Since cartoonist Thomas Nast first used an elephant as a symbol for “The Republican Vote” in 1874, the recognized symbol of the Republican Party has been the elephant.   

But elephant society is actually matriarchal and is characterized by cooperation, collaboration, empathy for members of their own kind, and resource-sharing – hardly the foundational principles of the modern Republican Party.

If anything, elephant society is communist rather than capitalist, and elephants are known for tearing down fences, not erecting them. Interactions within elephant family groups feature teamwork and cooperation, and members of the group work collectively to defend the group, locate food and water, care for offspring, and make decisions.

Elephants also learn from experience and highly value the knowledge of elder, more experienced members of the group. Elephant leaders – who are all female – achieve and maintain their position through the consent of the group.  To retain their authority, they must demonstrate courage, wisdom, superior knowledge of their environment, effective social skills, and the ability to maintain and strengthen close bonds within the group.  Matriarchs who favor some members of the group over others, who do not consistently look out for the interests of the whole group, who lack courage, and who lack the knowledge to lead effectively will lose their position.

A political party that embodied the social practices of elephants would champion policies that ensure that all members of the group have the resources and support they need to thrive. Infant care, child-rearing support, and education would be the highest priorities. Health care would be provided for everybody. Such a party would encourage shared responsibility, collective action to address problems, group cohesion, and compassion for all members of the group. The actions of the group would be based on what is best for the entire group, and decisions about the group’s future would be based on the best available information.

Not sure what political party that describes, but it sure doesn’t sound like the current Republican platform.

“For the body is not one member, but many.”  –  1 Corinthians 12:24

February 22, 2019

Don’t take my word for it:  https://www.elephantvoices.org/elephant-sense-a-sociality-4/elephants-are-socially-complex.html

Of all the nonsensical, wrong-headed, asinine, and ignorant justifications for a massive wall along the southern border of the United States, the crackpot idea that a wall can stop the flow of illegal drugs is the most absurd.

Beyond the fact that the vast majority of drugs that enter the United States through the southern border come through ports of entry which presumably will remain open, here are a couple of other things to consider:

1. Drug trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar global industry with astonishing profit margins. Drug smugglers are not mom-and-pop criminals, trying to scratch out a meager living by running a kilo or two of marijuana across an undefended border. They are international conglomerates, with research and development departments, logistics departments, finance departments, and virtually unlimited resources.  Thinking you will halt drug trafficking by building a wall is like thinking you will put General Motors out of business by closing a dealership on Main Street.

2. Economics tells us that if there is a demand for a product, someone will find a way to supply that product.  Right now, the market for illegal drugs in the United States is the largest in the world, exceeding $100 billion annually.  That’s $100 billion going to drug smuggling organizations every year. That will buy a lot of ladders.

3. Think they can’t afford countermeasures? According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, a kilogram of fentanyl that cost $2,600 can make more than 666,000 individual pills (with 1.5 mg of active ingredient) which can be sold for $15 each, generating $10 million in revenue.

4. They’ve already defeated the wall.  Here are some of the ways drug cartels smuggle narcotics into the United States today:

• Privately-owned motor vehicles
• Tunnels
• Ships and boats
• Commercial aircraft
• Private airplanes
• Submersible watercraft
• Commercial vehicles
• Shipping containers
• Mail
• Private courier services

5. The history of drug interdiction efforts – as well as the history of prohibition in the United States – makes clear that drug traffickers will adapt to any interdiction efforts that the government may attempt. As Theresa Cardinal Brown, Director of Immigration and Cross-Border Policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center explained, “The profit incentives to find ways over, under, around, or through any border infrastructure are high, and the cartels have more than enough money to spend on R&D.”

For more information, see:

https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/09/why-drug-traffickers-laugh-at-trump

https://www.usatoday.com/border-wall/story/drug-trafficking-smuggling-cartels-tunnels/559814001/

February 8, 2019

His victory yesterday was the sixth Super Bowl championship won by Patriot’s head coach Bill Belichick, the most by any NFL coach. The extraordinary run of success during Belichick’s career with New England includes 16 first place finishes in 19 seasons, a regular season record of 225-79, and a postseason record of 30-10.

In an era when NFL rules are designed expressly to prevent sustained periods of winning or losing, Belichick’s record is nearly as remarkable as the downtrodden Cleveland Browns’ 20-year record of 95-225.   

Of course, as head coach of the Browns in the 1990’s, even Belichick had a losing record, so the otherworldly forces that keep the Browns down are apparently stronger than the forces that ensure Belichick’s success.

But it is possible that no supernatural forces are involved at all, at least not concerning Belichick and the Patriots. Former Patriots player Mathew Slater credited Belichick’s leadership for New England’s success in a 2017 interview.

“There’s no substitute for character,” Slater said, and Belichick, “plays a big role in it. He understands how to motivate this team, how to draw this team closer together, how to get us to believe, how to get us to trust, and to have faith not only in our process but in one another. When we need it most, we know it’s there.”

That’s a pretty good description of effective and successful leadership that can be applied almost anywhere.

February 5, 2019

Sign in luncheonette window, circa 1943
(Photo: Oregon Historical Society)

“Remember when” posts are pretty popular on social media, especially posts that contrast life as a kid in the 1950’s or 1960’s with life as a child today. Many of the comments on these posts focus on changes in technology. Sure, dial telephones and VCRs might confuse kids today, but I would like to think that kids today would be even more astonished to find out that not too long ago Americans – including teachers, pastors, business owners, nurses and combat veterans – could legally be denied service at gas stations, restaurants, hotels, and other establishments, simply because of the color of their skin.

January 12, 2019

A Beagle might find drugs hidden in a suitcase at the airport. A Labrador Retriever might bring back a murdered duck. A German Shepherd might lead a blind person through heavy traffic.  A Border Collie might help with your taxes. But Sammy, our LBD (Little Brown Dog), can tuck himself into his bed on a cold winter morning. Some things just can’t be taught.

January 11, 2019

Is it spring yet?

President Trump will apparently speak to the nation about the national security “emergency” we are facing on our southern border.

This will be great.  I can hardly wait to hear the fact-based, well-reasoned rationale for spending $20 or $30 billion dollars on a wall.  Since no one except the dictator of some banana republic would propose a project of this size or expense without carefully evaluating all aspects of its implementation, I am sure that the speech will be informative, accurate, non-partisan, and compelling.

Of course, we can all expect that the president will use actual data and other evidence to explain the problem with our current situation and how, exactly, a wall will solve the problem. (You know, like, if the problem is 11 million undocumented persons here, how will a wall remove them; or, if nearly 60 percent of the persons here “illegally” actually entered the country legally through ports of entry and overstayed their visa period, how will a wall address that problem?)

I will be especially interested in learning about the detailed proposals for a border barrier that the Republicans in the Congress prepared when they drafted the current federal budget. As they have been responsible for all aspects of national defense and homeland security for the past two years, I am looking forward to seeing the report of the congressional hearings Republicans must have held to examine this critical issue. (Too bad the Fake News Media wouldn’t cover those important hearings.) The testimony they must have heard from border security professionals, immigration officials, environmental groups, lawyers, local government officials, and affected landowners must have been illuminating.

As the White House is convinced that this is a significant issue, and has been saying so for years, I am sure that the administration has amassed a trove of compelling data to support the proposal. I can’t wait to see the numerous studies and reports that the Department of Homeland Security must have prepared to analyze and evaluate the cost and benefits of a wall. I am looking forward to hearing why funds spent on a wall will be more effective than funds spent on additional border personnel, fencing, better equipment, training, surveillance devices, increased cooperation with Mexican authorities, and immigration courts.

I must admit that I have not been paying enough attention to this critical issue.  I have somehow missed the administration’s detailed plans for acquiring the necessary land (much of which is privately owned); constructing the barrier on harsh, remote, difficult terrain; monitoring the border; maintaining the wall; and addressing the inevitable attempts to circumvent the wall.

So, I am sure the speech will be great.  Hopefully it will be as convincing as the conservative Cato Institute’s 2017 report titled “Why a Wall Won’t Work.”

(link here: https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-wall-wont-work )

If you aren’t available to watch the president’s speech, and if you don’t have time to read the report (which really is compelling…), here’s a couple of summary paragraphs from the report:

“In a sense, the wall merely represents the Trump administration’s worst instincts and desires. It is harmful, wasteful, and offensive, but an ineffective wall is nonetheless better than the surge of 5,000 new Border Patrol agents and 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to round up and deport people that the president also wants. No wall has ever arrested, robbed, battered, or murdered nonviolent people, as immigration enforcement has. A wall will not create an interest group to lobby for itself, endorse nationalist presidential candidates, and demand more power and funding, as the Border Patrol union does.

The wall is more than a symbol. It will harm the lives of thousands of border residents and immigrants while wasting billions of tax dollars. But in a world run by nationalists, the one small source of comfort for non-nationalists over the next four years may be the knowledge that it could be worse.”

January 7, 2019

Although I try to resist any urge to participate, I do sometimes follow social media discussions about current events.

Based on my limited experience, most online “discussions” are not really discussions at all, as most posters are not looking to exchange information, but are only interested in promoting their own opinion. That’s fine, but that makes it a complete waste of time to try to engage these persons with actual facts.

Being ill-informed about a topic is nothing to be ashamed of.  No one can know everything about everything. Still, a little research goes a long way, and if you feel compelled to comment on a topic perhaps you could take a moment to learn a bit about it. Worse than a lack of knowledge, though, is a lack of information paired with certainty.  “I may not know much about this topic, and I am in no way interested in learning, but, by God, I am sure I am right!”

Sadly, this is not a new phenomenon. Anti-intellectualism has always been a part of the American Dream, but we seem to be entering an age now where actual knowledge of a subject – acquired through years of study and experience – is actually denigrated. As our problems are becoming more complex, we are actually disparaging the people who are best able to help us understand them.

For an enlightening discussion of this phenomena, see The Death of Expertise (Oxford University Press, 2017) by Tom Nichols.

“This book, then, is about expertise. Or, more accurately, it is about the relationship between experts and citizens in a democracy, why that relationship is collapsing, and what all of us, citizens and experts, might do about it.”

– Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise.

December 26, 2018

I try to avoid sounding like a cranky old white guy – “Hey you kids, get off my lawn!” – but I attended a professional basketball game today and yikes, what the heck was that?

For people who haven’t been to an NBA game in the past few years, I will simply say that such games are three hours of non-stop “entertainment,” and none of that includes the actual game.

If there even is a game, because, really, it’s hard to tell between the spotlights, the multiple dance teams, the acrobats, the t-shirt cannons, the singers, the lottery tickets parachuting down to the crowd, the quiz show exchanges, the ear-splitting music, the jets of fire shooting out of the scoreboard, the jumbo video screens, the dance contests, and the rest of the “show.” After three hours of hyper-stimulation, I will probably need 48 hours in a sensory deprivation tank to return to equilibrium.

Now the local team is having an historically bad season – and around here, that bar is set pretty high – so perhaps management wants to partially atone for the inferior product they are selling at premium prices. But the reality is that this kind of visual and auditory assault occurred when the team was actually good, and it, or something resembling it, occurs every night in just about every other NBA arena.

It’s as if NBA owners don’t trust their own product to hold people’s attention through the one-or-two-minute time-outs that occur regularly during the games. Which is a little sad, because professional basketball players are possibly the most athletic of all professional athletes.  Or, more likely, they don’t trust their customers to endure occasional breaks in the action without suffering some kind of adverse reaction.

Is it warm in here, or is it just me?

December 23, 2018

The US southern (land) border is about 2000 miles long, about one third of it is “protected” by some sort of physical barrier (fence, wall, etc.).

Why is there not a barrier along the entire border?  Because the people in charge of border security for the past 100 years have not believed that a physical barrier was worth the expense of land acquisition, construction, maintenance, and constant patrolling that would be necessary to make it effective.

Enhanced border security is better achieved by a layered defense that includes electronic surveillance, drones, increased patrols, monitoring of choke points, and enhanced cooperation with Mexican authorities.

A more significant impact would be achieved by reforming and strengthening our immigration system, which, I can tell you from personal experience (my wife is a German citizen and a permanent resident in the United States), is badly broken.  (Fun fact:  the two most recent Congressional attempts at reforming and strengthening our immigration system were defeated by House Republicans in 2006 and 2013).

The wall is political theater.  It is an issue that resonates with a core group that is highly supportive of President Trump. He picks at this scab to encourage and fire up his “base.”  (“Promises made, promises kept,” and all that…) No wall will remove any of the 11 million or so people who are here illegally, and no wall will prevent additional people from coming here legally and overstaying their visas, which is how the majority of illegal immigrants got here in the first place.  And no wall will change the underlying reasons why people risk their lives to come here.  Keep in mind that people die trying to get here all the time.  (Another fun fact: In 1995 I was Assistant Operations Officer at JTF-160 in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where we operated refugee camps for about 40,000 Cuban and Haitian migrants, who risked their lives on homemade rafts, massively overloaded skiffs, oils drums lashed together, and, in a few cases, walking through a minefield for a chance to get to the United States…) No wall is going to stop these people.

The administration doesn’t talk about reforming our immigration system, which could make an actual difference, because that kind of bipartisan policy development is difficult, time -consuming, requires an understanding of the complex issues involved, and doesn’t readily lend itself to chants of “Build that wall” at political rallies.

The opposite of the wall is not “open borders.” That is a false construct that is extraordinarily counterproductive, except as a political tool to further divide an already-fractured electorate.

It’s Christmas. We should give it a rest.  There is no policy solution to a “problem” that provides such an obvious political benefit to a segment of a political party, and any attempt to discuss this wildly political idea as if it is some kind of serious policy proposal is utterly senseless.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

December 22, 2018

Back in the days when I used e-mail a lot, I found that I didn’t always have time right away to craft a careful and fully-researched reply to an incoming message, but I still wanted to let the sender know that I had received the note.

So, I got in the habit of sending a quick, noncommittal, hard-to-misinterpret, “OK, thanks.”

‘OK, thanks.’ doesn’t imply agreement, doesn’t promise anything, and, most importantly doesn’t express any human emotion, commitment, belief, or opinion.  It is very close to a perfect e-mail response.

It is also a pretty good response to half-baked, mean-spirited, harassing, intellectually lazy, and flat-out wrong social media comments.

Of course, we would all be better off to avoid the fevered swamp of social media.  But like especially gruesome car accidents, sometimes, you just can’t turn away.

When you find yourself reading an exceptionally inaccurate, obnoxious, or hostile comment, back away slowly with a calming “OK, thanks,’ and then immediately sterilize your keyboard (or device) and take a long, hot shower.

I’ve seen several responses that artfully combine the neutrality of ‘OK, thanks’ with a slight dash of humor. Here are a few that you might find useful. Unfortunately, I cannot credit the originators of these posts, as I don’t know who they are. Several, of course, are quotes from feature films.

• That ought to do it. Thanks, Ray.
• So, there’s that.
• I do not believe that that word means what you think it means.
• Americans do not rejoice in the suffering of other Americans.
• This post says a lot more about you than it does about (the subject of the post.)
• I am sorry for your pain.
• That’s not how any of this works.
• Lighten up, Francis.
• Be best.

And before you tell me how ridiculous and unhelpful this post is, just let me say one thing.

OK, thanks.

“Life is short. Make sure you spend as much time as possible on the internet arguing with strangers about politics.”           –  Internet meme, 2018

December 20, 2018