Reparations for Black Americans?

REPARATIONS FOR ALL!

Renewed calls for the U.S. to admit its guilt in the whole issue of enslaving Africans, and to pay some form of reparations to the descendants of American slaves, come up from time to time by one group or another. Surely these would be cleansing acts, as well as a way to improve African-Americans’ self-esteem. Acknowledging culpability is a necessary step in the long process of mending the immense damage done to the collective black psyche in America. And it is only fair that blacks in the U.S. should be compensated for the incalculable role their ancestors played in making this country the wealthy superpower it is today – we are told.

What is missing in all of this, however, is some understanding of historical reality and perspective. Most informed folks know that black Africans themselves, in capturing and selling other Africans, played a role in the slavery issue that is probably as heinous as the roles played by the Europeans and Americans. But even more importantly, we can’t just blame Africans (or whites) without realizing that this all occurred in a much different time. The slave trade that brought Africans to the U.S. in the 17^th-19^th centuries came after millennia of worldwide, indiscriminate enslavement. For as far back as we have written records, men have enslaved one another (and women and children too) – sometimes for money, but more often as a result of war.

Babylonians enslaved Israelites, Persians enslaved Babylonians, and Romans enslaved them both. Spaniards took Englishmen as slaves when they could; native Americans widely practiced slavery. Mexican-Americans rue how vile U.S. Yankees stole the Southwest from innocent Mexico, yet the Spaniards of Mexico enslaved native Indians and imported African slaves in vast numbers. And the Aztecs, which any good Mexican is proud to tell you were their glorious ancestors, were slavers of the worst kind. Cortez and his few hundred men conquered the mighty Aztecs in no small part because they were aided by rival Indians that had been ravaged and enslaved by the Aztecs.

 

The Slavic peoples (Slavs) got their name because they were so often taken into slavery over the centuries. Whites took whites and blacks as slaves, and Asians too, when they had the chance. Black Africans did the same thing; Asians were hardly above taking slaves. At some point or another in history, just about everybody was enslaved by someone else. This is simply the way it was in the past, when the world wasn’t quite as nice a place as it is these days.

But gradually people began to see things differently. Massachusetts abolished slavery in 1789; by 1830, slavery was outlawed in all Northern states. Britain abolished slavery four years later, France in 1848, and freedom-loving Holland in 1863, only 2 years before slavery was abolished throughout the entire U. S. Spain continued to allow slavery until 1883, Brazil until 1888, China until 1910, and Ethiopia until 1923! So the United States was hardly out of line with the morality of the time a couple of hundred years ago, and in fact was one of the leaders of the world abolitionist movement. It’s neither realistic nor fair to hold slave traders of 300 years ago responsible based on the dramatically different morals of today. It makes even less sense to hold people responsible today for what their ancestors may or may not have done 300, or even 150, years ago. Because if that’s the way we’re going to do things…..

I know that my Scottish ancestors, the original Britons, were brutally conquered over the centuries by Germanic invaders (the Angles, Jutes, Saxons, etc.). Germanic atrocities on the Britons between the 6^th and 12^th centuries are fairly well documented, as were many cases of enslaving the surviving Britons. These Germanic tribes, benefiting from the work of their slaves, went on to create one of history’s most powerful and richest empires: the British Empire. Since I can clearly prove my Scottish ancestry, should I not, then, respectfully but firmly request reparations from Elizabeth II, the current and enormously wealthy British monarch?

Then there’s the Jewish side of my family. Oy – don’t get me started on how they suffered at the hands of just about everybody for 3000 years! Just consider perhaps the most famous enslavement in history: that of the Egyptians over the Jews. This episode lasted, coincidentally, about as long as the U.S. South’s enslavement of Africans. Surely it contributed greatly to Egypt’s ability to amass and display great wealth, so very long ago. Egypt’s sort of a poor country these days, though, so I’d be willing to accept some priceless antiquities from them for the way their ancestors treated mine. Or – hey, this could really work out well: you know how so many African-American historians now claim that the Egyptian pharaohs were really black? So then, Oprah and Michael (Jackson or Jordan) are basically the descendants of the folks that kept mine as slaves. Those guys – they have some serious money, and are in a position to help mend my shattered Jewish psyche with some monetary reparations.

But what if Oprah or Michael or Michael aren’t descended from Egyptian slave-keepers? Would it be fair to make them pay reparations? That makes me think about my American ancestors.

You see, my people came to the U.S. in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and they all lived in the North. None of them owned slaves. In fact, the Streblers themselves didn’t get here until 1888, long after slavery was history. Great-grandpa Burns (on mom’s side) volunteered to fight for the Union during the Civil War, and then signed up for another tour when his time was up! Great-great grandpa Kieffer also fought for the Union, as did great-great grandpa Moeder, who was seriously injured in battle. I’d be willing to bet that they signed up out of patriotism, and maybe for the veterans’ benefits, but they probably were anti-slavery, and they did help end that “peculiar institution” in this country. Yes, I realize that they, and I, all benefited indirectly from the labor of Southern slaves. But if reparations to the ancestors of American slaves should ever come about, would I be responsible for the same amount as someone whose granddaddies owned slaves? How come?

So look – here’s how it goes: African slaves in the U.S. got a raw deal. So has everyone else, at some point in history. Even after slavery ended, blacks had it really tough with discrimination, Jim Crow laws. etc. By all means, let’s apologize as a nation for what happened in the past. We can also consider stronger and perhaps additional social programs to help shrink the gap between the income and achievement levels of blacks vs. other Americans. But mostly, we’ve got better laws and a better sense of right and wrong now, and slowly – slowly but surely – black folks are getting where they should be. Today they are top athletes, Oscar-winning actors, national teachers of the year, Secretaries of State.

But it's not just high-profile black Americans like Oprah and Condi and Michael. Look around! Everywhere there are black engineers, black professors, marketing executives, stock brokers, business owners, mayors, lawyers, surveyors, fashion designers, doctors - you name it. According to the US census, 1.1 million blacks have advanced college degrees (either a master's or a PhD) . And at another level are the millions of black cops, black bus drivers, bank tellers, store clerks, secretaries, barbers, auto workers, etc. Successful black Americans are everywhere around us. At some point, somebody's parents or grandparents just sucked it up, bore down, worked hard, and moved their family ahead and out of poverty. They rejected the temptation to play victim, to focus on the past, and eventually joined the middle and upper classes of America. These people didn’t need reparations to give them motivation and purpose, to allow them to succeed despite past abuses, and neither does anyone else.

America gave a big chunk of change to Japanese-American internment camp survivors, and Germany did the same thing with Holocaust survivors. But that’s where it ends: you pay the living survivors for the egregious suffering they personally experienced. You don’t go back generations; you don’t go back centuries. Because if you do, then we all just keep paying money to one another, and I want Oprah’s phone number!

Jon Strebler

Global Warming Deniers

Every time we get horrible weather - monster Gulf Coast hurricanes, the drought in the southeastern U.S., killer firestorms in Southern California - it's hard not to think about global warming. Those types of weather are unrelated to global warming, a direct effect of global warming, or somewhere in between, depending on who you listen to. Most scientists wisely posit that these examples of extreme weather happen no matter what, but that global warming exacerbates the situation (makes them worse). Makes sense.

There are 3 levels of thinking about global warming. On level one, is the Earth significantly warming? By now, everybody agrees that it is. But then there's level two: is that warming largely the result of human activity? Here there is general agreement that it is, although some argue that we can't know that for sure. Finally there is level three: given that the Earth is warming and that Man's to blame, do we need to take drastic actions to minimize the expected and horrible effects it will surely bring? Again, here there is general agreement that we need to take drastic action, but more than a few folks have started to waffle on this recently. We call these people "global warming deniers", and place them in the same general category as those deluded souls who deny the reality of evolution or the Holocaust.

But maybe that's not fair. Maybe these guys have a point that's worth considering. First, let me clarify that I'm not one of these guys. But I do have an open mind. My "green" credentials are better than most, by the way. I'm a very active member of both Wildcoast and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, organizations that strive to protect our coastlines and wildlife habitat, respectively. I drive a pickup truck, but got the smallest engine available and drive slowly enough to beat EPA mileage figures by quite a bit. I also have purchased renewable energy offsets to compensate for my driving, and ride my bike to work once or twice a week. We use energy saving light bulbs and recently added extra insulation in my home. So look, even though I'm not a green extremist, I'm concerned about Mother Earth and I actually try to do something about it.

But back to these deniers. They say that Earth's climate has shifted drastically a countless number of times over the eons. Each time, there were tremendous changes for life on the planet - but it wasn't all bad. Some plants and animals were wiped out, but others flourished. Some areas became unlivable, while other areas opened up new possibilities for life. It's kind of pompous or chauvinistic, they suggest, to think that the climate of the last few millenia is THE PROPER climate for Earth. Why should it be that thick polar ice, a mild climate in California, and hundreds of millions of people inhabiting our present coastlines, is THE WAY it's supposed to be? Had the climate in recent millenia been different and civilizations developed somewhat differently and in other parts of the world, would that have been so unnatural, so bad?

These deniers are invariably accused of being energy corporate shills or otherwise paid lackeys of the status quo. Maybe. But the show "20/20" recently featured a number of respected scientists who are not associated or receiving funding from corporate bad guys. They were, however, members of the IPCC group that gave its stamp of approval to the idea that global warming is real and must be reversed. They point out that many IPCC members were not scientists at all, but environmental lobbyists, governmental bureaucrats, etc. and that the scientists' skepticism about global warming were ignored. These guys accept that global warming is happening, but they question how much we should try to fight it.

Well, I think they might have a point. We should have no claim for "our" climate being the right one. Yet it seems that in transitioning into a new, warmer climate, tragedies almost beyond belief might result. You know what they are, so I won't go there. Al Gore's done a wonderful job with his "Inconvenient Truth" show; I admire him and respect the science he presents. Still, questions remain. A British judge recently ruled that the film contains "significant errors", such as the claims that global warming was to blame for Hurricane Katrina, polar bears drowning, and coral reefs disappearing. OK, so maybe Al pushed the truth a little in order to get our attention.

Apparently, even if we totally stopped putting CO2 into the environment today, the climate would continue to warm for several decades, bringing many of the feared changes - no matter what. And the cost of abandoning carbon-based fuels all at once, such as the very real economic costs of people losing jobs, prices sky-rocketing, etc., would be enormous, Most of the alternative energy solutions bring serious side-affects as well. So what's more likely is that we slowly reduce and reverse our carbon emissions. Again, that's still going to leave us with immense climate changes over many decades.

On the other hand, some suggest, we'd be much better off spending less time and fewer resources on modifying global warming, and more time/resources on adapting to what is an inevitability. We could get "more bang for the buck" by building up low-lying coastal areas, building massive water transfer systems, modifying the crops we grow, etc. than we would get from fighting the inevitable changes, they posit. Yeah, maybe. I dunno.

I think we need to use less energy, pollute less, and treat Mother Earth better - JUST BECAUSE IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Whether we can - whether we should - do it to avoid the effects of global warming, well there I'm not quite as sure. Probably so. But I think some of these "deniers'" points might have something to them, and I wish we'd include them in the dialogue rather than making fun of them or ignoring them.

Bear hunting

Part of my annual summer routine is to go see mom in Washington, and then stop off in southern Oregon to hunt black bears on the way home. When I tell people what I'm doing, they often ask why I want to hunt bears. What they really mean is "why in the world would you kill a defenseless bear, you cruel person!" Well, the way I hunt entails many hours of solitary sitting, watching, and listening, in between lots of walking. All of these give me a lot of time to think, and this last bear hunting trip I thought a lot about why I enjoy hunting bears.

It turns out that bear hunting combines three things that are very important to me: being out alone with Nature, challenging myself physically and mentally, and getting fresh, natural food whenever possible. My hunting area in Oregon is about an hour and a half from the highway, off of forest service and logging roads. It's a mix of firs, pines, madrone, and some cedar trees, broken up by previously logged areas that have, among other things, berry bushes. Blackberries, gooseberries, blackcap (a type of raspberry that's black when it's ripe), and thimbleberries (bright red, lots of little seeds, but absolutely delicious). There are lots of little creeks and springs, wildflowers, lizards, birds, and a variety of mammals: deer, elk, squirrels, chipmunks, bobcats, and of course black bears.

About 8 years ago I read that southwestern Oregon had the highest concentration of black bears of anyplace in the continental U.S. Conversations with forest service and wildlife biologists confirmed this, and so I decided to give the area a try. The first few years, I concentrated on several areas close to the coast. The weather's cooler there (which I like), and bears were around. I wasn't successful the first two years, but I was slowly figuring things out, and went on to get a bear each of the following four years that I hunted; three of them were from the area mentioned earlier. That is, by the way, a 66% success rate (four years out of six), and 100% success over the past four hunts. That's pretty good when you consider that the average success rate for bear hunters is something like 10%. And most of THOSE guys are locals.

Yet my method of hunting is hardly some great secret. I find isolated roads, usually closed off to vehicles, with berries growing alongside them or in logged areas near the road. I very slowly walk these roads for a few hours after daybreak and a few hours before dark, often stopping to listen and to glass open areas with my binoculars. All very standard stuff; but rewarding in ways beyond just giving me a good chance at a bear. I get to feel the cool breeze, the fresh air, scented of pines and flowers. Dunk my head in a cool stream when it gets hot. Listen to the birds calling, the chipmunks scolding me. One time I was sitting quietly, just watching for movement around dusk when I heard the slightest sound behind me. I slowly turned to see a bobcat, no more than 10 feet away, sneaking up on me! What he would've done with me I have no idea, but when we each saw what the other was, we both about had a heart attack; he skedaddled at warp speed, and I about soiled my drawers!

On a recent hunt I was quietly standing on a hillside on a gorgeous morning, watching an area that I knew the bears liked. After awhile, I heard a small noise behind me; a minute or two later, another. So I slowly turned and there, about 50 yards behind me was a beautiful 4-point buck, trying to figure out who I was. He kind of huffed at me, and so I huffed back! That startled him, and he huffed again; I answered again. This went on for a couple of minutes, and then he slowly meandered off. About 5 minutes later, I had the feeling that something was watching me, turned around and, in almost the same spot, there was a little forked-horn buck staring at me. He wasn't as curious, and so he slowly ambled away too. It was a lovely morning, and seeing those two deer just really made my day!

Since it was so pleasant there, I decided to stay put awhile longer. Then I heard the rather distinct cracking of dry branches downhill from where I was standing. Could've been a deer or elk, but they were coming from down in a canyon where I knew the bears spent each night. And they were rather persistent, which probably ruled out a deer or elk (who are generally quieter than bears). To make a long story short, it took me nearly an hour to find where that bear was. From there, I stalked him for about 20 minutes, staying quiet even on the gravel road, and keeping my scent away from him. Finally, at about 35 yards away, he stepped into a clearing and I had what I wanted. At the shot, he spun, and ran back into the bushes - but only 2 or 3 bounds, and then he collapsed, dead as a doornail. He never even knew what hit him, never even knew I was there. So yeah - a pretty nice morning.

Most days, I don't see another soul when I'm back there; sometimes somebody drives by when I'm in camp and we wave, but that's it. Nobody's out there after dark, so I have an area of 20 or 30 square miles all to myself at night. Similarly, when I'm actually hunting, I'm all alone. If I were to break a leg or take violently ill or something, well - it would be interesting. Out walking the roads, I'll occasionally see or hear a truck, but never anyone hunting like I do. Sometimes it's bear hunters in the trucks, but they don't get out; they hunt from their trucks. Thus, their 10% success rate....

Getting a bear is hardly a slam dunk. I hunted them in the 1980s when I lived in Oregon, in the 1990s in Alaska and Colorado, and then again in Oregon in the 2000s - without success until 2005, which shows what a challenge it is. And just to make sure it stayed a challenge, the last two times I hunted with a primitive muzzleloader rifle; no scope, one shot. That required me to get within 75 yards or less, and just made things a lot more "interesting". A 200-300 pound bear, pissed off if he were merely wounded, well - a guy would be in big trouble. With my experience and a weapon, I've got the advantage; but the bears are anything but defenseless.

The way that I hunt is pretty challenging physically, as well. I put plenty of miles on each day, including some ugly stretches when I decide (against my better judgment) to go off-road up or down a hillside. That's never pretty. Once I get a bear, then the real work starts. Cutting him up (my bears have all been mature males) and hauling him back to the truck, usually in 80+ degree heat - not a lot of fun, and very hard work. So yeah, four hunting trips in a row, successful hunts finding, shooting, cutting up and packing out a bear all on my own - I take a lot of satisfaction in that.

Back home, I spend the better part of a day butchering and wrapping the meat, and grinding some up into burger. The meat is: delicious. Dark reddish/purple from all the berries they've been eating, it has no gamey smell at all, and very little fat; all natural, all organic, no additives of any type. The way our food is supposed to be, IMO. And I did it - all of it. Didn't pay a hunting guide, didn't pay a butcher, with the end result of fresh, healthy, natural food. One less domestic animal that has to suffer in our horrific factory farming system to feed my family. I like that.

By the way, let me just reiterate that the bears I hunt are far from endangered. In fact, there are too many bears for the habitat and they put heavy pressure on other species in the area. That's why southwestern Oregon actually allows hunters to take two bears a year.

So I don't feel guilty one tiny bit for hunting bears in Oregon. I'm out enjoying Nature, challenging myself physically and mentally, and putting (hopefully) some healthy, delicious food on my table while helping to keep the animal populations in balance. How many people can say they accomplish that much with their leisure activity of choice?

(For a more detailed look at ethical issues involved in big game hunting, read my earlier blog essay Ethical Hunters - You Gotta Be Kidding Me!, which can be found under my 2009 archives)

My Favorite Presidents

Teddy Roosevelt is my favorite US president, for a number of reasons. Thomas Jefferson's #2 - again, for a number of reasons. Then it gets fuzzier: Lincoln, Truman - they were good guys. But in the modern era, my favorite was Ronald Reagan. And I'm thinking that Barack Obama may turn out to be the best President since Reagan. O my God! Do you hear all my liberal friends freaking out for saying that about Reagan? And all my conservative friends forming a lynch mob for saying that about Obama? That's OK - neither group is exactly known for being able to look at things objectively. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do so....

They say Ronald Reagan was mentally weak and lacked intellectual curiosity - glib and flashy on the outside but with little substance behind the facade; the original "Teflon" President. It was his administration that led us down the path of huge government debt and allowed the rich to extend their wealth to ridiculous levels, always at the expense of average Americans. Ronald Reagan and his policies were a disaster for the country, with negative ramifications that will impact Americans for many years yet to come - the liberals will assure you.

Well, as with most things that are commonly accepted as the truth, there's something behind these sentiments. But also like most other conventional wisdoms, there's more wrong than right with these assertions. I think it's pretty clear that Ronald Reagan was not one of our brightest Presidents. Yet it's also true that the world is absolutely full of really bright people who are big failures, while many of the greatest leaders and doers weren't brainiacs, but merely people who had vision, worked hard, persevered, etc.

Jimmy Carter comes to mind. Carter was surely one of our brightest Presidents. I'm NOT going to call him a failure, because he was a really good man who tried to do good things. But his Presidency WAS a dismal failure; he was the wrong man with the wrong ideas for the time. Reagan, on the other hand, may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he had big ideas, ideas that were right for the times. "Perk up America! We're a great country and we're coming back! Big government? The problem, not the solution! Communism? You're evil, we're going to end you!" Simplistic, jingoistic, perhaps, but right for the times, and effective! So what that he didn't care much for the details, and left them to his staff? Isn't that what a good leader is supposed to do?

Reagan took over an America suffering from debilitating stagflation - a combination of high unemployment and high inflation. That stagflation was compounded by a deep sense of national funk, "malaise" was the word used back then, and stuck in a 40-year old Cold War. But by the end of his presidency, inflation was virtually non-existent, unemployment was nearing multi-decade lows, the stock market was zooming, and the USSR was on it's last legs. Reagan's critics counter that these things weren't all his doing, and that's true. But his footprint is clearly evident in all of these positive results, at least to those who understand what really happened at the time and who have an open mind.

Yes, federal deficits soared during his administration. Worse yet was the mindset, often traced to his administration, that "deficits don't matter", a way of thinking that was sorely abused by the Bush, Jr. administration. Yet as spelled out in my earlier essay "Income Inequality in America", these deficits were only partly Reagan's fault, with an equal or greater fault lying with the Democratic Congress of the time. Additionally, it should be pointed out that the main area for increased federal spending, per Reagan, was for national defense. I like to think, and you're welcome to disagree if you wish, that ending the Cold War was well worth the deficits he caused in that regard. Economists point out how the end-of-the-Cold-War "dividend" was responsible for a lot of the 1990s and early 2000s prosperity, so no - on a cost/benefit analysis, I don't feel that bad about Reagan's big defense spending. And the truth is: guys like Bush went way off the deep end with their deficit spending. That's NOT the kind of thing Reagan would have approved of by any means, IMO.

Then there's Obama. My right-wing friends are convinced he's a full-on Communist, committed to destroying the Constitution, taking away all our guns, and turning over control of the country to the United Nations. Seriously - that's what these guys believe! It doesn't matter that health care in the US is an absolute disaster, that we've clearly needed to make major changes - that require federal involvement - for many years. It doesn't matter that European nations pay HALF of what we do (per person) for health care, and yet Europeans live longer and have fewer health problems than Americans. It doesn't matter because Obama's a socialist and wants to destroy the American way of life with his health care plan! These people, the ones who say this stuff, are on crack! Do you hear me? CRACK!!!

As far as gun control (and the other things the right-wing is acting rabidly about), I just don't see it. I mean, look - I'm a big time gun rights advocate; I've got lots of guns and use them regularly. But I don't see Obama doing anything more than other centrist-liberals have done over the years. Yeah, he's trying to push through a few things I don't really like, but honestly - the end of the world? I just don't think so.

What I think about the guy is that he's really, really smart. Not just book smart, but street smart, politically smart, common-sense smart, and other kinds of good smart. Part of all his smarts is that he knows where everybody's coming from and is willing to try to work with that. I see Barack Obama as a reasonable centrist, not the ultra-liberal as the rabid right tries to paint him. He seems to me like the kind of guy who really listens to people with opinions that differ from his own, and then honestly try to accommodate their points of view. A lot of you may think I'm naive for that, but obviously I don't think that's the case.

Obama's got a tough job; perhaps the toughest job in the world. His popularity ratings are down, along with the economy and problems in Afghanistan. But those aren't really things of his doing; they're things he inherited from prior administrations. Americans can be real idiots in some ways. The guy comes in to some horrific problems, everybody knows it's going to take a long time to fix them. He makes some good policy moves, there's signs of progress, but the American people don't care. A year later and the problems aren't all gone yet? Well hell, "Obama's a failure! Get rid of the bum!" It's embarrassing, really, to hear people forget the context in which Obama has to govern, and say stuff like that.

But it's early in Obama's presidency. Maybe he will turn out to be a liberal, a bum, an inexperienced darkie (what - you don't think there's any racism behind some of those who dislike him?) taking us down the road to communism. But I think he shows greatness, and I think (hope) that he'll turn out to be a real keeper.

Evolution vs. Creation

According to a nationwide Gallup survey (reported in the SD Union Tribune on November 17th, 2007), nearly two-thirds of all Americans believe in the idea of Creationism. That is, in this modern age the majority of us think that the Earth was created and humans placed upon it, all within the last 10,000 years! Dinosaurs, if they existed at all, romped along the plains, forests, and seashores side by side with our ancestors. Just to make sure you got this – about twice as many people in the U.S. believe this as believe in evolution. Excuse me?

What’s behind this strange peek into the American mindset? It’s not that we’re a nation of flat-Earth believers who overall deny what science has discovered. For example, as the evidence for global warming has increased, so has our nation’s willingness to believe in that theory. Today, about 95% of the world’s scientists believe that global warming is happening and that it’s a serious issue. Something like 75% of Americans now believe the same thing. OK – so we lag behind the scientists, but we’re mostly on the same page and that 75% number keeps rising. Yet something like 99% of all serious scientists acknowledge that evolution is a reality. In other words, there are about five times as many scientists who question global warming as those who question evolution. Or to put it in legal terms, 99% certainty on the part of legitimate scientists (including many who are devout Christians) is the same as saying evolution is a fact, beyond a reasonable doubt. That's why in court case after court case, schools have been instructed to teach evolution, and have been ordered NOT to teach creationism, at least in science classes.

Of course, there are quite a few “scientists” promoting Intelligent Design (the sneaky new way to say Creationism). But those who are strict creationists, who believe that evolution played no part at all in the development of life forms, that the Earth was created by God a few thousand years ago just as it is today - they’re mostly pseudo-scientists, not really taken seriously by their peers and their “evidence” is easily discounted by those using legitimate methodology. In other words, you'd be hard pressed to find even a handful of respected scientists - people whose research and methodology is accepted by the scientific community - who don't think that plants and animals have evolved over millions of years

An example of the things you hear from strict creationists is that fossils and other ancient records that document evolution cannot be reliably dated. It’s like this: Archaeologist A dates pre-human primate bones at 2 million years old, archaeologist B dates them at 2.2 million years old, while archaeologist C dates them at 1.9 million years old, all using slightly different measuring procedures. “Aha” - says the evolution deniers! “You see how arbitrary those dating methods are? Surely, then, they could just as easily be only 6400 years old!” I'm sorry, but scientists disagree over differences of 5 or 10% in their measurements, yet the Creationists want us to believe that the scientists are off by 99% (virtually 100% wrong). Why in the world do 2/3 of Americans think this kind of reasoning makes sense?

Why should this be? Why can Americans accept global warming, space travel, the existence of sub-atomic particles that can't be seen, computers that do a billion calculations a second - but not evolution? What explains the blind spot in these people’s logic and world view? Of course it’s mostly about religion. Part of it is that folks in the U.S. are more likely to be conservative Christians than other people worldwide. "The Bible says God created man in His image, and that's that." Most European Christians, on the other hand, are perplexed and a bit embarrassed by their American cousins' rejection of evolution. In Europe, evolution is commonly seen as a fact, and most Christians there don't see why that should be a problem. But unlike most European Christians, many Christians in the U.S. basically feel that by questioning Creation you question the Bible and therefore their faith. So they won’t hear of it. Interestingly, most Jews (whose religion is based on the Old Testament) don’t seem to share this curious interpretation, but then Conservative and Reform Jews are noted for their respect of science, and for being open-minded.

What it boils down to for so many is a choice: either the Bible or scientific evidence. Refined further still, it’s either science OR religion. Choose one or choose the other; you’re either with me or you’re against me – no middle ground. And that, unfortunately, is a terrible and absolutely unnecessary choice to have to make. Perhaps the greatest scientist of all time, Albert Einstein, said that “Science without religion is lame.” He also said that “Religion without science is blind”. So – what if we really DON’T have to choose between the two?

Well, that’s the very compelling case Dr. Francis Collins makes in his 2006 book The Language of God. Collins is an interesting individual. As a devout, born-again Christian, he most definitely believes in God, Jesus Christ as humanity’s savior, and of course the Bible. Yet as the former head of the prestigious Human Genome Project, he is one of the world’s top experts in the field of genetics (so important to the understanding of evolution) and a scientist of unimpeachable reputation. The thesis of Collins’ most interesting book is that evolution may disagree with the literal reading of a small part of the Bible, but otherwise it meshes just fine with Christian religious beliefs.

It's this very literal reading of the Bible that causes so much trouble, by the way. 3000 years ago, when Genesis was written and humans understood so little of the natural world, could God really have explained how He created the universe with a Big Bang 6 billion years ago? How He caused sub-atomic particles to interact with the various cosmic forces emanating from dark holes, multiple-dimensions, and all the esoterica of astro-physics that we have trouble grasping even today? Seriously - how could the Bible have talked about this stuff 3000 years ago? So does it really lessen the value of the Bible and religion to think that the writers of Genesis used wording and analogies that the people of the time could understand - rather than only writing what was strictly, literally, verbatim true? Not really, a rational person might conclude.

But back to Collins and his book: Evolution is a fact beyond any reasonable challenges, and shouldn’t be a problem for believers, he argues. Put another way, there is no conflict between science and religion, between being a faithful Christian and a believer in the facts of evolution. Collins painstakingly addresses the most common arguments that Creationists and Intelligent Designers proffer, debunking each of them with cold, hard, convincing facts. Convincing, that is, to anyone with an open mind. In his view, incidentally, God gave humans a mind and wants us to use it to help understand the world He has created and, thus, to know Him. Collins goes on to show why God exists, and how He must have been the original source of life, which then changed over time via evolution. Whether you believe that part or not; whether you’re a fervent Christian, a firm evolutionist, an atheist, or somewhere else in between, you should at least read what Collins has to say. But the bottom line is that this fight – evolution vs. religion – is really needless.

What makes this even more needless is that in 1996 Pope John Paul II proclaimed that Evolution is “more than just a hypothesis” and that it is compatible with Christian faith! Probably no modern Pope was more loved and respected than John Paul II. And whether you're a Catholic or a Protestant (or even if you're not a Christian at all), can you think of anyone more knowledgeable about Christianity and the Bible than the Pope? The Pope, most European Christian leaders,and most Jewish leaders believe is that the Old Testament is beyond question - EXCEPT in matters involving science, which of course has broadened our understanding of things immensely over the centuries. Evolution's not just a theory; evolution (a scientific fact) doesn't conflict with Christianity. So said the Pope, traditionally the leader of the Christian world! Even if they're not Catholics, why would 2/3 of Americans think that the Pope lacks faith in the Bible, or isn't a good Christian, or any of the other claims made of those who believe that evolution is a reality?

So just what are we arguing about? Most Jews (who wrote Genesis, incidentally), most European Protestants, and the leader of the Catholic church believe in evolution, so obviously you don't have to sacrifice your religious beliefs in order to think the same. This isn't 1256 or 1803, when such an idea would have been unthinkable, just as space travel, computers, and atomic bombs would have been unthinkable - blasphemous! We've learned SO MUCH; we have endless examples of irrefutable proof. Why won't the strict creationists look at this proof with open minds? How in the world are they going to attract the agnostics of the world, those who WANT to believe in Christianity, but aren’t sure? If American Christians' position on something as clear cut as evolution is one of denial, why should people follow their beliefs on matters of (non-verifiable) faith alone? Honestly, strict Creationists: let's limit the debate to whether God created life on Earth, or whether it arose all on its own - THAT's the only part of the evolution issue where there's any reasonable doubt.

America Reaps What it Sows

July 29, 2008
Public Topic #1 has shifted dramatically in the last year or so. It used to be all about Iraq; now it's all about the economy. Easy enough to see why: the surge in Iraq is actually working, as even Bush's harshest critics will admit. At the same time, a number of nasty developments have the economy reeling.

Skyrocketing oil prices drain money away from consumer and business spending alike. Used in the production and transportation of virtually all goods and services, higher fuel costs have hit foods costs especially hard, accounting for an average 40% increase there, according to one source. Droughts, floods, and other weather problems have further raised food prices, not to mention the impact of taking croplands out of food production to produce biofuels. Then there's the housing mess, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, failing banks, a declining U.S. dollar, and the resultant bear market on Wall Street. Prices up everywhere, jobs in jeopardy, homes being lost, banks shutting down - it's hard to think about much else these days!

Former Congressman and McCain adviser Phil Gramm got in a lot of trouble awhile back for saying that Americans were a bunch of whiners, complaining about economic problems that were really not that bad. Nothing more than a "mental recession". Wow! What kind of politician says that these economic problems are mostly imaginary? What better way to alienate the majority of Americans?

So I won't say that. What I WILL say, however, is almost as incendiary: A majority - though not all - Americans deserve much of the economic grief they're now experiencing. At the very least, they (we) are to blame for how much these economic issues are affecting their (our) lives. A lot of the bad economic stuff that's happening fits into the category of paybacks, or reaping what you sow. Here's why...

For various reasons, Americans have come to feel that they always need to have the most, the best. We want the biggest, most wasteful car that we can afford. We're not interested in a nice 3-bedroom house; it's gotta be HUGE! A 26" TV for $300 - are you kidding? We'd be embarassed to own anything less than a $1500 48" LCD. And are you joking about cooking over coals on an $80 Weber? All my friends have $500 gas "grilling centers". Americans eat out often, even though the food usually isn't very healthy and costs many times what home cooking does. They fall for media claims of "bargain" wines that cost "only" $15, boots on sale for "only" $250, vacation hotels for a low, low $350 a night. New homes, from the mid-$800s! Entrees starting at only $27.95 (salads extra)! Tickets for the big game - $200 and up!

The reason for all this is that over the last few decades Americans have become incredibly materialistic, conspicuously wasteful, and have bought into the ridiculous notion that we're all super special and we all deserve the very best. Oh, and we're no longer responsible for what happens to us; if something goes wrong, it's somebody else's fault and/or somebody else will rescue us from our dumb choices. We've become stupid.

I'm thinking about one of my nieces. She's about 35 now. Drives a Cadillac Escalade, one of the most wasteful vehicles a person could buy. She never goes off-road, and rarely has anyone else in the vehicle with her. Why does she need a (luxury) all-wheel drive SUV that seats 8 adults and costs over $60,000? "I like the way it looks, all my friends drive big SUVs, and Cadillac is the best there is" - that's what she once told me. (Silly Uncle Jon; he just doesn't understand!) She had been living in a nice enough house, with her husband and 2 kids. About 1800 square feet, which incidentally is about 500 square feet larger than the house her mom grew up in (along with 7 brothers and sisters) and about double the size of the average house 50 years ago. But everybody else was moving up, so she bought a newer, bigger house a couple of years ago - 2 stories, about 3000 square feet, and affordable thanks to a low adjustable-rate mortgage! Now why do 2 adults and 2 kids need a 3000 square foot house? Answer: they don't. It's all for show and ego.

I remember wondering: "How in the world do they make those payments on that house, her Escalade, and his truck, along with all the gas they suck? What are they gonna do when those low teaser payments on that huge new house jump up in a couple of years?" And how about the bling they both love wearing, and the latest fashions, and the going out to eat almost every night? They make a lot less than I do; how do they pay for all that? Well of course, they do it with credit. In hock up to their eyeballs. THAT'S the American way!

Silly Uncle Jon; he just doesn't understand. See, the Streblers eat almost every meal at home, which is a 1500 square foot place, drive recent model Toyotas that are paid for, buy good wines that are NEVER over $10 a bottle, have ZERO debt (other than the house, which will be free and clear in 7 more years), big old retirement accounts that we've been socking money away into over the years, and healthy savings accounts in case of a rainy day. We eat VERY well, have a marvelous time traveling all over world, and basically want for nothing. And we're perfectly happy, almost as if we had good sense! Well, maybe it's not a fair comparison. I mean, we're in our fifties and are supposed be in better shape financially than someone in their 30s. But even in our thirties, our living style was modest but very comfortable, our debts negligible, we always had a substantial rainy day account, etc.

But back to my niece (let's call her "Kathy") today. Gas prices have doubled since Kathy bought her Escalade, and her 70 mile daily commute to work and back is killing her budget. Payments on her adjustable-rate mortgage jumped from $2000/month to $3700/month earlier this year, which she can't afford. Kathy tried to sell her home, but the housing market topped out last year and her home is worth 25% less today than when she bought it four years ago. So she lost her home to foreclosure, and is now living in a 950 sq. foot condo. With her husband, her 2 kids, and - oh yeah - her cousin who recently lost his home too. Kathy's trying to sell the Escalade, but nobody's buying 13 MPG luxury SUVs these days. She's had to drop the premium cable channels, switch to a basic phone plan, start cooking at home, and she still has no idea what to do about the $21,000 debt she has from her 4 credit cards.

You and I both know it's not just Kathy. We all have neighbors, relatives, co-workers that are in the same boat as Kathy. Maybe their "boat" is a little smaller than Kathy's or maybe they're stuck in a big old yacht of a boat, but the point is they lived way beyond their means, they didn't consider the possibility of bad times, and they're in deep doo-doo now. We're supposed to feel sorry for them. But even those of us who haven't lost our homes or grossly overspent for years, even we are being hurt by $4 gas prices, soaring food costs, a declining stock market, and a dysfunctional mortgage industry. The government's to blame for what's happened - especially President Bush. And the oil companies. And the Arabs. Wall Street's to blame. And the damn tree-huggers. And..... well, this is where you write in whoever else you think is to blame.

But I beg to differ with you. Stuff happens all the time in the real world. That stuff is just as likely to be bad as good, it's most often NOT caused by any one group or some conspiracy, it's often pretty obvious to see in advance for anybody who keeps their eyes open, and it's our job not to be caught off guard too much by it. That's why we've been taught all along to "not put all your eggs in one basket", to "not spend more than you make", to - as a "buyer - beware", to "save for a rainy day", and that "there's no such thing as a free lunch". We all learned these things; but too many of us have chosen to forget them. So many Americans allowed themselves to become stupid and do the exact opposite of these little sayings.

Who's fault is it really that people earning $60,000 a year bought $700,000 houses with mortgage payments that could double in 3 years? Do you really believe that these buyers didn't understand this, that they weren't acting out of greed, or stupidity, or both? Why do we assume that anyone without an MBA is unable to comprehend the risk, that they were "victimized" by predatory lenders? Sure, lenders were complicit. But still, who's job is it to look out for us, if not ours? What - people can use the Internet for shopping and endlessly trolling MySpace, but can't take a little time to research it before making the largest investment of their lives? Give me a break....

Housing prices (in San Diego, at least) dropped 15% or more in the early-1960s, the mid-1970s, the early 1980s, and the early 1990s. Each time, this resulted in hundreds or thousands of foreclosures for owners with shaky finances. After this last dip, prices rose for 13 years (thirteen years!) without a pause, while tripling in value (tripling!), fueled by ridiculous and unsustainable mortgages. Anybody watching real estate knew that the housing market was a train wreck just waiting to happen. So I'm going out on a limb and saying that perhaps 8 out of 10 people in trouble with their homes got what they deserved for their greed, laziness, and stupidity. The others? Legitimate victims of job layoffs, nasty divorces, illness and other factors over which they had less - but usually some - control. Maybe two out of ten - they deserve at least some sympathy and help, but that's all.

Gas prices. Here's where everybody complains, but yet we're all largely to blame. Look - we got big wake up calls in the 1970s: we were ruining the environment and were vulnerable to sharply higher fuel prices. The logical reaction to these realities would be to use less fuel. Live close to where you work; drive a car that gets good mileage; drive slower; minimize needless driving, seriously expand mass transit, etc. Good for the environment, good for our pocketbooks, good for the nation's security. But of course we mostly did the opposite, at least over the last 20 years or so. More and more housing built farther and farther from town. Bigger (and more expensive) cars and SUVs getting low gas mileage. Speed limits raised back up to 65 or 70, which hardly satisfied the American greed for speed. Average highway speeds are 70-75 MPH, with plenty of folks going 80 or 85. New highways everywhere, encouraging people to keep on truckin'. And then there's the new American laziness that insists that you never walk when you can drive, and only losers ride bikes.

We end up with people crying on television about how gas prices are killing them, as they fill up their big SUV. Anybody see the irony here? Then there's this sad reality: I've been driving 60 MPH on the freeways for the last few months, since doing so will save me about 20% on gas costs while only adding a few minutes to my daily commute. Don't you think at least a few other people would have figured this out too? You'd be wrong. The other day I was cruising along, going 60 in the slow lane, on a quiet Sunday mid-morning. After a while, I noticed that EVERYBODY was passing me, and most of them seemed to be going a lot faster - 70 at least. So I started counting, just out of curiosity. 87 cars passed me before I passed one car! This is how is every day. Going 60, even in the slow lane, gets you nasty looks and being cut off by irate drivers. You can just tell that they're truly baffled: "Why aren't you driving as fast as you can???". Almost nobody is driving slower, even as they whine about high gas costs! Americans have let themselves become stupid.

I don't want to hear about how the stock market is ruining people, either. Stocks have averaged about 10% total return annually for the last century. That's more than triple what bank accounts have paid over the same period. Anyone familiar with how the universe operates knows that means stocks are a lot riskier than bank accounts. Meaning they go up AND down. Add to that the historic bull market from 1982 to 2007, when the S&P 500 rose more than 1300% (or about 15% average yearly, when you include dividends received). Knowing these things, a prudent individual might think: "whoa, that stock market sure seems to be getting ahead of itself. I wonder if it's time for some bad years, to balance out all those above-normal years?" But no, that would require a healthy skepticism, which would conflict with the idea that getting rich should be quick and easy. So Americans plunked hundreds of billions into their 401(k) plans and other investment accounts about which they knew next to nothing. Maybe they put all of their eggs in one basket - their employer's company stock, or maybe they bought every hot stock pick on CNBC, or invested in the top performing mutual fund. Either way, the market's down now and folks are crying foul - with no good reason to do so.

Food prices? Yes, they're up sharply. But they're also still pretty cheap compared to people's incomes. Stop and think about it: forty years ago, the minimum wage was $1.10/hour, and a GOOD job meant you were making over $20,000 a year. Milk was $1.07 a gallon, chicken 39 cents per pound, and a dozen eggs cost 53 cents. Today the minimum wage is about six times higher, college graduates START at an average of about $45,000 a year, and a good job often pays over $100,000 a year. Today's $4.50 milk, $1.29 chicken, and $1.75 eggs hardly seem out of line by comparison. Still, they're a problem for many, especially Americans who are "too busy" (often as not, this really means they just don't want to bother) to cook healthy meals from scratch. They end up buying mostly processed foods, frozen pizzas, or hitting KFC every other night. Those things cost MUCH more, and many folks could reduce their food bills substantially by cutting back sharply on that kind of spending.

Look: I know there are millions of hard-working, frugal Americans, many of whom are having a hard time with this economy. I don't, for the most part, have a beef with them. My lack of sympathy and outright disdain is for the many millions of Kathys and 80 MPH drivers and greedy investors and lazy shoppers in the U.S. I would point out, however, that, aside from the whole housing mess, the economy today is still MUCH better than what we went through in the 70s and early 80s, when inflation and unemployment rates were both TWICE as high as they are now. And today is infinitely gentler than what people experienced in the 1930s.

So maybe after all I DO mostly agree with Phil Gramm. Our economic problems aren't "just in our minds", it's true; but Americans ARE a bunch of whiners nowadays. Whiners who, as the rest of the world has thought for years, are maybe getting a little of what they deserve.

Capital Punishment? Maybe. Capital Letters? Definitely!

Time goes on and things change. In a world of Internet, Blackberries and text messaging, capital letters are increasingly seen as anachronistic and pointless. More and more, people send emails written in all small letters, with neither names nor first words in sentences capitalized any more. To quote our Vice-President: "So?" Why should this matter?

I admit - it bothers me. As a certified Old Guy with many decades of writing etiquette pounded into my being, seeing a caps-less sentence strikes me as kind of ugly and just plain wrong. Maybe that will change with time as the new paradigm becomes more widespread. But before we go on - why this trend anyway?

Probably for two main reasons. First, it's easier and quicker to type without using caps. Second, these new communication technologies are "informalizing" much of our writing, and the no-caps idea is a way of saying "yeah, I'm dialed in to the 21st century".

Fair enough. You can't stop change and writing evolves over time like anything else. Nevertheless, this no-caps idea is mostly a bad thing, and here's why. First of all, the initial premise is flawed, except possibly in the case of text messaging. If you're a competent typist, then you capitalize a letter with one hand while you type it with the other. Not capitalizing words saves what? A second or two at most on a typical 2-3 sentence email, maybe as much as a full minute on a lengthy letter or essay? Anyone who thinks they're saving appreciable time by not capitalizing is either deluding themselves or needs to improve their typing skills. Again - maybe texting is the exception, but otherwise it's hard to see that this is really about saving time or energy. So it's probably more about being cool and following the latest trend.

But there are problems. Capital letters and proper punctuation exist for a reason, after all: to make it easier to follow the writer's meaning. They tell the reader to pause here, emphasize that, new thought coming up, etc. Why is that not as important in emails as in any other type of writing?

Now to me, old guy that I am, writing without capitalizing words is a sign of laziness, or a lack of seriousness or consideration for the reader, or ignorance about the rules of writing - or some combination. But this is not about me. Wouldn't you suppose that at least some of a student's future professors, bosses, important customers and so forth also might not appreciate the informality of caps-free writing? By allowing students to write this way and - worse yet - modeling that same behavior in their own emails, teachers encourage writing that is not going to be appreciated by people in a position to influence young folks' futures.

I know it's largely a matter of informality. I mean, this new writing mode is mostly about short messages sent to a friend, so what's the big deal? Well I don't know that it is a big deal, but I do know that we've always written informal little notes and whatnot over the generations. Yet I don't ever remember not capitalizing someone's name, a state, the beginning of a sentence, etc. So I guess the whole informality idea doesn't make much sense to me.

But now that I think of it - it really IS a big deal. As kids become more and more comfortable with this kind of writing, one imagines that it might cross over into their formal writing. It's like speaking: we all use one type of language with our friends and another kind with a professor, our boss, or the judge when we're fighting that parking ticket. Most of us know how to speak based on the situation and can switch seamlessly. But what about kids who never learn formal English or seldom use it? Their language too often tends to be inappropriate. This same kind of phenomenon is a real risk for young writers today. I'm seeing more and more essays and other formal writing from students lately where first words of sentences and proper names are not capitalized, while some regular nouns ARE capitalized. It seems clear that the rules of formal writing are blurring, and I think a lot of it goes back to the email thing.

(On a related note, according to TIME Magazine's May 12th edition, "64% of U.S. teenagers use informal text-message slang in their written schoolwork, including abbreviations like 'LOL' (38%) and smiley-face emoticons (25%)." Somewhat surprisingly, "56% of teens surveyed consider good writing to be 'essential' later in life." Anybody besides TIME see something wrong with this picture? Or a connection to the no-caps trend?)

You know - maybe we're going back to the 18th century kind of writing, when words were spelled as you wished and were capitalized (or not) seemingly at a whim. And if that's the way it works out - fine. But in the meantime, expecting my name to be capitalized is not a matter of narcissism, as a colleague recently suggested. It's a matter of courtesy, of respect, and of convention, if you will. And pending any justification for not doing so, my expectation is that students will follow the conventions of punctuation and capital letters when writing. Students who do otherwise, knowing this expectation, risk having their messages deleted without a response. As for other teachers, they of course will do as they do, but I respectfully suggest that they reconsider the message they send students with their own capitalization-free writing.