No thanks

Today I was in Office Depot to buy some supplies. Near the check-out counter was a bin of items on sale. Guess what I could have bought?

Tweeting for Dummies on sale for 99 cents.

Not for me, thanks. But now I wish I had thought to buy a copy to send to the pope. (see 6/28 blog about the pope tweeting.)

Ralph

Paraprosdokians #4

We Americans have strange values:

1. We (usually) have two candidates to choose between for president; but invariably there are 50 contestants for Miss America.

2. We naively believe astronomers who say there are four billion stars. But have you ever noticed how people refuse to believe a "Wet Paint" sign?

3. We pay a pittance to our philosophers, poets, and teachers -- while we lavish obscene riches on celebrity athletes, movie stars, and the captains of commerce.

4. Why do politicians insist on fighting fire with fire, despite the Fire Department's preference for water?

5. Alas, nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

Ralph

Cancel the parade; hide the flags

Hide the flags, cancel the parade, stop the fireworks -- unless you want your kids to grow up to be Republicans.

Harvard Kennedy School of Government has reported a study by academic researchers Adreas Madestam (Milan, Italy) and David Yanagizama-Drott (Harvard Kennedy School), whose title is: "Shaping the Nation: Estimating the Impact of Fourth of July Using a Natural Experiment."

Great credentials, but hard-to-believe conclusions:

• Fourth of July celebrations have a significant impact upon people’s political preferences;

• Attending one Fourth of July before age 18 increases the likelihood of identifying as a Republican by at least 2 percent and voting for the Republican candidate by 4 percent. It also increases voter turnout by 0.9 percent and boosts political campaign contributions by 3 percent.

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/dyanagi/Research/FourthOfJuly.pdf

This sounds like a really dumb conclusion to me -- there are so many other factors to consider in what shapes political sensibilities.

But these are serious academic researchers who think they've found a unique and easily measurable variable -- how often it rained on July 4th where you lived as a child. Just check the weather reports archives for the data.

Unlike all other holiday celebrations, July 4th festivities are always outdoors. Ergo, the more times it rained on July 4th where you lived, the fewer parades, etc. you would have attended. And since it rains on the Dem families as well as the Repubs, it cancels out the family factor in the equation.

But does it? They think it does. I vehemently don't. If it rains and the parade is cancelled, both Dem and Repub families stay home, so kids from both homes are affected equally as to number of parades attended.

But you're still left with who attends more, or is influenced more, when the sun shines and the parade goes on. Or am I missing something? Maybe it's a larger scale thing: areas of the country where it rains a lot might be more Dem, while arid regions more Repub? Think Seattle vs Tucson. But then you have the larger Hispanic populations in the Southwest, and they tend to vote Dem. See, it's still more complex than rain days, IMHO.

It seems to me that it comes down to whether there is any differential between Dem families and Repub families in choosing to participate in patriotic activities, as well as all kinds of factors that influence whether you genuinely whoop it up at the parade, or sit there disdaining the whole thing as hokey. Both are attending; one builds it up, the other tears it down. The kids notice.

I'd be willing to predict that having attended Woodstock correlates with being a Democrat (or an anarchist, non-voter) later in life. Not because of anything that happened at Woodstock but because of the self-selection in who chose to go. If Woodstock had been rained out, those who would have gone would still become Dems or non-voters; those who would not have gone would still become Republicans (by a statistical margin, of course, which is what they're saying, too).

My father's family had a big family reunion and barbecue every 4th of July at my uncle's farm. A pit would be dug in the ground and filled with coals for the all-night, slow cooking of the pig and goat, and the men and older boys stayed up all night to supervise. It was a time of male bonding. The next day it was the women's turn to show off their cooking skills and burnish reputations for the best this or that dish. I still drool at the memory of Aunt Easter's angel food cake (super-moist, super-sweet; the closest thing I've ever tasted was the Spanish tres leches cake).

The reunion was an all-day affair, with much talk of our country and the sacrifice of the uncles were away fighting in World War II, one severely wounded in battle. Before we could eat, even before the blessing, we all stood and recited the Pledge of Allegiance, hands over hearts and facing the American flag flying from the flagpole in the yard. In the evening, we had fireworks: sparklers and Roman candles, and hand-held "firecrackers" that you had to light and throw fast so as not to have them explode in your hand.

As a child, I saved aluminum foil from chewing gum wrappers and from cigarette packages I found discarded on the sidewalk; peeled them off the paper backing and crushed them into my ever-growing ball of aluminum foil, to be contributed to the war effort; and I bought a 25 cent savings stamp every week with my allowance, pasted them into a booklet to exchange for a $25 war bond when it got full.

There was no shortage of patriotism in my family. "The Fourth" was second only to Christmas as a highlight of the year. And it unquestionably was all about patriotism and how great our country was, and fighting to save the world for democracy -- with God on our side, of course.

The Roughton Family was about as patriotic and as Democratic as you can get. Uncle Harvey was a state legislator, and my father was mayor of the town during World War II. Democrats, of course. The South was solidly Democratic during my growing up years -- for a long time, I puzzled over what the "general election" was. I thought we had already had "the election" when the Democratic primary was over. There was no Republican primary.

And yet I can't recall that it ever rained on the 4th. At most, a passing shower that didn't dampen the patriotic spirit in the least. That was then. Now I have a few cousins and nephews who have turned Republican. But that has nothing to do with rain and everything to do with changing social mores in the South.

The civil rights struggled flipped the Solid South to the Republican camp. But that was all about the Dems' support for racial equality, so people switched parties in droves, local politicians leading the run. Rain had nothing to do with it.

I admit that my mind glazes over when I read such research reports, and I get lost in the statistics. So I could be missing something. But, for now, anyway, my common sense about this study, even if it is from Harvard, permits only one comment:

"Bah, humbug !!!" And, for good measure, I'll add: "Balderdash !!!"

Ralph

Deal's deals

Campaigning for governor, Nathan Deal promised to create jobs. That's one promise he seems to be keeping.

Not that Georgia's jobless statistics have improved much. But he has "created" lots of jobs for his family and cronies. Working the system seems to be his biggest talent.

Early on came the announcement that twice-bankrupt son-in-law Clinton Wilder had accepted a high position with the Georgia Nursing Home Association, a group that lobbies heavily for nursing home owners. It's just coincidence, of course, that the governor must oversee the billions of dollars that nursing homes receive from the state each year for the indigent elderly in their care.

PS: Nothing in Wilder's work history suggests that he has any qualifications to work in such a position; but Gov. Deal assured us all (I'm so relieved) that Wilder will have nothing to do with lobbying the office of the governor. Yes, but who lobbied to get him the much-needed job, so the governor doesn't continue to have to bail him out?

But the latest is this, discussed by Charlie Harper in today's AJC: Several weeks ago, Deal claimed that the state budget was so tight that it was necessary for the Director of the State Ethics Commission to take a 30% pay cut, from $120,000 to $85,000 (that's $35,000, please note). Her alternative was to resign, which she did -- and which was obviously Deal's intent. No connection, of course, to the fact that she had prepared subpoenas to investigate ethics complaints against Gov. Nathan Deal. That was "just an unfortunate coincidence."

What makes this so bald-faced outrageous is that now, just weeks later, Deal has appointed the girl friend of his deputy chief of staff to the position of state mental health ombudsman and, in the process, increased the salary for that position by $25,000. Well, I guess he would brag about saving the state $10,000.

But why the increase? The last person who had the ombudsman job at $82,000 had a master's degree in psychology. Deputy Chief of Staff's Girl Friend has a bachelor's degree in communications from Valdosta State College and no experience in mental health. What warrants increasing the job's remuneration by $25,000? No explanation offered.

Never mind. Her new salary ($107,000) will suddenly double the $53,000 she earned as Gov. Sonny Purdue's scheduler. Deal's office defends the appointment, saying she knows how state government works. I think in the Deal lexicon that means she knows how to pull deals for Deal. But, predictably, Deal's office was "adamant" that her dating relationship had nothing whatsoever to do with her appointment to this position.

Yes, but can she type?

Trying to research this on the internet, I came upon the liberal blog PoliticsUSA, which has a pretty obvious slant; but here's what they had to say about our governor back during the campaign:

The little shifty devil running for Governor in Georgia, Nathan Deal, has one more scandal to add to his seemingly endless financial scandal rap sheet. Nathan is running as a fiscal conservative. Naturally, this means he is good at grifting money from you and me and the government and manipulating the system to take advantage of loopholes and get no bid contracts for companies in which he has a financial interest. Please, you’re supposed to focus on his churchiness, people. And how handsome of a grandpa he is. The picture of gentility!

Remember Deal was already found guilty by The Office of Congressional Ethics of violating house rules for using his office to push policy that would benefit his family’s auto salvage company and earning too much outside income. He departed Congress in an act of “early retirement” before the ruling could impact him. Now, months later, he’s running for Governor of Georgia, long out of the reach of the disciplinary jurisdiction of the ethics committee. Convenient, eh?

As I've said before about our governor, I knew his mother as the other second grade teacher across the hall from my class in Sandersville Elementary School. And I know that she would spank Nathan if she knew about all this.

And this doesn't even include the contemptible, vile anti-gay smears he used against his opponent for the Republican nomination.

Ralph

More paraprosdokians #3

1. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman. (Listen up, John Edwards, etc.).

2. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn't work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

3. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Ralph

She said, "He raped me." He said it was consensual

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, as well as the leader of the French Socialist Party and its presumed candidate for president of France in the next election.

All this came tumbling down in a New York hotel a few weeks ago, when he was credibly accused of raping a housekeeper who had come in to clean his room, not realizing that he was in the shower. I won't rehearse the details, except that the District Attorney's office had made the indictment with great confidence, based both on the woman's consistent and believable story and on forensic evidence collected at the scene.

But the physical evidence can only prove there was sex, not whether it was rape. He says it was consensual; she says it was rape.

Meanwhile, his political career has been ruined, or so it seems. And her life has been exposed to a kind of scrutiny that is uncovering some inconsistencies about what she did after the alleged rape. Far more damaging is that she has confessed to falsifying her application for asylum in the U.S., saying that she had been gang raped in her native Guinea and her life would be in danger if she returned. She now admits that was not true about the gang rape but was added to enhance her case for asylum. In addition, she seems to have been involved with a drug dealer who is now in prison, at least in her being a front for his money laundering (five bank accounts in her name with hundreds of thousands of dollars in deposits, which she says she knows nothing about).

Now, none of this means that she was not raped by Strauss-Kahn. But it means that the prosecutors would have a very hard time convincing a jury to take her word instead of his, when she has admitted to lying to our government -- about being raped -- and has been involved with drug-dealing, at least passively and perhaps naively.

Stauss-Kahn obviously has enormous financial resources and powerful friends and backers. He will have very skilled lawyers whose whole case would be focused on destroying the woman's credibility on the witness stand. All his lawyers have to do is convince one juror that there is a reasonable doubt that she is telling the truth. "Is it not true that you once lied to the United States government, falsely claiming that you had been raped?" Falsely claiming that you had been raped. That's all it would take.

The prosecutors took the initiative in notifying the judge of this new difficulty in the prosecution of their case. The judge has not dismissed the charges but has rescinded the million dollar bail and freed Strauss-Kahn from house arrest and electronic monitoring -- signalling the enormous change in how the case is now viewed. He still can't leave the country, but it sounds to me like a prelude to settling the case without a trial.

The French have been very critical of the U.S. Justice system of allowing someone who has been accused, but not convicted, to be publicly photographed in handcuffs, being led off to jail -- of course prompting the media circus that this became. In France, they are much more discreet in protecting the privacy of the innocent-until-proved-guilty, especially with the high and mighty.

But stories have also emerged in France about Strauss-Kahn: a woman journalist says he tried to rape her years ago and she let herself be talked out of reporting it; possibly a second attempted rape of another woman; and he seems to have the reputation even among his friends of being a lecher who repeatedly forces himself on women. My guess is that he very likely did what she claims, that she is not lying about it.

In the end, though, it's probably the U. S. judicial system that played in Strauss-Kahn's favor. I'm not sure of this, but I think that in France such a case would be tried before a judge without a jury. These new developments, that seem to have destroyed the likelihood of a conviction, hinge on the difficulty of convincing a jury to consider only the accuser's credibility in this particular case, not other reasons to question her truthfulness. That would be far easier to accomplish in a trial by a judge than with a jury. It only takes one with "a reasonable doubt."

So, in the end, it comes down to: she said, he said; and which one do you believe?

Ralph

Can children "catch" violence from video games?

A few days ago (6/27: "Uh oh, here we go . . .") I wrote about the Supreme Court decision that removed a California ban on children's access to violent video games. The decision was based on the First Amendment right to free speech, and it struck down a California law that restricted children's access to video games that contain violence.

I did not mean to pass judgment on whether children are harmed by playing video games that contain violence. My point had to do with our society's hypocrisy in allowing access to violence but restricting access to sexual materials -- which extends to banning books on homosexuality in school libraries, etc. That is, we have a double standard in "protecting" children from sex but not from violence.

This question of whether such games are harmful was taken up in a New York Times op-ed piece by Cheryl Olson, a public health researcher. She says that this is a complex subject that is not easily answered. Too much anecdotal "evidence" has been cited (kids who become violent after playing video games or watching violent movies). But what is cause and what is effect, and is there actually any effect? That is the question.

Olson wrote:

We know virtually nothing . . . about how youths who are already prone to violent behavior . . . use these games. Do they play them differently from the way other children do? Do they react differently?

Kids who become violent have often experienced or witnessed actual violence first hand. Some would argue that games like this, or war games with guns, help a child (or an adult) sublimate his own aggression rather than acting on it.

Olson also points out that,

"despite parents' fears, violence in video games may be less harmful than violence in movies or on the evening news."

Video games are usually animated; the characters obviously not live humans. As one 13 year old in Olson's study told her:

"Everybody knows it's not real."

And children seem to make that distinction at a young age.

The other important piece of data is the FBI's report that

youth violence continues to decline and is at its lowest rate in years.

This has happened during the burgeoning years of easy access to video games.

So: no condemnation of video games from me. They could even be a good thing, as far as violence is concerned. We just don't know enough yet.

Ralph