Happy Birthday, B3x

Bex will be (or is already, depending on how long this takes to see the light) 17 and I find it distressing that spending time with me/us has become more a duty than a source of pleasure or enjoyment. A far cry from the 3-year old who introduced me at the pool as, “And this is my best friend, Grandpa.” Or the kid who took my hand as we explored together.

This, despite my obvious charm, wit, love, support, intelligence, all those qualities I’ve tried to mindfully manifest to become the grandpa I (think I) always wanted, not just for myself but for my own daughter. We don’t have a legacy of superior grandfather models in this family (not bad, mind you, just nothing particularly close or enviable).

 

And I channel the Martina McBride song, “At 17 she’s just like me so I don’t blame her.” I didn’t want to be around adults either at that age, and the lack of proximity (living in Belgium) made that an easier task. Also, not really “just like me.” Kids today have much more freedom of self-expression (a good thing, IMO) than we did 60 years ago, plus I was not even within shouting distance of Bex’s expression and sense of self (of which I now realize I had none). #clueless

 

It does help (some) that I know it’s nothing personal. Anecdote: “She was so mad she actually came out of her room!” The cause of that “mad” actually offers me hope because while we rarely converse, Bex, Nicci & I do the daily WORDLE and share our results via text every day we play (which, of course, is every day for me). In addition to that interaction, as limited as it is, I do get the occasional ❤️ reaction to a text I randomly send on topics (I actively curate my offerings) I hope Bex might find interesting, humorous, or entertaining. I even got one today for my “Happy Birthday Eve” text greeting. (Sent in the WORDLE group thread, to be sure she’d see it.)

 

So I’ve become the texting Grandpa and while that is not the fantasy relationship I envisioned and hoped for, it’s (going to have to be) enough for now, while they find their way and their own path to authenticity — another journey where Bex has a huge head start over me. 

 

Even though it may be years (if ever) before you see this, Happy 17th birthday, Bex. Know you are, have been, and will always be loved beyond measure, that I am astounded and proud of the person you’re becoming, that we will always be there for you. May that love, along with your parents’, be the safety net you (we all) need as you traverse the uncharted road ahead that is life.

What Does Your Doctor Say?

I recently shared an Axios story (click for link) — only one of every three Americans believe the published death statistics for the current pandemic. To my way of thinking, that in itself is concerning – trust is clearly in short supply. It is even more concerning to me that our distrust is fueled and magnified by our political beliefs. In short, lefties think the numbers are too low while righties think they’re inflated. 

An expanded reply to a response re: that article follows. Because I think the reply has some merit on its own, I edited it and gave it its own blog entry. As I mentioned in the original post, the article ought to give anyone pause, although not necessarily hope. 

“My takeaway from this article is that it had absolutely nothing to do with which side is right or wrong, because it’s irrelevant (to the article). My takeaway is that perception is trumping reality and what people believe is based, for two-thirds of the populace, on 1) where they sit on the political spectrum and 2) where they get their news, offering conclusive evidence that people don’t believe what they hear and/or see, rather they see/hear what they believe.

As for me, I’m trusting the advice of MY doctor (if I don’t trust him, I need a new doctor), to whom I pay a lot of money, not some “expert” on cable news or You Tube or Facebook. I wonder how many of the people sharing memes, supporting protests, posting articles or videos, have actually consulted THEIR DOCTORS?

I think that’s going to be my standard response: What does your doctor say?

My doctor says it’s too soon to know anything for sure, because this crisis is unlike anything we’ve experienced before. He says it’s too soon to stop being careful and smart; neither is it wise to stop trusting science. Yes, I talked to him directly, personally, after he responded to my email with a phone call and 15-minute conversation. Additionally, he suggested that the CDC, Dr. Fauci, and even Gov. Cuomo are worth listening to; that letting other people be the guinea pigs who test the safety of dine-in restaurants is probably a smart strategy;* and that he felt safe in agreeing that cancelling our cruise this summer was the right call, although other travel this summer might be considered, given new safety protocols.

“You can’t eliminate all risk, you can’t shut the country down for the next 18 months; you can use common sense.”

We also concurred that while common sense, like trust, is, and has been, in short supply for quite some time, far too many people who think they have it, don’t.

* Carry-out to support your favorite eateries is very low risk, however. That is what we're doing to keep our favorites alive until the time when WE feel it's safe to start dining out again. That will be OUR call (after consulting OUR doctor), no matter the decision of any politicians to open up the economy based on some arbitrary, but politically motivated, date.

Random Observations: COVID-19 & Social Media

• Yes, the media “awfulizes” the news. That, in and of itself, is also not news and has been around since even before the yellow journalism of Hearst and Pulitzer over a century ago. And if you pretend that Fox, Breitbart, NewsMax and other right-wing outlets don’t do the same thing as the so-called MSM, then we’re both wasting our time here.

• While Dr. Drew Pinsky is a media personality MD, his specialty is opioid treatment, not infectious disease. Which is why, though I’m a professional, certified, accredited (albeit retired) teacher, I’d urge you not to put a whole lot of stock in my opinions about teaching mathematics or science. Neither am I holding my breath waiting for Dr. Oz to weigh in on this.

• There’s a difference between mortality rates and deaths. You have to do the math, though. A 2% mortality rate, which I’ve seen dismissed as no big deal by some, is 40 times the rate of regular flu (.05%). The death numbers are smaller because the number infected is smaller – so far.

• 2% means 2 out of every 100. I’ve seen dismissive posts about that number. “No big deal” unless it’s someone you care about who’s infected. Because early statistics can skew toward the severe, even if it’s 1% (and it Italy it’s apparently climbing toward double digits), if that one (1) is your parent or grandparent or someone else you love….

• Neither the Democrat Party nor President Trump is responsible for this outbreak; however, both ARE responsible for helping our country navigate its way through what must be now recognized as a crisis. I also do think a monotonal litany of anti-science, anti-intellectual tweets and statements is, and has not been, helpful, either specifically in this case or in general.

Propaganda Wars

One Like Click Begets Another

I have really come to hate memes, especially political memes. This is not a new feeling, but the election cycle has helped my antipathy bubble to the surface more easily of late. They are frequently mean-spirited and almost always the enemy of critical thinking. Wherever you fall on the political spectrum matters not. We all have our own life stories that have brought us to how we perceive our world. But having a world view, wherever it may fit on the political spectrum, does not excuse us from actually thinking and examining, examining critically, the propaganda we put out there in the hope, however vain, that we will influence someone else.

You can be, and quite possibly are, both the purveyor and victim in these social media propaganda wars. Let’s say you “like” or “share” a post from some site (Fox News, Breitbart, “End the Fed,” on one side or MSNBC, Occupy Democrats and the misnamed but clearly partisan “Non-Partisan Report” on the other, just to name a few). It doesn’t mean there’s no truth in the breathless story or meme, but propaganda is just a partial truth – and that truth has its own agenda. 

Blindly clicking, sharing, reposting, without actually checking the facts or to see if there is another side, does two things. First, it ensures that anyone who is not already in the choir will start tuning you out. It may seem counterintuitive, but if you’re a parent, or teacher, you already know that constantly yelling at people, and most of this stuff is no more than yelling, results in less listening and more tuning out. There are several names that pop up on my Facebook newsfeed that I barely even bother to look at anymore because it’s the same old, same old. Even if there is value to what is being posted, I guarantee I won’t see it because I stopped listening 643 posts ago. 

The second thing it does is to establish you as a target for even more posts like the one you just shared, liked, or reposted, miring you more firmly in a quagmire of your echo chamber, and in some cases the conspiracy rabbit hole. Once there, it becomes almost impossible to climb out, to start thinking for yourself, to critically analyze information, because all you’re being fed is variations of the same meal. That’s not healthy, either literally or figuratively. It certainly discourages the very important question, “What if I’m wrong?” And that is a question which needs to be asked much more frequently, not less, in the future.

Examining Greatness

Sometime Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, people are going to be unhappy with the outcome of the presidential election. Over half of the electorate, in fact.

I confess I don’t know what “Make America Great Again” means. I guess my key questions are, “If we are no longer great, when were we great? When did we start becoming great? Is there a year or event that marks our retreat from greatness? When we were great were things great for everyone, or even almost everyone?” My father thought the 50's were great, but then he was a white male working in corporate America, successfully navigating a path upward through the large group of people who comprised the middle class. I tried to remind him that the time that was great for him wasn’t necessarily that great for everyone. Kind of like my brother who, every Thanksgiving, opines, “Ham, probably the perfect food.” To which I always add, “Unless, of course, you’re Muslim or Jewish.” He response is a shrug. If it’s not his problem, it can’t possibly be a problem, right?

Back in the 1980s I felt lonely and isolated as the Reagan Revolution ushered in a decade of conservatism. I was who the polls said I was, the minority opinion. I said that if you wanted to predict the outcome of an election, find out who I was supporting and pick the other candidate. Of course, Reagan conservatism didn’t resemble anything like what ideologically conservative purists of today envision for the country; I didn’t like the direction he wanted to push the country (backward, IMO), but he recognized that he was the leader of a diverse nation and that slow movement, based on compromise and statesmanship, was not just the proper course, but the only course.

For better or worse, depending upon your POV, he succeeded in his big picture goals and slowed, but certainly did not stop, the progressive (fine, leftward) drift of the country. President Reagan spoke Conservative (and to conservatives) but was, at his core, a centrist, as were his successors, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. At the risk of underestimating him, if George W. Bush had philosophical position, I could never figure it out. He struck me as something of a puppet of the neocons, especially in terms of foreign policy, rather than his own man. Despite the rantings of the alt-right, Barack Obama has also been a centrist. (Center always looks farther to the left or right than it really is if your POV is left or right.)

Hilary Clinton is many things (and if you don’t recognize that your own biases, one way or the other, fuel your perception, why are you even reading this?), but will be, if elected, a centrist. I admit that I do not understand Donald Trump, politically or any other way, because his positions on issues have been all over the map from year to year, decade to decade. His current supporters’ rationalization that he is somehow now a conservative conveniently ignores history. Should he be elected, I would expect a similar roller coaster ride, and not just in the stock market. I do worry that he could tilt the Supreme Court in a direction that sees the past through rose-colored glasses. That alone may be enough to have you vote for or against him. It’s enough for me to oppose him, but there’s more that I might share on my decision in the next day or two. Or not, because I’m not trying to change minds as much as clarify my own thinking.

A Skeptic's Definition of Politics

Or is it a cynic’s definition? Or a realist’s? Or maybe just a pragmatist’s?

“Politics is like sausage. The more you know what goes into it, the less you want to eat it.” That is an old, old adage, (and included as one of the shocking, big revelations from a Wikileaked speech by Hillary Clinton to the Wall Street crowd) but one that has certainly retained, if not enhanced, its credibility as the years roll (roil?) on.

Instead of that analogy, however, allow me to offer a skeptic’s definition of politics: Politics is the art (and science) of using power and self-interest to reward friends, punish enemies, ideally with the goal of benefitting your constituents by solving their problems (too often even if they don’t know or think it’s a problem, or at least their problem). However, it cannot be denied that power will always be intrinsically linked to money. To think that electing any candidate to any office anywhere will magically effect a sea change ignores mountains of evidence going back millennia and represents little more than a delusional pipe dream.

We can debate how big the self-interest piece is, and where it fits in both the big and small picture, but it is naïve to fail to recognize its importance. The day of the selfless public servant is long gone, if it ever existed after the Founders (and not even all of them, either). To think anyone works or acts against their own self-interest borders on the absurd. No one who runs for president (of anything) will pursue courses of action that damage his/her personal, economic, or social standing, no matter how much of an outsider or reformer s(he) claims to be.

Please note, this definition fits more than the government sphere; it applies to the workplace, social groups, schools, even families (although good parents at least try to sublimate their interests to those of their children). [See the Berndt Power Theory for more on this.]

I would suggest that the manufactured outrage to those actions (by others) is either politically opportunistic, hypocritical (and hypocrisy in the political arena is a bi-partisan beast with centuries-old roots), disingenuous or even downright dishonest, or any, all of the above, or more. While I am not trying to excuse it, politics is practiced by human beings programmed to protect their self-interests. I don’t see how that system (and it's as true under Putin as it would be under Trump or Clinton) can or will change as long as it’s other human beings trying to make those changes.

If that fits your definition of corrupt, I cannot and will not argue with you. But I will argue that corruption is often in the eye of the beholder and that no candidate or office holder is immune from that charge. Although I have no argument that we deserve better, should demand better, my realistic view of human nature suggests we are unlikely to get better. While your/our agreement or disagreement with the political positions of any office (power) holder does not make him or her either more or less corrupt, it does reinforce the perception you/we already have of that person.

Have the Clinton and Trump Foundations used their wealth and connections to power to benefit themselves and the causes they favor? Have they used their power and influence to attract supporters to their foundations? Have they used their power to attract donors and money and thereby increase their own influence (in other words, more power; should Donald Trump be the next president do you really expect the influence of his foundation to  diminish–or grow)? Of course, because power unused is like a muscle – it atrophies and, perhaps more importantly to its political practitioners, ebbs from the vacuum to someone else who will use it for their own benefit. Power begets power as money begets money. Move along, nothing new here, nothing to see, no surprises.

I would ask that we all recognize that the perception of corruption is directly tied to our perception of a candidate, up to a point, of course. (Dennis Hastert leaps to mind, as does William Jefferson.) Two things to consider. The first thing is the “stink test.” If the same accusations were leveled at someone we liked and supported, would our outrage reach the same level? Not an easy answer, because it’s often hypothetical, so it is easy to emphatically say “Absolutely!” Second, consider the source, always. What does the accuser (or spreader of accusations) have to gain? It is unlikely that gain is solely “justice” or honesty. Like politicians, we act in our own self-interest, and that self-interest colors our perception. That applies to politics of every stripe and on every level.

Did the Clintons use their political influence to build their wealth and power? Of course. Is that corrupt, or just politics the way we practice it in the United States? Are they any different than Rex Sinquefield, the Koch brothers, the Bush family, George Soros, the Kennedys…. It’s a long, long list. What do you think will happen to the IRS audits of Donald Trump should he be elected president? Is the fact that a large percentage of the so-called personal money he has “donated” to his campaign has been used to pay bills submitted by companies that he owns in whole or in part, companies that serviced his campaign, corrupt? Or, if you’re a Trumpeter, just smart business? It’s all in the eye of the beholder.

Do I wish our system was more honorable? Do I wish our office holders were as self-sacrificing as George Washington (while noting that he was possibly one of the richest, if not the richest man in the country by the time his political career ended)? Of course almost all of us want that. But even if the president himself (or herself) is completely “honest” in the strictest sense of the word (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Barak Obama were all personally honest as far as we know, IMO), how many of those past presidents have been used or sabotaged by people they trusted? Because, as long as money is flowing, there will be people using their positions to ensure it flows their direction. And that, my friends, like it or not, is the American political system. Whoever wins on November 8 will change that not one iota.