Keef may be making a very unfunny point here. Given that the measles virus is more prevalent in other parts of the world, what would it take to transport infected children into the United States and visit every theme park and other places where unvaccinated people might gather?
Political honeymoons seem to last far too long around here. Think Frank Jackson.
And they start too soon. Think Armond Budish. Think Squishy Talk. No answer answers.
Budish has already understood that you can get away with bullshit very easily with our generally pliant Plain Dealer. They’ll swallow the mush as if it were good for you.
(You will notice how they jumped on Ed FitzGerald, Jimmy Dimora, Frank Russo, et. al., BUT ONLY once they were down and out. Not when they were rolling.)
Where the hell is a hard-hitting newspaper that will early and soon begin to tell Budish he isn’t going to get an easy ride? Political picnics are over.
He can’t just take advantage of his newness to give us a lot of soggy statements that don’t say anything.
The PD gave a good example of him doing exactly that.
Here are some reasonable question posed to the new County Chief Executive from a Plain Dealer article and the less than responsive answers Continue Reading »
[Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown] a leading member of the Senate banking committee is calling on the US government to explain what action it took after receiving a massive cache of leaked data that revealed how the Swiss banking arm of HSBC, the world’s second-largest bank, helped wealthy customers conceal billions of dollars of assets.
The leaked files, which reveal how HSBC advised some clients on how to circumvent domestic tax authorities, were obtained through an international collaboration of news outlets, including the Guardian, the French daily Le Monde, CBS 60 Minutes and the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
The files reveal how HSBC’s Swiss private bank colluded with some clients to conceal undeclared “black” accounts from domestic tax authorities across the world and provided services to international criminals and other high-risk individuals. The Guardian has established the leaked data was shared with US regulators five years ago.
“I will be very interested to hear the government’s full explanation of its actions—or lack thereof—upon learning of these allegations in 2010,” said Brown.
Referring to previous charges against HSBC, which were resolved in a landmark civil settlement in 2012, he added: “If the charges are true, the same institution that was first caught violating US sanction laws and laundering money for Mexican drug cartels could then escape accountability for promoting widespread evasion of US tax laws. I intend on pressing regulators, the IRS, and the DoJ for answers.”
Post Disneyland (and anyone who thinks this story would have the same legs if the infections had occurred at some location without international recognition isn’t paying attention) we’re all talking about measles. Measles, a potentially deadly disease we declared eliminated (like polio) in the United States only 15 years ago.
The Guardian has a story by Nicky Wolf illustrating how wealthy, empowered people react when their personal superstitions are called out.
Eileen Dannemann is at war. “It’s a war between good and evil. It’s a primordial, cosmic war,” she says.
Her website, which is called the Vaccine Liberation Army (one really scary website, JH), is one of a network of blogs and forums espousing, largely, the same message: that vaccines are bad for you, and that they are part of a nefarious, nebulous scheme by “Big Pharma” and, in some cases, the government.
In a way, it is a war—one of opinion, being waged on blogs, on parenting forums, in the media and, lately, by politicians.
An outbreak of measles—one of the most virulent diseases known to man, but one which the CDC declared eliminated (defined as the absence of continuous disease transmission for greater than 12 months) in the United States in 2000—in the US this year has brought the issue to the forefront of public awareness.
Last year saw a drastic spike in measles cases compared to the years since 2000, with 644 cases reported in the US, and 2015 is on track to exceed that easily, with 102 reported in 14 states in January alone. Two other diseases that had been all but eradicated from the US after mass vaccination for them began—whooping cough (I had a student several years ago with Whooping cough and I now wonder why he wasn’t vaccinated, JH), also known as pertussis, and the mumps—are making comebacks of their own.
The problem is that public trust in vaccines is waning—and as more parents opt not to inoculate their children, more and more parts of the country start to drop below the threshold at which “herd immunity” protects against outbreaks.
So, what happens when parents start suing the anti-vaxxers for murder after their at-risk children contract and die from measles? Do they think that shouting No preachy science junk will save them?
David Bry adds his thoughts in Paranoia is self-defeating. But you can change your mind about vaccinations for The Guardian.
There was a story running around Ohio University in the early ’80s about a RTV major from up north tasked with reading the farm report one morning. He did well, so the tale goes, until he came to the current prices for sheep where he read: and “Eee Wees are up twenty-five cents.”
The story has more than a bit of that Appalachian-payback quality in the punch line, but hey, I think the story is worth repeating.
If everyone knows that an important fact must be true because an important person shared that truth, then I am most inclined—in the absence of actually hearing the statement from the purported luminary’s own lips, reading the words in a work authored by the person in question, or an inclusion in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations—to call bullshit.
It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so. Who said that? Brainy Quotes says Will Rogers, but I know that Rogers is one of those pity commentators who gets lots of words misattributed to him. We cannot be satisfied that important words were shared by someone, we must have an important person to have uttered, or written, those important words before we will deign to accept their importance.
Oliver Burkeman, I have every reason to believe, writes:
This is the story of one of the most popular inspirational quotations in the history of inspirational quotations. These days, it’s everywhere – on T-shirts and posters, in self-help books, religious and business books. But let’s examine its origin. It’s 1994, and a spine-tingling moment as Nelson Mandela addresses a crowd of thousands in Cape Town on the occasion of his inauguration as South Africa’s president. “Our deepest fear,” he intones, “is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world… As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
Can you picture the scene? Of course you can’t. As the literature professor Brian Morton pointed out in a recent New York Times essay, it’s not just that Mandela never said these words; it’s that it’s preposterous to imagine he might have done so. Having led his nation from the horrors of apartheid, and now steeling its people for the challenges ahead, would Mandela really have focused on the importance of being gorgeous and fabulous? Whatever extraordinary strengths got him through almost three decades on Robben Island, it’s stretching the limits of language to label them “fabulous”. The Nelson Mandela Foundation confirms that he didn’t say these words in any speech its archivists know of. And yet there it is, confidently misattributed in hundreds of books, including several political and historical works from academic publishers, as well as a leadership manual from the Outward Bound USA organisation and a book entitled In The Words Of Nelson Mandela. Oh, and once in the Guardian, I’m afraid.
The real source is A Return To Love, by Marianne Williamson, a book about the vaguely cultish spiritual teaching known as A Course In Miracles. The course’s author, Helen Schucman, claimed it was dictated to her by an “inner voice” belonging to Jesus. A lot of different people were involved, then. But Mandela wasn’t one of them.
Quotes get misattributed or mangled all the time, especially “inspirational” ones: as Morton notes, Thoreau didn’t quite say “go confidently in the direction of your dreams!” and Gandhi didn’t say “be the change you wish to see in the world”. “Quotations,” to quote the critic Louis Menand, “are prostheses”, allowing you to borrow “another person’s brainwaves and [put] them to your own use”—and borrowing Mandela’s brainwaves is simply more impressive than borrowing Marianne Williamson’s.
In this case, though, there’s another interesting aspect: the Mandela attribution has allowed those of us who scorn new-age kookiness to take the quote seriously. Yet, uncomfortable as it may be, new-age kooks sometimes say profoundly powerful things. I’ll admit it: I find Williamson’s words inspiring. Fear does keep us small; living at your fullest takes guts. None of this needs a fake Mandela attribution to be worth absorbing. So you like a new-age writer’s insights? So what? As Virginia Woolf famously put it: “It’s all good. Just go with it.”
As a great politician and president once said: Trust, but verify, or something like that.
Cartoonist Scott Adams posits the power of the 30 percent.
What would happen if 30% of taxpayers in the United States suddenly decided to ignore their complicated tax returns and instead pay a self-imposed flat tax?
And let’s say these folks are working together, so they pick the same flat tax rate. And lets say there are some credible economists supporting the rate they pick.
What the hell happens then?
This is the sort of thing I can imagine happening because of the power of social networks. People would only need to believe that other people are rebelling in the same way at the same time to feel safe, like a virtual mob. If 30% of the taxpaying public rebels as one, and their demands are entirely reasonable and supported by economists, would the government try to penalize them?
It couldn’t.
When one citizen breaks the law, you jail him. When 30% of citizens break the same law at the same time, the law changes. It almost has to. There aren’t enough jails.
There may not be enough jails, but there certainly are enough lawyers to bring enough civil suits.
It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap from China. On The Writing On The Wal—the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar—I continue my singular work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.
2,300 DIVIDED BY 575 EQUALS… When any issue or event involves Walmart, scale must be considered. What might seem insignificant in one case becomes a headline when stretched across the Bentonvile Behemoth’s empire. Such is this story about… Keep reading…
WHICH WAY WILL DID THE VOTE GO…? I noted this story on Sunday and predicted that tonight’s vote will not go well for the people of Louisville. This vote is about the heart and soul of a community that wants to promote walkability and a neighborly… Keep reading…
WALMART TAX-REFUND SCHEME BLOWING UP…? It’s tax season and many of us are looking forward to the day we get our tax refund. “I got my income tax this morning,” said Amber Calzada who had her refund deposited into her Walmart Money Card Keep reading…
ALL HAIL YOB-SHABBOTH…! Low wages, no benefits, irregular schedules, and unreliable hours are just some of the horrible working conditions most Walmart workers have to endure. Yet when I asked some of the workers what they consider the worst… Keep reading…
STOP CERES WALMART WINNING, FOR NOW… The group that sued the city of Ceres and Wal-Mart over a proposed Supercenter and lost has appealed the Stanislaus Superior Court decision. The appeal, filed with the court Jan. 26, further delays the… Keep reading…
MOVING DOWN TO WALTONVILLES…* President Hoover was blamed for the intolerable economic and social conditions, and the shantytowns that cropped up across the nation, primarily on the outskirts of major cities, became known as Hoovervilles… Keep reading…
11 MILLION NEW WALMART SHOPPERS…? SIGH… The Cuban people are seeing some light after more than 50 years of failed and oppressive government action, by the United States, and the vultures are circling to pick apart the hopes of 11 million… Keep reading…
Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ I asked her.
‘I feel all sleepy,’ she said.
In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead.
The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her.
On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunised against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.
It is not yet generally accepted that measles can be a dangerous illness. Believe me, it is. In my opinion parents who now refuse to have their children immunised are putting the lives of those children at risk. In America, where measles immunisation is compulsory, measles like smallpox, has been virtually wiped out.
Here in Britain, because so many parents refuse, either out of obstinacy or ignorance or fear, to allow their children to be immunised, we still have a hundred thousand cases of measles every year. Out of those, more than 10,000 will suffer side effects of one kind or another. At least 10,000 will develop ear or chest infections. About 20 will die.
LET THAT SINK IN.
Every year around 20 children will die in Britain from measles.
So what about the risks that your children will run from being immunised?
They are almost non-existent. Listen to this. In a district of around 300,000 people, there will be only one child every 250 years who will develop serious side effects from measles immunisation! That is about a million to one chance. I should think there would be more chance of your child choking to death on a chocolate bar than of becoming seriously ill from a measles immunisation.
So what on earth are you worrying about? It really is almost a crime to allow your child to go unimmunised.
The ideal time to have it done is at 13 months, but it is never too late. All school-children who have not yet had a measles immunisation should beg their parents to arrange for them to have one as soon as possible.
Incidentally, I dedicated two of my books to Olivia, the first was James and the Giant Peach. That was when she was still alive. The second was The BFG, dedicated to her memory after she had died from measles. You will see her name at the beginning of each of these books. And I know how happy she would be if only she could know that her death had helped to save a good deal of illness and death among other children.”
Dahl’s letter has returned to the public eye 26 years later because of the growing number of misinformed (to be generous) parents choosing to put their children, and those unable, for medical reasons, to be vaccinated, at grave risk. One pediatrician puts the issue well.
In my practice you will vaccinate and you will vaccinate on time. You will not get your own “spaced-out” schedule that increases your child’s risk of illness or adverse event. I will not have measles-shedding children sitting in my waiting room. I will answer all your questions about vaccine and present you with facts, but if you will not vaccinate then you will leave my practice. I will file a CPS report (not that they will do anything) for medical neglect, too.
I have patients who are premature infants with weak lungs and hearts. I have kids with complex congenital heart disease. I have kids who are on chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia who cannot get all of their vaccines. In short, I have patients who have true special needs and true health issues who could suffer severe injury or death because of your magical belief that your kid is somehow more special than other children and that what’s good for other children is not good for yours. This pediatrician is not putting up with it.
Never have, never will. —Mike Ginsberg
I don’t get flu shots for my own health—I’m not yet in an at-risk group—but because in my work I come into contact with students with compromised immune systems. I find I am having difficulty typing this, but parents who allow their personal ignorance to endanger the lives of their children, and other children, must not be tolerated.
Parents have long suspected it, but now doctors have proof: the more time teenagers spend on computers or mobile phones, the less they sleep – especially if the gadget is used just before bedtime.
The evidence is so strong, the experts said, that health watchdogs should overhaul guidelines for electronic device use by youngsters.
The team carried out an investigation among nearly 10,000 people aged 16 to 19 in Hordaland county, western Norway, in 2012, they reported in the journal BMJ Open on Tuesday.
The teens were questioned about their sleeping patterns, how long they looked at a screen outside of school hours and the type of gadget they used.
The respondents said they needed between eight and nine hours’ sleep on average to feel rested.
Those with screen time of more than four hours per day were three-and-a-half times likelier to sleep fewer than five hours at night, the probe found.
The solution is simple, obvious and fraught with familial discord: your bedroom is where you sleep. Full Stop.
Turning to Part Two of the interview, King addresses the question of the other M, Malcolm:
Playboy: One of the most articulate champions of black Afro-American brotherhood has been Malcolm X, the former Black Muslim leader who recently renounced his racist past and converted to orthodox Mohammedanism. What is your opinion of him and his career?
King: I met Malcolm X once in Washington, but circumstances didn’t enable me to talk with him for more than a minute. He is very articulate, as you say, but I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views—at least insofar as I understand where he now stands. I don’t want to seem to sound self-righteous, or absolutist, or that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. I don’t know how he feels now, but I know that I have often wished that he would talk less of violence, because violence is not going to solve our problem. And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.
Playboy: For them or for whites?
King: For everyone, but mostly for them. Even the extremist leaders who preach revolution are invariably unwilling to lead what they know would certainly end in bloody, chaotic and total defeat; for in the event of a violent revolution, we would be sorely outnumbered. And when it was all over, the Negro would face the same unchanged conditions, the same squalor and deprivation—the only difference being that his bitterness would be even more intense, his disenchantment even more abject. Thus, in purely practical as well as moral terms, the American Negro has no rational alternative to nonviolence.
Playboy: You categorically reject violence as a tactical technique for social change. Can it not be argued, however, that violence, historically, has effected massive and sometimes constructive social change in some countries?
King: I’d be the first to say that some historical victories have been won by violence; the U.S. Revolution is certainly one of the foremost. But the Negro revolution is seeking integration, not independence. Those fighting for independence have the purpose to drive out the oppressors. But here in America, we’ve got to live together. We’ve got to find a way to reconcile ourselves to living in community, one group with the other. The struggle of the Negro in America, to be successful, must be waged with resolute efforts, but efforts that are kept strictly within the framework of our democratic society. This means reaching, educating and moving large enough groups of people of both races to stir the conscience of the nation.
Surely this last was very much on the mind of South Africa President Nelson Mandela as he constituted his nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1996.
In a Post-Ferguson America, where would Dr. King have us go?
King: Before we can make any progress, we must avoid retrogression—by doing everything in our power to avert further racial violence. To this end, there are three immediate steps that I would recommend. Firstly, it is mandatory that people of good will across America, particularly those who are in positions to wield influence and power, conduct honest, soul-searching analyses and evaluations of the environmental causes that spawn riots. All major industrial and ghetto areas should establish serious biracial discussions of community problems, and of ways to begin solving them. Instead of ambulance service, municipal leaders need to provide preventive medicine. Secondly, these communities should make serious efforts to provide work and training for unemployed youth, through job-and-training programs such as the HARYOU-ACT program in New York City. Thirdly, all cities concerned should make first-priority efforts to provide immediate quality education for Negro youth—instead of conducting studies for the next five years. Young boys and girls now in the ghettos must be enabled to feel that they count, that somebody cares about them; they must be able to feel hope. And on a longer-range basis, the physical ghetto itself must be eliminated, because these are the environmental conditions that germinate riots. It is both socially and morally suicidal to continue a pattern of deploring effects while failing to come to grips with the causes. Ultimately, law and order will be maintained only when justice and dignity are accorded impartially to all.
This next paragraph, which addresses charges of anti-Semitism, strikes a personal note with with me. Rabbi Lelyveld was the Rabbi Emeritus at my first temple here here in Cleveland and I was privileged to study with him on a number of occasions.
King: No, I do not believe that the riots could in any way be considered expressions of anti-Semitism. It’s true, as I was particularly pained to learn, that a large percentage of the looted stores were owned by our Jewish friends, but I do not feel that anti-Semitism was involved. A high percentage of the merchants serving most Negro communities simply happen to be Jewish. How could there be anti-Semitism among Negroes when our Jewish friends have demonstrated their commitment to the principle of tolerance and brotherhood not only in the form of sizable contributions, but in many other tangible ways, and often at great personal sacrifice? Can we ever express our appreciation to the rabbis who chose to give moral witness with us in St. Augustine during our recent protest against segregation in that unhappy city? Need I remind anyone of the awful beating suffered by Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld of Cleveland when he joined the civil rights workers there in Hattiesburg, Mississippi? And who can ever forget the sacrifice of two Jewish lives, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, in the swamps of Mississippi? It would be impossible to record the contribution that the Jewish people have made toward the Negro’s struggle for freedom—it has been so great.
I’d forgotten Dr. King’s correct position on school prayer.
Playboy: One of the most controversial issues of the past year, apart from civil rights, was the question of school prayer, which has been ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court. Governor Wallace, among others, has denounced the decision. How do you feel about it?
King: I endorse it. I think it was correct. Contrary to what many have said, it sought to outlaw neither prayer nor belief in God. In a pluralistic society such as ours, who is to determine what prayer shall be spoken, and by whom? Legally, constitutionally or otherwise, the state certainly has no such right. I am strongly opposed to the efforts that have been made to nullify the decision. They have been motivated, I think, by little more than the wish to embarrass the Supreme Court. When I saw Brother Wallace going up to Washington to testify against the decision at the Congressional hearings, it only strengthened my conviction that the decision was right.
My own first exposure to racism and racial politics would come when I read Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X in 1969. Only years later would I discover and read Haley’s interview with Dr. King. I have not re-read either in many years. For me, a whiter-that-white male growing up on the fringes of Appalachia, these two men are touchstones of what I understand about this world. My reading goal for this month is to revisit both works.
This meshes neatly with Admiral Hyman Rickover’s talk at Columbia University in 1982.
After a lifetime of work I conclude that what can be said about doing a job is hardly enough for one lecture, let alone an entire field of study. The key points of such a lecture I would summarize as follows:
Human experience shows that people, not organizations or management systems, get things done. For this reason subordinates must be given authority and responsibility early in their careers. In this way they develop quickly and can help the manager do his work. The manager, of course, remains ultimately responsible and must accept the blame if subordinates make mistakes.
As subordinates develop, work should be constantly added so that no one can finish his job. This serves as a prod and a challenge. It brings out their capabilities and frees the manager to assume added responsibilities. As members of the organization become capable of assuming new and more difficult duties, they develop pride in doing the job well. This attitude soon permeates the entire organization.
One must permit his people the freedom to seek added work and greater responsibility. In my organization, there are no formal job descriptions or organization charts. Responsibilities are defined in a general way, so that people are not circumscribed. All are permitted to do as they think best and to go to anyone and anywhere for help. Each person then is limited only by his own ability.
Complex jobs cannot be accomplished effectively with transients. Therefore, a manager must make the work challenging and rewarding so that his people will remain with the organization for many years. This allows it to benefit fully from their knowledge, experience, and corporate memory.
Playboy: As one who grew up in the economically comfortable, socially insulated environment of a middle-income home in Atlanta, can you recall when it was that you yourself first became painfully and personally aware of racial prejudice?
King: Very clearly. When I was 14, I had traveled from Atlanta to Dublin, Georgia, with a dear teacher of mine, Mrs. Bradley; she’s dead now. I had participated there in an oratorical contest sponsored by the Negro Elks. It turned out to be a memorable day, for I had succeeded in winning the contest. My subject, I recall, ironically enough, was “The Negro and the Constitution.” Anyway, that night, Mrs. Bradley and I were on a bus returning to Atlanta, and at a small town along the way, some white passengers boarded the bus, and the white driver ordered us to get up and give the whites our seats. We didn’t move quickly enough to suit him, so he began cursing us, calling us “black sons of bitches.” I intended to stay right in that seat, but Mrs. Bradley finally urged me up, saying we had to obey the law. And so we stood up in the aisle for the 90 miles to Atlanta. That night will never leave my memory. It was the angriest I have ever been in my life.
Dr. King’s Salt-Works moment…
Playboy: Do you still feel this way?
King: No, time has healed the wounds—and buoyed me with the inspiration of another moment which I shall never forget: when I saw with my own eyes over 3000 young Negro boys and girls, totally unarmed, leave Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church to march to a prayer meeting—ready to pit nothing but the power of their bodies and souls against Bull Connor’s police dogs, clubs and fire hoses. When they refused Connor’s bellowed order to turn back, he whirled and shouted to his men to turn on the hoses. It was one of the most fantastic events of the Birmingham story that these Negroes, many of them on their knees, stared, unafraid and unmoving, at Connor’s men with the hose nozzles in their hands. Then, slowly the Negroes stood up and advanced, and Connor’s men fell back as though hypnotized, as the Negroes marched on past to hold their prayer meeting. I saw there, I felt there, for the first time, the pride and the power of nonviolence.
Occupy Wall Street might have benefited greatly by taking on a similar set of aims:
Playboy: Is this the sole aim of your Southern Christian Leadership Conference?
King: We have five aims: first, to stimulate nonviolent, direct, mass action to expose and remove the barriers of segregation and discrimination; second, to disseminate the creative philosophy and techniques of nonviolence through local and area workshops; third, to secure the right and unhampered use of the ballot for every citizen; fourth, to achieve full citizenship rights, and the total integration of the Negro into American life; and fifth, to reduce the cultural lag through our citizenship training program.
Given advances in the rights of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Americans in the 21st Century, this passage from Dr. King gives me pause and makes me wonder what he would say if he were alive in 2015:
Playboy: Perhaps. But the kind of extremism for which you’ve been criticized has to do not with love, but with your advocacy of willful disobedience of what you consider to be “unjust laws.” Do you feel you have the right to pass judgment on and defy the law—nonviolently or otherwise?
King: Yes—morally, if not legally. For there are two kinds of laws: man’s and God’s. A man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God, is a just law. But a man-made code that is inharmonious with the moral law is an unjust law. And an unjust law, as St. Augustine said, is no law at all. Thus a law that is unjust is morally null and void, and must be defied until it is legally null and void as well.
Aaron McGrudder also has an opinion on how Dr. King might perceive and be perceived in the 21st Century.
If Dr. King could march in 2015, which side of the literal fence would he be on in Israel/Palestine?
My own first exposure to racism and racial politics would come when I read Alex Haley’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X in 1969. Only years later would I discover and read Haley’s interview with Dr. King. I have not re-read either in many years. For me, a whiter-that-white male growing up on the fringes of Appalachia, these two men are touchstones of what I understand about this world. My reading goal for this month is to revisit both works.
Richard Marshall interviewed Alfred Mele for 3:AM Magazine on the $4.4 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to get to the bottom of the question of Free Will. This is a question that has always fascinated me because of the implications I perceive there for our society. What follows is the core of the argument for me
AM: Why does Gazzaniga sell our mental life short? Perhaps because he is overly impressed by some of the experiments he discusses—well known experiments by Benjamin Libet and more recent work by Chun Siong Soon and colleagues. I discussed Libet’s work at length in my 2009 book, but a 2008 Nature Neuroscience article by Soon and colleagues was published while the book was in press; and because I did not discuss it there, I continue to get e-mail messages about it. I’ll say something about that article here.
On the basis of brain activity as measured by blood flow, Soon and colleagues were able to predict with 60% accuracy about seven seconds in advance of a button press whether a person would press the button on the left or the button on the right. People were supposed to decide on a button and then press it straightaway. They all did this many times, knowing that nothing hinged on which button they pressed.
What does the early brain activity at issue signify? Perhaps just an unconscious bias toward a particular button. In any case, there is no reason to prefer either button over the other. So if the person were asked why he pressed the left button this time, he should say something like “I just randomly picked it, because I’m following your instructions.” Because there is no place in the experiment for conscious reflection about which button to press, there is no place for an explanation of the button pressing in terms of conscious reasons for pressing it. The same general point applies to Libet’s studies; his subjects are arbitrarily picking a moment to begin flexing a wrist.
In the case of my selecting an exit row seat, things are very different. I know I have a reason – a good one – to select such a seat rather than an ordinary seat in coach. And because I do, I consciously look on line for an open seat in an exit row. By the way, given what I have told you, you can predict with close to 100% accuracy what I will try to do next time I buy a coach seat on a long flight; and you have achieved this degree of accuracy for free, just by consciously attending to what I wrote.
Slightly deeper into the interview, Mele is brought back to Soon’s work:
3:AM: Can you tell me a bit more about the 2008 study by Soon and colleagues?
AM: Sure. Soon and coauthors write: “we found that two brain regions encoded with high accuracy whether the subject was about to choose the left or right response prior to the conscious decision.” They report that “the predictive neural information . . . preceded the conscious motor decision by up to 10 [seconds].” Science writer Elsa Youngsteadt (in ‘Case Closed for Free Will,’ ScienceNOW Daily News, April 14, 2008) represented these results as suggesting that “the unconscious brain calls the shots, making free will an illusory afterthought.”
In this study, as I mentioned, the encoding accuracy actually is only about 60% (50% being chance, of course). Using only a fair coin, I can predict with 50% accuracy which button a participant will press next. And if the person agrees not to press a button for a minute (or an hour), I can make my predictions a minute (or an hour) in advance. I come out ten points worse in accuracy, but I win big on the matter of time. An interesting issue here is what is in fact indicated by the neural activity that Soon and colleagues measure. My money is on a slight unconscious bias toward a particular button on the next go – a bias that may contribute to the participant’s having about a 60% chance of pressing that button next. In any case, the threat to free will here is an illusion.
Are genetically modified foods safe to eat? Are humans mostly to blame for climate change? Should vaccines be required? Scientists overwhelmingly answer “yes” to all questions. But the American people don’t agree, according to a survey of thousands of scientists and adults in the United States. Lee Rainie of the Pew Research Center unpacks the results, while Tim O’Brien of the University of Evansville talks about how religious adults view science.
Given the large divide between scientists and the public, is it possible to shift public opinion on controversial scientific issues? Michael LaCour of UCLA discusses his work on changing voters’ minds about LGBT issues, and whether a similar tactic might work for scientific issues.
This debate isn’t new. For example, in this archival clip from SciFri in 2008, infectious disease specialist Paul Offit talks to a caller about whether or not vaccines can harm children.
The whole show was good, but I particularly enjoyed—shook my head over—the bit pulled from the archives.
The story of Gulet Mohamed is in no way humorous, but yet when I read about how we, the voting citizens of the United States have allowed our elected government, and the those they employ, to secretly exile Gulet, my mind leapt back to 1978 and Dean Wormer’s office.
In late December 2010, 18-year-old Somali-American Gulet Mohamed was detained in Kuwait without charges and tortured, almost certainly at the behest of U.S. officials. Through a cellphone smuggled into the detention camp by another inmate, Gulet was able to call me and New York Times reporter Mark Mazzetti and recount what happened; that morning, we both published articles reporting on the detention, and (with Gulet’s consent) I published the recording of the 50-minute call I had with him, showing him in extreme distress as he described his ordeal.
After Kuwaiti officials concluded they had no cause to detain him, the teenager was told that he would be deported back to the U.S. as soon as his family presented a plane ticket. Once they did that, he was taken to the airport, only to be told by United Airlines that he was barred from boarding the plane because he had recently been placed by the U.S. Government (in secret, with no hearing or explanation) on the no-fly list. In other words – as has happened many times before to American Muslims – Gulet’s own government secretly exiled him with no due process by placing him on a no-fly list while he was traveling overseas. Only after a stand-off with the Kuwaitis did the U.S. Government issue a one-time waiver to allow him to fly back to the U.S. He remains on the no-fly list.
Why is Gulet’s story relevant five years later?
Once back in the U.S., Gulet—who, to this day, has never been charged with a crime—sued the U.S. Government for violation of his constitutional rights, a case that challenges not just Gulet’s specific treatment but the no-fly process itself. The federal judge presiding over the lawsuit, Bush-43-appointee Anthony Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia, issued a series of rulings demonstrating clear skepticism about the DOJ’s arguments in defense of the no-fly system. As my Intercept colleague Cora Currier reported in October, Judge Trenga rejected the DOJ’s argument that what was done to Gulet was a “state secret” and therefore could not be adjudicated by any court, thus ensuring the case would be fully heard.
As Gulet’s lawyer, Gadeir Abbas, told The Intercept last night, Judge Trenga has repeatedly signaled serious concern about the no-fly system, including asking why less restrictive means (e.g., subjecting suspects to greater airport security scrutiny, putting air marshals on their planes) couldn’t be used. The judge has also written eloquently about the substantial degradation and harm that comes to someone barred by their own government from boarding an airplane, with no charges to contest and no real process to challenge the prohibition.
One of the most important hearings yet in this case – the argument on the DOJ’s motion for summary judgment – was long-scheduled to take place this morning in Judge Trenga’s Virginia courtroom. Yesterday, the FBI suddenly announced—via Twitter, a specially made YouTube video, and a dramatic posting on its site—that Gulet’s older brother, Liban, has now been named to the agency’s Most Wanted List as its “New Most Wanted Terrorist.”
How convenient for the Bush-Obama Security Scheme…
In the 1980’s a high-ranking Marine Corps officer told me of a plan to deploy his Marines across a line (I seem to recall that the line was 65th Street, but I could easily be wrong on that detail) isolating upper Manhattan in case of large-scale civil unrest.
New York City Police commissioner Bill Bratton’s new 350-officer strong Strategic Response Group isn’t a Marine Corps battalion. The SRG is worse.
The creation of a new counter-terrorism unit within the NYPD, which will be armed with “machine guns” and tasked with policing protests as well as guarding the city against any terrorist threat, has drawn heavy criticism from legal groups and police reform advocates.
Police commissioner Bill Bratton announced a new 350-officer strong Strategic Response Group (SRG) on Thursday along with a raft of police reforms including equipping more officers with Tasers and body-worn cameras.
Bratton said the unit was “designed for dealing with events like our recent protests, or incidents like Mumbai or what just happened in Paris”.
He added that the SRG would be “equipped and trained in ways our normal patrol officers are not”, given “extra protective gear, the long rifles, machine guns, as is unfortunately necessary sometimes in these instances”.
The response from those expected to be the target of Bratton’s private Delta Force, are justifiably outraged.
The remarks drew criticism from reform advocates and legal groups, who accused Bratton of comparing recent non-violent Black Lives Matter protests in the city with terrorist attacks abroad.
“The comparison of Black Lives Matter and other large protests to violent terrorist attacks is an outrage and an insult to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been marching across the country against racism and for police reform,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the executive director of the Partnership For Civil Justice Fund, a legal group representing hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge in 2011.
“Thousands have marched in a massive civil rights movement demanding police reform, and the NYPD has decided to respond to the community instead by arming the police with machine guns,” she continued.
The recent wave of demonstrations against police brutality across the US saw thousands take to the streets of New York City. The protesters shut down a number of major roadways at the height of the movement in December.
Clearly, Bratton’s masters are not interested in fighting fictitious terrorists, but rather in preventing the rabble from disturbing their 1 percent lifestyle.
In one recent experiment, by the Harvard Business School researchers Ryan Buell and Michael Norton, people using a flight-search site actually preferred waiting 60 seconds over getting instant results, provided they got to look at what appeared to be a running tally of the tasks being executed. This may also be why some voice-recognition customer service lines use prerecorded “typing” sound effects, to make it seem as if your details are being laboriously entered. Sadly, the notion that cashpoints use a similarly fake “whirring” sound when dispensing money appears to be a myth – but a pleasing one that, consequently, I intend to help promulgate.
To Buell and Norton, this is an argument for “transparency”—for businesses letting customers see their inner workings. But it’s as easy to see it as an argument for a certain dishonesty. If you want to charge more for your services as a plumber or web designer, consider pretending you need more time than you do, then issue regular updates, genuine or otherwise, on the effort you’re expending. It’s also an argument for staying aware of when we might fall for the illusion ourselves. If you’re a manager, do you reward “hard workers” and those who “give their all” with promotions and pay rises? That’s often how it works. But it’s not obvious why how much of themselves someone gives—as opposed to what they deliver—is any of your business.
Oliver Burkeman writing in This column will change your life: the labour illusion for The Guardian.
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