2016. Mariner’s wife is quick to point out that men don’t like women’s voices – it has nothing to do with politics.

Those with the most to lose in the coming election are the recent generations known as millennial and z (born after 1980). Wages have been suppressed for forty years; housing is limited and too expensive; jobs do not have long term residency (note the term ‘gig’ which means working as a contractor without benefits); taxes are more exorbitant for lower income workers; tech data gathering diminishes competitive retail pricing; climate change will be expensive and destroy job markets; the education industry is in shambles because of high cost, irrelevant methods, political constraints, lack of trade/business schools and disappearing union training; finally, the whole benefits package will disappear if health and insurance are not deeply restructured.

How can a young person win? Who can they vote for – even if their local representative or senator wins, what about the destructive nature of war between political parties and the influence of capitalistic lobbying?

It is common knowledge that the US, indeed the whole world, is changing rapidly and completely. New concepts for money, privacy, longevity and personal independence are emerging. An eighteen year old voter, new to a world that changes day-to-day, has a lot at stake.

As parents of the millennial and z generations, the silent generation, baby boomers and generation x can help out by seeing to it that three things are fixed as rapidly as possible: gerrymandering, Electoral College and election financing. Amos would throw in elimination of the Senate but that’s another war for another time. If the older generations can repair the voting process, that will be a big help to the youngsters.

Ancient Mariner

 

In the News

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֎ [Newsy] New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that would eliminate religious exemptions for children’s vaccinations amid an ongoing measles outbreak. Under the new law, children who attend school or daycare can only be exempted from vaccine requirements if they have a medical reason. In a statement, Cuomo said: “The science is crystal clear: Vaccines are safe, effective and the best way to keep our children safe. This administration has taken aggressive action to contain the measles outbreak, but given its scale, additional steps are needed to end this public health crisis.” Opponents of the bill say it violates religious freedoms and that they’ll continue to fight for their rights. The U.S. is currently facing one of the worst measles outbreaks in decades. In Rockland County, New York, there have been more than 260 confirmed cases since June 12.

Vaccination is a classic example of confrontation between freedom of religion and freedom of state. The largest religions address the common good in their doctrine but there are uncountable variations and assumptions in religious practice. The same is true of most governments; they are founded on principles of common good but the interpretation of common good runs to irrational extremes.

Common good must prevail else humanity may not survive. At its simplest, humans are a tribal species. Sans an available vaccine, the black plague wiped out sixty percent of Europe’s population in the fourteenth century. Regarding the issue of vaccination, whose freedoms take priority? Solutions require some doctrinal or legislative adjustment; whose common good is more important? Can one imagine a Venn diagram solution? Mariner leaves this issue with the reader to reconcile.

Ancient Mariner

Don’t be Vulgar

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In recent days, mariner and his wife have had family guests from both sides of the family. It is refreshing to experience the familiarity of family and at the same time feel grateful that, in the United States at least, life goes on despite the vulgarity of the headlines. Reality, too, plays out as friends and family suffer ailments and discouraging circumstances. The overview, however, is that life goes on – despite shootings, racism, war, social abuse and economic distress.

This is not to suggest that one should ignore or be indifferent to the vulgarity of our times. As a member of a democratic society of 350 million people each living an ongoing life, one still is inevitably linked to a responsibility to all 350 million citizens (a different kind of family) to take care of our democracy even as we are distracted by personal life experiences. That vulgarity is part of the nation’s social experience is a side effect of social change. The thesaurus offers other words for vulgarity: tasteless, lewd, licentious, rude and offensive among many more. Vulgarity is a litmus test that identifies dissatisfaction and stress. Vulgarity easily promotes a response of increased rudeness and offensive behavior which makes it hard for an individual or a society to ease vulgarity through compromise and compassion.

The tools one needs to be successful in managing stressful change are found in one’s ongoing life. It is important that life goes on. There is strength in familiarity that helps dealing with vulgarity. There is strength in family unity that helps dealing with vulgarity. There are feelings of security and day-to-day accomplishment that help to weather vulgarity.

Maybe it’s a good time to visit one’s family just to reinforce confidence and even satisfaction that there is a rational side to society. Maybe it’s a good time to take a deeper look at vulgarity to figure out how to make life go on in the midst of significant social change.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

The New World

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It’s difficult to write insightful responses to the world scene when the world scene is completely uprooted from what one would call ‘status quo.’ Mariner is reminded of a trip through Dallas on its interstates on a Friday at rush hour. There is no trip through Dallas on a Friday during rush hour. Here in the United States, Donald’s mythological perception of himself is similar to pushing in the clutch to release any productivity from the gears of governance. Further, he is a life-long bully, capable only of punching back at reality but never able to reconcile it.

But there is more. An entire planet exists outside the myopic world of US television. In the spirit of representing Amos, the world is lost; no one knows how to replace the world of 1964 with a new cultural, economic and political reality. Conservatives do not accept that Reaganism is over. Britain does not recognize that local economics has moved on to international economics. The Middle East is struggling with religious differences that the western world reconciled in the eighteenth century. Africa is struggling with even more primitive political circumstances because of the arrested development caused by colonialism in the nineteenth century. China is feeling its oats without accommodating civil rights. Russia is constricted by an economic authoritarianism that the US should pay attention to as a future of its own economic philosophy – one that leads to an inability to compete as an equal in the new international marketplace.

But there is hope. As fragile as the American experience may be at the moment, there are built-in procedures in the Constitution that allow the United States to redefine itself – if the political state of things had perceptive representatives with vision beyond their own careers.

But there is more. The planet Earth is not a political being. Earth is its planet and no species has any rights beyond survival of the fittest. Frankly, Homo sapiens is not a willing participant. Earth will deal with this insurgence. Climate change sounds innocuous but it is a real and present influence on the future of humanity.

Add to this uncontrolled mix the influence of technology. It is impossible to foresee the future of human life – in the day-to-day perspective at least – where the description of ‘job’ will change and the view of capitalism and socialism will change dramatically, and the reverence for planet rules will be more respected.

It is a journey to say the least. Mark the year 2021. It will not be over but the direction of what a new world looks like will be in view.

Ancient Mariner

 

Our Democracy at Work

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AT&T maintains a formidable presence in Washington. The company spent more than $15.8 million on Washington lobbying last year, and its lobbying spending in the first quarter of 2019 put it among the top two dozen companies, according to a POLITICO analysis of disclosure filings. AT&T has 17 in-house lobbyists and also retains nearly 30 outside lobbying firms, according to disclosure reports.

Readers need to know that AT&T owns:

•HBO and Cinemax, as part of Home Box Office Inc.

•TBS, truTV, TNT, Studio T, and TCM, as part of Turner Entertainment Networks

•Adult Swim and Cartoon Network, as part of the TBS, Inc. Animation, Young Adults & Kids Media (AYAKM) division

•CNN and HLN, as part of CNN News Group

•The websites Super Deluxe, Beme Inc., and CallToons

•DC Entertainment

•DC Films, including all of the “Batman” movies

•Turner Broadcasting International

•Turner Sports, including the website Bleacher Report and the rights to March Madness and NBA playoffs

•The CW (50%)

•Warner Bros. Animation

•Hanna-Barbera Cartoons

•Fandango Media (30%)

•Warner Bros. Consumer Products

•Warner Bros. Digital Networks

•Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures

•Warner Bros. Pictures International

•Warner Bros. Museum

•Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank

•Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden

•Warner Bros. Studio Tours

•Warner Bros. Pictures

•Warner Animation Group

•Warner Bros. Family Entertainment

•NonStop Television

•New Line Cinema

•Turner Entertainment Co.

•WaterTower Music

•Castle Rock Entertainment

•The Wolper Organization

•HOOQ

•Blue Ribbon Content

•Warner Bros. Television

•Warner Horizon Television

•Warner Bros. Television Distribution

•Warner Bros. International Television Production

•Telepictures

•Alloy Entertainment

•eleveneleven

•Warner Bros

Is democracy threatened by this? What happened to antitrust regulations?

 It is an age of corporatism unbridled by a government that still thinks only in terms of the printed page. How will AT&T influence our opinions not just for entertainment but for news and an understanding of reality? This is too much control over a public’s perception of the issues of daily life.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Are Government Budgets Adequate?

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Mariner, like many citizens, notices that the 114th Congress (January 3, 2017, to January 3, 2019) left the nation $21,683,971,652,591.44 in debt. For clarification, that’s 21 TRillion; it’s a record; Republicans held both houses, which is ironic. Despite this indebtedness, Republicans along with Donald fight to keep tax policies in place that guarantee insolvency without even considering new costs related to infrastructure et al. However, the grenade in the well is not any current budgetary conflict. It is the cost of climate change. The next paragraph is the latest assessment and targets thirty years from today:

֎ [curbed.com] A growing body of work underscores the dangers facing coastal real estate. In addition to the “Underwater” report, the U.S. government’s most recent National Climate Assessment found that between $66 billion and $106 billion of real estate will be below sea level by 2050, and that within an eighth of a mile of U.S. coastline lie businesses and homes valued at a total of $1.4 trillion [will be below sea level].

That’s current value. What would it cost for mariner or the reader to trash their current residence (who wants to buy a home underwater?), purchase new property in an increasingly competitive real estate market, and build a comparable home at three times the original cost? If mariner figures rightly, the cost is more like $4.6 trillion. These stakes are too rich for state governments to even imagine what could be underwritten by a state tax base.

Racist conservatives are discontent with the rate of immigration on the southern border. Wait until they realize that a wholly American emigration of 280,000 citizens will encroach on everyone’s backyards. Housing, already a troublesome topic, will suffer its own tidal wave of space, cost and adequacy.

Mariner’s assumption is that the US will suffer severe solvency issues (spelled ‘depression’) if the tax code is not seriously retargeted to garner trillion dollar amounts to cover costs above and beyond infrastructure and discretionary spending – to say nothing of building a wall and going to war with somebody, anybody will do.

Ancient Mariner

Where in the world is Carmen Santiago?

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This line is a ditty from a children’s television show that gave clues to her whereabouts. Today, there is no question – everyone always knows where Carmen Santiago is. Between the cellphone, Wi-Fi, the GPS, car radio, doorbell technology, health tracking, drone surveillance, street cameras, facial recognition, gait recognition, tollbooth cameras, gadgets like Fitbit, etc., everyone knows where the reader is at any given moment. Even one’s pets are tracked.

To older generations, tracking seems unnecessary, invasive and controlling. The newer generations have been born into the tracking world and generally find it a convenient tool and are not bothered by Big Brother aspects. This difference in attitude between the generations is truly significant despite its subtlety and, sadly, any sense of how to manage the ethics of corporate and government manipulation of individuals without their individual authorization.

Cognizance of Big Brother is spawning a new movement to live off-the-grid. Move to the Northwest; move to Alaska; move to Central America; live below the radar of electric service, telephones and other implied intrusions by Big Brother (Big Brother is synonymous with government regulations and corporate capitalism). Of course only a small minority can accomplish an escape from tracking.

The industry that is making the largest splash at the moment is the insurance industry. Today, policies are being rewritten to include tracking as an element of premium cost and even whether one can purchase insurance. Don’t skip one’s exercises or eat unacceptably, or have to use COPD or have a pacemaker – the rates are higher or, God forbid, one is denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions or … one has a history of not complying with tracking devices.

As 5G emerges, industry will be able to track an individual’s wear cycle of clothing, that is, one does not determine for themselves that it is time to recycle a shirt, refrigerator or automobile. A new one will arrive when Big Brother decides it is time by tracking electronics built into one’s clothing and devices. In that time, the last drop of profit will be sucked from the human cash flow creature.

For the sake of decency, mariner will not describe the centralization of income, debt or personal investment. Simply, there will be no need to carry a few dollars in one’s wallet. Yet, everyone must pause while we endure Donald – an individual who has no sense of the broad reality that confronts the entire human existence on this planet because of technology, environment, the ethics of individuality, and the economy of diminishing returns.

Please vote intelligently in 2020.

Ancient Mariner

 

Now to the Court

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The electorate has been misinformed by the Executive Branch and uninformed by the Congress. Now it is the Court’s turn. Aside from the many legal challenges percolating from the mire of political infighting, the Supreme Court is considering some cleaving decisions – cleaving in that large portions of American society will rise or fall on those decisions.

Increased activity largely is from the conservative side of society trying to leverage a newly conservative court. But long overdue Constitutional issues also are on the docket e.g., citizenship, gerrymandering and Native American rights. Needless to say, soon Roe v. Wade will be addressed; one or two Presidential authorities as interpreted by Donald eventually will come before the Court. In the near future, voting rights will be addressed – especially as they are violated in Dixie.

֎ Native American rights – In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled Monday in favor of Native American rights in a Wyoming hunting case. There is another Native American rights case to be decided this term — a case from Oklahoma that deals with tribal territorial rights. Justice Neil Gorsuch — who is a champion of American Indian rights has been the deciding vote on several cases including Monday’s — is recused from this particular case. That means the court could deadlock.

֎ Political and racial gerrymandering – Three states, Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland, are before the court dealing with redistricting. Gerrymandering by race is one issue. The others are political party gerrymandering. Any rejection of gerrymandering will have immense impact on future elections.

֎ Separation of church and state – This particular case is known as the “cross case.” It’s about a World War I memorial concrete cross that sits at an intersection in Bladensburg, Md. — and whether it should be allowed to continue to stand on public land. The Federal government asked the Supreme Court to rule in favor of the cross, which critics say is an unconstitutional state endorsement of Christianity as the state religion.

Mariner notes other religion/state conflicts in many places – even money – where Christian doctrine and state authority are represented as co-equal. This confusion, generated in an early age of the nation despite the freedom of religion clause in the Constitution, is what causes consternation among Evangelicals and conservatives when the state takes actions in behalf of the US citizen which do not represent the authority of Christian doctrine.

֎ Census citizenship question – Donald’s administration is trying to add a citizenship question to the upcoming census. The court will decide whether it can. Based on questioning during oral arguments, the court’s conservatives agree with the Trump administration and allow it by a narrow 5-4 majority. The Census Bureau, however, states that there could be an undercount of 6.5 million people if the question is included.

֎ Race, murder and jury selection – This is a case about bias in jury selection. A Mississippi death row inmate was prosecuted six times for the same crime by a prosecutor with a history of racial bias in jury selection.

֎ When is a word too dirty to be trademarked? – A clothing designer, Erik Brunetti, tried to trademark his “FUCT” line, but it was rejected. The US Trademark Office has not exactly provided standards about what constitutes “immoral,” “shocking,” “offensive” and “scandalous”, leaving the justices to decide whether the term will be allowed.

Other potential cases of consequence:

-Gundy v. US: A sex offender case dealing with how much power is too much to give to the US attorney general for his application of the law.

-Gamble v. US: A double jeopardy case to decide whether a state and federal government can try someone for the same crime.

Major issues remain outside the priorities of all three branches of the Federal Government: cash in elections, Electoral College and misrepresentation in the Senate, antitrust enforcement, bank regulations, and not last and not least, privacy and state security.

Ancient Mariner

The Word is God

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Regular readers are aware that mariner is a fan of haiku. Indeed, he enjoys any short, insightful phrase that takes the mindset to another focus – a small stretch from habitual awareness. Unfortunately, mariner is too pragmatic for many of the ‘Zen’ sayings found on calendars and in greeting cards. But there are many other sources, particularly in literature and poetry that are rich and insightful for anyone. For example:

֎ Louise Glück’s “Field Flowers,” spoken from a flower’s point of view:

Your poor idea of heaven: absence of change.
Better than earth?
How would you know, who are neither
here nor there

. . A thought that leaves one hanging in purgatory without residence before or after. The following is a quickie from mariner’s wife:

The ground is flat
The Earth is round
The truth is never plain, I’ve found
The plane is never true.

Here’s a haiku:

The rain falls heavy
It soaks, it cleans, it feeds life
Rain is Earth’s gardener.

֎ Mahatma Gandhi said this one:

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

֎ And Elie Wiesel:

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”

 Don’t give up on literature and reading despite the onslaught of thumb technology. The best of life is in the written word.

Ancient Mariner

Abortion

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This post, to say the least, reflects advocacy, prejudice and disdain.

Mariner’s mother had congenital heart disease. He was born when she was eighteen. Four years later, she became pregnant with his brother. She was advised not to have the baby but no one would perform a safe abortion. Mariner’s father could find no one to perform an abortion. She carried to term and mariner’s brother was born. Mariner’s mother was bedbound for two years then spent her last year in a hospital in an oxygen tent. She died when mariner was eight years old, leaving horrendous hospital bills for his father and left mariner and his four year old brother without a mother.

For the holier than others conservatives, irrational religious fanatics and political hackers, mariner has disdain. They don’t understand that pregnancy has many reasons not to be in the best interest of people’s intimate lives. They don’t understand that abortion is not a political decision. They don’t understand that the Constitution in no way gives them the right to own the life of any woman – any more than owning black slaves. Mariner’s mother wasn’t even black.

Basing the political conflict on fetal arguments of any kind is useless. People who oppose abortion aren’t scientifically minded nor would those arguments matter. Mariner notes that these same faux aristocrats have the same disrespect for other life-taking issues:

Among all other issues, war kills more than any other political misappropriation. The last thing a sane, emotionally secure person would desire is to go to war – about anything.

Failure to provide medical care to the poor and indigent is another way of saying “Let them die before I measure my dollars versus their life.”

Should a woman give birth to an unwanted child, the curse of prejudice stays with the child. The United States tolerates one in five children living beneath the poverty line. Further, the United States and its anti-abortionists cause the United States to rank 47th among all nations in infant mortality per 1,000 births. Anti-abortionists are rife with hubris, irrational thought and no capability to feel empathy and compassion.

Ancient Mariner