In a book by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, two UK researchers present an impressive amount of data to show that, essentially, social responsibility and a sense of obligation to the welfare of other human beings is a requirement of good society.

Not a new idea you say?  Of course not. Necessary to speak it nonetheless.

For a good review/interview, go here. And don’t miss the comments. Some of them are delightfully Heilbrunnian.

I read an article in The National Interest about Germany. It struck me a a bit odd and so I forwarded it to my German daughter-in-law for her take.  To put a kind face on it, we agreed that it was all about point of view. Then a few days later she sent me this map. Oh yes, this is exactly the situation.

To say that The National Interest is a conservative news source is a bit of an understatement. It was founded by Irving Kristol after all. The writer of this particular article, Jacob Heilbrunn, has a blog at The Huffington Post, that favourite of Pharyngula.

Here’s a quote from Heilbrunn’s article.

In other words, Vauban, for the most part, epitomizes how Germany would like to be seen abroad—enlightened, progressive, reflective, pleasant and virtuous. And, in many ways, it reflects the tamed and docile West Germany that England, France and America hoped would emerge after World War II.

Rather a nice example of textual inversion (perhaps textual subversion? textural inversion?). What is not said here is far more important that what is. The two sentences at once remind us of Germany’s ferocious past and its danger to us and at the same time suggest its emasculation. They “would like to be seen” next to “tamed and docile.” Nice. It generates a nest of common (but not very mature or reasonable) feelings, an emotional texture, which like the map, says south is the new north.

Here’s another gem:

Gregor Gysi, who has just stepped down as one of the chairmen of The Left, managed the party’s reinvention by grabbing hold of economic and foreign-policy issues. A clever and sinuous rhetorician, as an attorney he represented clients requesting an exit visa from the national prison known as East Germany.

A “clever and sinuous rhetorician?” Lovely. Bring in the snake and every right-thinking American knows exactly who Gysi claims as “Father” for the Fatherland. And the “national prison known as East Germany” – well, not as subtle as the snake reference but I don’t think subtle was the point.

Here’s a quote about Germany from a US government site (Department of State).

Despite persistence of some structural rigidities in the labor market and extensive government regulation, the economy remains strong and internationally competitive. Although production costs are very high, Germany is still an export powerhouse, and unit labor costs have decreased in the last decade. Additionally, Germany is strategically placed to take advantage of the rapidly growing central European countries. The current government has addressed some of the country’s structural problems, with important tax, social security, and financial sector reforms.

“Despite”? Perhaps it is an “export powerhouse” because of the social security net provided the citizens? Perhaps the economic debacle in the US might be partly blamed upon the social unrest within its borders? Could we call the US an “import powerhouse?”

Here’s an interesting tidbit from the CIA files. German unemployment is said to be at 8.20% for 2009. The United States is said to be at 9.4%. Hmmmmm.

And the percentage of the population below the poverty line? Germany 11% the US 12%.

(If you’re interested in German economic stats try here.)

So, I’m losing my cool. Let me just backstep for a moment and say this is about point of view. We need to be careful reading things, thinking things through. We all have a history which guides us in our interpretations. Germany 11% – US 12%. What this really seems to say is that despite rather large ideological differences between Merkel and Heilbrunn, and the represented National policies, the outcome is pretty much the same. The big difference is how the people feel about it and what happens to those human beings when they lose their jobs. In Germany the government steps up to help. In the US this is not something one can take for granted – there really are people who get told “sorry, you’re on your own”.

I am going to close with another quote from Heilbrunn.

Instead of resembling the martial country of yore, then, Germany has begun to reach even further back into its history, mirroring the provincial and musty duchies of the eighteenth century that vexed the German romantics who preached unification and national greatness. It has achieved the first, but it’s no longer interested in the latter for itself or, indeed, for Europe.

So if we are going to back in history for a national snapshot of contemporary intent, what is Heilbrunn advocating? A return to the policies (human and economic) that led to the American civil war? In that case “unification and greatness” came because the powerhouse of the conservative was beaten in war. I suspect this wasn’t what Heilbrunn was thinking of when he brought up the return to history spiel.

Some Americans have a oddly romantic attachment to the slave-states (and their economic and social policies) and with that romanticism, a rather inverted perspective. I mean, there are still people who think slavery a good worker procurement program, but Heilbrunn? Surely not.

Those beaten southern states wanted to control the destiny of the Nation and it seems to me a good thing that they didn’t get the chance to take plantation economics to the world stage. Surely Heilbrunn doesn’t intend Dixie to win this time? Can you imagine the results?

I was browsing videos at wimp.com and came across the one about Mayor McCallion. As videos go it’s funny and fun to watch, but given the size of the woman’s achievement, it seems ever so slightly patronizing.  Sort of like palling around with Stephen Hawking and casually mentioning (while patting him on the back) that he’s said some interesting things about the skies.

I don’t know if it’s the Mayor’s age and gender, her general demeanor or what but anyone who has gotten herself elected to such a normally contentious position repeatedly and without break since 1978 probably deserves a bit more of an in depth look and a little less of the cutsey hockey photo ops. For example, they could have mentioned the whole “transparency” issue with respect to city finances along with the city’s debt free position and how this might be a model for other government bodies. It might also have mentioned that Mississauga tends to have a strong immigrant population (11.4%) compared to the City of Brampton in the same region (9.93%) and interestingly Mississauga sits at 5.78% versus the City of Brampton at 8.73% when comparing the members of the population 25 and more years of age with less than a grade 9 education. It’s interesting that the city and region are more or less comparable with the unemployment rate at 6.5% for Mississauga and Brampton at 6.6% and the entire region (Peel) at 6.4%. (Stats here.) The national unemployment rate, for comparison purposes, is at 8.3%. In Vancouver, whose mayoral history is not so stable or so uncontested, the unemployment rate is predicted to be 8.0% for the period between February 7 and March 13 2010.

Mayor McCallion has not incurred  debt, has kept her city on par with others in her region and has demonstrated a concern for future growth and development consistent with the needs of a energy troubled planet and urban areas with increasing population numbers and needs. It seems to me that this level of achievement requires a bit more sober attention. To be fair, I suppose since the Mercer video has reached 2 million hits perhaps some political writer out there will have been caught by its unaddressed implications and look into it. I would really like to know what kind of power she exerts to have been able to achieve such tremendous victories, and that is what they are.

But really, the pat-on-the-head tone, do you think that was deliberate or just possible because of her age and gender? Am I the only one annoyed by the vid?

Someone from work sent me this. I found my self laughing. Of course it’s not really funny, but sometimes that’s all you can do.

From The Daily Dish

This came from The Daily Beast. It is a clear and, I think, a sensible attitude to take about human cultural difference. The reason being that nuclear armaments in the hands of people who 1) deny the holocaust and 2) don’t think Israel should exist, seems a bit like giving a known serial killer a free pass amongst his favourite prey. Such things should not be tolerated. When deciding these kinds of things, you are being asked to make a decision between the killer and his intended victims as well as between different possibilities for your own future. I mean if deniers start waging war based on their own delusions, you might just get caught in the deluge. Whether or not to tolerate something is a decision that has long-term consequences; it is a decision that has to me made over and over.

All questions of tolerance are decided with these kinds of repeated choices. In Maine the U.S. is now zero for 31 in being able to tolerate human rights being given to a minority group. Does this group carry bombs? Does it deny the Holocaust? Does it want to deny the existence of a nation full of people? No. You know what they want? What they are being denied? The right to marry.

Deeply threatening, I’m sure.

It’s almost as if the group of citizens in the US that just denied some Maine citizens the right to marry wants to deny the fact that, although these particular minority persons walk and talk like people, it’s as if this group of voters who just defeated Maine’s Gay Marriage Initiative wants to deny, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that, in fact, these particular minority persons are in fact people. I mean who else would be silly enough to want something like marriage or to have your state and fellow citizens formally recognize you as people? Only human beings like us are that silly. Maybe the US could stop denying the reality?

Tolerance must be limited, but it might be best to limit it with attention to what is in fact the case.

Two things prompted this post. The first is a good article called the Pandemic of Fear by Michael Specter and the second is an old CBS video going around about Judy Roberts and her neurological damage following the swine flu vaccination she received in 1976.

Then I ran across this offensive bit of misinformation about the nature of vaccination. It says, for example, “it is absurd to give a disease to a healthy person in order to prevent the same disease. It is like giving a child a small rape in order to prepare her/him for a possibly bigger rape later.” I mean really! It really says that.

I mean if the author can’t tell the difference between a virus and a rapist he/she is in big trouble.  It also shows such incredible basic ignorance of how immunization works that apart from the possibility of a seriously low IQ, the only thing that really makes sense is that either the person knows better and is using our penchant for irrationality for some unknown personal reason or the person has been raised inside a cult/cave.

Here’s an example of this same kind of “thinking.” (Imagine a news anchor speaking in horrified tones) – “The vaccine in 1976 caused more deaths (4000 of the 46,000,000 million people vaccinated – that’s 0.008% of the population by the way) than the epidemic itself!”  Gee. That’s terrible. That means we didn’t need the vaccinations. Right?

What is left unsaid is that maybe the low death toll was because the vaccine worked just fine for the other 99.992 % of the population.

Here’s a question: if you had a 99.992% chance of winning the lottery would you buy the ticket? If there was an 0.008% chance that someone would break both your legs as a consequence would you still buy it? Probably is my guess.

Do vaccines bear risks? Sure. Do diseases bear far, far greater risks? For sure.

Am I going to be vaccinated? Yes.

Am I worried? About 0.008% of me is worried. (I am 66 inches tall. That means about half an inch of me is worried.) I’ll probably get over it pretty quick.

There. Done.

There is a rather good article on Ayn Rand called Mrs. Logic at NYmag.com. The author, Sam Anderson, is an admitted ex-devotee but he keeps a careful path in the article between the good and the bad. It’s hard to do with people like Ayn Rand.

What strikes me about human lone wolves – people like Ayn Rand and Christopher McCandless – is not so much them, but their followers.  I mean there will always be those who are mad hatters.  The world is very hard on some of us, and sometimes we simply cannot cope with what happens.  Rand’s terrible childhood, McCandless’ schizophrenia, these are things that made them what they were, and because of what they were – the madness, the intelligence and the ferocious desire – they became our mad hatters.
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On the second night of my recent hospital stay I was in a double room with a curtain divider for privacy. My roommate was a man, soon to be discharged, that had come in with a shattered arm. He was leaving with the arm still in a sling, but it would be one that would be useable once the healing had completed.

The thing is the taxpayers paid for it all. He has nada. Never has either. He has, by the sound of his conversations, lived on the street, or on welfare his entire life.  On top of that, he’s an alcoholic and dependent on prescription drugs so rather than deal with withdrawals, the nursing staff had been instructed to give him four shots of whiskey a day, evenly spaced out.
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Jeff Dunham tells some pretty dangerous jokes – ones based on religion, sex, politics – using the mouth of his puppets. And it works. This is really, really funny. Coming out of the bony mouth of Achmed the Terrorist, jokes about being a Jew, about being Catholic have the sting that make humor such a powerful tool in the reshaping of social and conceptual life. We can accept the reexamination of strongly held social beliefs from a puppet long enough to get a glimpse of another view, that of another possible world – one, in this case, where terrorists and other religious fanatics are not something to battle in the silent dark of a social nightmare, but rather something to battle in the light of the love of life and the enjoyment of each other. And while jokes like Achmed’s do sting, and you feel that it has taken you perilously close to that cliff of divisiveness, when Jeff then pulls us back, there is a shared surge of survival-joy that makes the adrenaline rush even more enjoyable.

What makes this all work is that he poking fun at terrorists – that thing that had been used to scare us into foreign and domestic policy submission for 8 very long years. The bit in the clip below about the 72 virgins is howlingly funny, but even more important it takes the terrifying unknown and reduces it to something that seems just silly and therefore manageable. This is one very important societal function of humor. Now, every time I see a picture of bin Laden, I know I am going to see Achmed the Terrorist’s bony little face flash up against this dude’s image in my imagination. That is a good thing.

I am definitely going to watch more of Jeff Dunham and his puppets.