I’m sure that the people who run the corporation that operates Libby Lu stores would object to my title for this post. Too bad. What else could you say about a store that slaps unnecessary makeup and shallow-minded accessories on little girls so that they can feel like their appearance is acceptable?

I learned about Club Libby Lu from a mother who stated that she left her daughter off at a birthday party for the girl’s friend; the party was being held at club Libby Lu. When the mom came back two hours later, the girls were holding a “fashion show” at which most of them “looked like whores.” The woman was aghast and suggested she never would’ve left her daughter at this store had she known that this was what they were going to do.

I happened to be at a big mall today (the St. Louis Galleria), assisting my wife to replace her broken cell phone. While walking through the mall, I noticed a “Libby Lu.” I was carrying my camera with me and I decided to take a closer look.

I couldn’t help but notice that the store was rather crowded with young girls (aged 7 through 11) along with their mostly obese parents. The girls were crowded around two areas where they would be receiving makeup, new hairstyles and glitzy accessories. Many of the employees wore pink wings. It all seemed bizarre to me. The entire store seemed equally strange to my nine-year-old daughter, who didn’t want to have anything to do with the place. I begged her to go into the store with me, however, so I wouldn’t look like a pedophile.

Above, you can see the types of stations where the girls are made “pretty,” to the relief of their parents. Step one is to get a decent hairdo. Here are some of the hair styles that are offered to the young girls.

As you can see, the young girls can go to the “Spa.” But, remember, “To ensure proper pampering, you must call to make an appointment for a Libby Lu party” where you can get a “Libby Du.”

But why go alone? Club Libby Lu specializes in arranging parties for your daughter and her friends, all for a cost of only $40 per child. That’s what I was told by an extra-peppy employee of Libby Lu. The store presents itself as a “resort.”

Why would your young daughter do any of this? In the lingo of Club Libby Lu, you do it “2BU!” You do it because you are not sufficiently attractive if you don’t spend lots of money at Libby Lu.

Why else do you do it? According to Libby Lu, you do it to “Go on tour with your friends at Club Libby Lu.” Or you “shop till you drop at our goodie shop” (for only $25). Another good reason to spend a lot of money at Club Libby Lu is that the Jonas Brothers have arrived. I hope those pre-teenaged Jonas Brothers brought lots of condoms, in case they successfully sweep your pre-teenaged daughter off to some high-rolling nightclub, and then who knows what, given that the aim is to make your young daughter look something like this:

In case my sarcasm is going over anyone’s head, see what I really think about corporations that try to make their money by over-sexualizing young girls. I have little tolerance for corporations that make their money by convincing little girls and their parents that they aren’t pretty enough. Libby Lu works much harder than most of these corporations to convince young girls and their parents that there isn’t enough time to grow up as a child.

Bill Moyers has some sharp comments for those who believe that the Free Market offers free, effortless and unrivaled wisdom:

[W]hen you worship market forces as if they were the gods of Olympus, then the gods can do no wrong - until, of course, they prove to be human. Then we realize we should have listened to our inner agnostic and not been so reverent in the first place.

But we also get into these terrible dilemmas - where the big guys step all over everyone else and the victims are required to pay the hospital bills - because we refuse to recognize the connection between money and politics. This is the great denial in democracy that may ultimately mean our ruin. We just don’t seem able to see or accept the fact that money drives policy. It’s no wonder that Congress and the White House have been looking the other way as the predators picked the pockets of unsuspecting debtors. Mega banking and investment firms have been some of the biggest providers of the cash vital to keeping incumbents in office. There isn’t much appetite for biting - or regulating - the manicured hand that feeds them.

Financial services corporations are only the most recently publicized target of Moyers’ criticism. He has sketched out numerous other cases of “artful lobbying,” which he translates as “graft.” It is a sober reminder that, unbeknown to the People, our Constitution has been quietly amended to allow big corporations to make most of the laws in this country.

For more criticism aimed at those who insist that the “Free Market” will wisely guide us, and that we thus don’t need to use evidence, intelligence and forethought to set public policy, see these DI posts:

We are naive fools to wait for the free market to save us from impending shortages of critical natural resources.

“Push capitalism” turns us into full-time consumers and non-citizens.

The Invisible Hand needs a hand.

We need to hunt down and kill Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand.

No Intelligent Designer needed for the economy.

It makes ECONOMIC sense to invest in disadvantaged children while they are young

The Fourth Person in God: The Free Market

Here’s a standard account of autism, from Wikipedia:

Autism is a brain development disorder that first gives signs during infancy or childhood and generally follows a steady course without remission or relapse. Impairments result from maturation-related changes in various systems of the brain. Autism is one of the five pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), which are characterized by widespread abnormalities of social interactions and communication, and severely restricted interests and highly repetitive behavior.

The manifestations of autism cover a wide spectrum, ranging from individuals with severe impairments—who may be silent, mentally disabled, and locked into hand flapping and rocking—to less impaired individuals who may have active but distinctly odd social approaches, narrowly focused interests, and verbose, pedantic communication.

Here’s the cause of autism by a popular right-wing radio talk show host, Michael Savage (reported by Media Matters):

On the July 16 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage claimed that autism is “[a] fraud, a racket.” Savage went on to say, “I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ ” Savage concluded, “[I]f I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, ‘Don’t behave like a fool.’ The worst thing he said — ‘Don’t behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.’ That’s what I was raised with. That’s what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.”

If you want to hear it for yourself, click on this link:

How popular is Michael Savage? According to Media Matters

Talk Radio Network, which syndicates The Savage Nation, claims that Savage is heard on more than 350 radio stations. The Savage Nation reaches at least 8.25 million listeners each week, according to Talkers Magazine, making it one of the most listened-to talk radio shows in the nation, behind only The Rush Limbaugh Show and The Sean Hannity Show.

You might be wondering how it was that Michael Savage was ever put onto the national airwaves. Good question, because his opinions are often incredibly ill-informed. Nonetheless, Savage’s show actually replaced Phil Donahue’s show in 2003. And see here. MSNBC killed Phil Donahue’s show when Donahue had the audacity to question why the U.S. was about to invade Iraq. Now we have Michael Savage to tell us how the world really works. What is the world view of Michael Savage? Here’s a report by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting):

Savage routinely refers to non-white countries as “turd world nations” and charges that the U.S. “is being taken over by the freaks, the cripples, the perverts and the mental defectives” (San Francisco Bay Guardian, 9/20/00). In a recent broadcast he justified ethnic slurs as a national security tool: “We need racist stereotypes right now of our enemy in order to encourage our warriors to kill the enemy,” he explained (San Francisco Chronicle, 2/6/03).

Although the above quote was from 2003, Savage has continued spewing his venom and he has been allowed to do this through mainstream corporate sponsorships. It’s almost unbelievable.

But now, you actually can do something about this hate-monger by taking away his advertisers.

–

Epilogue: I wanted to recognize that there is sometimes a grain of truth to many talk show rants.  Hence, I wouldn’t deny that some parents might hide behind medical/psychological diagnoses to deflect blame from their poor parenting skills. I bet that this happens regularly. Maybe it even happens in some of the cases of the “extremely mild” cases of autism. Even to the extent that this is true, however, Savage is nonetheless way out of bounds arguing that the diagnosis of autism is a fraud in 99% of the cases. His reckless accusation hurls needless blame at thousands of excellent parents; it is incredibly hurtful and insensitive. Such a charge belies deep and credible mounds of medical literature. To make this horrid accusation demonstrates that Savage hasn’t researched his topic responsibly and that he certainly hasn’t spent any meaningful time with children diagnosed with autism.

This example involving Savage is yet another example of how many media outlets feed on manufactured conflict to sell ads. I’ve written about this recently, calling this tactic “conflict pornography.”

I intend to listen to one of Savages shows someday soon to see exactly which companies are still sponsoring his vile attacks. I will publish that updated list in a comment to this post.

Glenn Greenwald hits the nail on the head again:

Of all the constitutionally threatening and extremist powers the Bush administration has asserted over the last seven years, the most radical — and the most dangerous — has been its claim that the President has the power to arrest U.S. citizens and legal residents inside the U.S., and imprison them indefinitely in a military prison, without charging them with any crime, based on his assertion that the imprisoned individual is an “enemy combatant.”

This is an excellent, detailed read at Salon.com.

I’ve written before about the work of Jonathan Haidt (pronounced “height”). He is a psychologist who has taken an experimental approach to investigating morality. I was highly impressed by Haidt’s analysis of conservative versus liberal versus of morality, for instance. In his previous work, Haidt determined that disgust played a significant role in the moral judgments of conservatives, but not so much for liberals. This result, based upon numerous surveys, sheds light on moral disputes regarding many things, including homosexuality.

Most liberals have no personal interest in homosexual sex, and many of them are disgusted by the thought of engaging in such an act. The liberal’s disgust regarding a particular type of sexual act does not constitute any basis for a moral judgment (in a liberal). For many conservatives, however, the disgust experienced for any thought that they might personally engage in a homosexual act often does provide the basis for a wide-ranging moral judgment against all persons engaging in any homosexual acts. The Science article suggests that many liberals could better understand how disgust might play into a moral judgment by considering their own moral judgments, including those related to the proper way of processing food, the proper type of food to eat or the disgust they might experience regarding symbolic issues.

The May 9, 2008 edition of Science reports that Haidt has taken his research on disgust and morality one step further (online access to this article is limited to subscribers). The article, entitled “The Roots of Morality,” describes Haidt’s experiments and results:

A team of psychologists recently asked dozens of college students to consider several morally charged situations. In one, a friend lies on his resume to land a job; in another, survivors of a plane crash consider cannibalizing an injured boy to avoid starvation. Students who pondered these hypothetical scenarios while sitting at a filthy desk with sticky stains and a chewed up pen rated them as more immoral than did students who sat at a pristine desk. In another version of the experiment, a nearby trash can doused with novelty Bart spray had a similar effect. The findings, in press at Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, demonstrate that emotions such as disgust exert a powerful influence on moral judgments, even when they are triggered by something unrelated to the moral issue, says study co-author Jonathan Haidt. . .”

This pithy article in Science describes Haidt’s position that people rely on their gut reactions to inform them of the morality of a situation, relying on their reasoning skills only after-the-fact. This is “not unlike an art museum visitor who is struck by the beauty of a painting but struggles to explain why.”

In making moral judgments, then, there seems to be a quick and dirty road to judgment based upon gut feelings as well as a slowly and carefully reasoned road. This is not surprising in light of my own real-life experience with moral judgments (regarding both my own judgments and watching the judgments of others).

Nor is it unusual that the brain might have a quick and dirty method and also a more carefully considered (but slower) method for getting the job done. For instance, Joseph LeDoux has demonstrated that there is a quick and dirty neural pathway for experiencing human emotion as well as a more deliberate and intellectualized pathway. These normally work in tandem, but not always.

Similarly, perception appears to be mediated by multiple systems. In The Visual Brain in Action, Milner and Goodale argue that motor neural systems that underlie visually guided action (such as reaching) are distinct from conscious experiences associated with perception (such as recognition and categorization). [I was made aware of this work by Milner and Goodale by Andy Clark's introduction to cognitive science, entitled Mindware (2001)].

Haidt’s work, described in the above-described article in Science, provides further evidence that the brain is actually a big bag of tricks, rather than anything homogenous. Or, as Steven Pinker has put it, “The mind is not a single organ but a system of organs.”

This morning I went to see the third installment of the Shrek movies. It was a 10 a.m. dollar show at a dying mall. As the escalator lifted me from the bowels of parking, my ears were assaulted by all manner of high pitched vocalizations. Apparently, every summer day care facility in the area decided that a morning movie was a good idea.

Armed with warm popcorn and a heavy flannel shirt, I picked the one theater of the three showing this film at this time that seemed less crowded and to have a higher ratio of authority figures to little darlings. It is July, so the warm shirt is a necessity in these venues.

This movie is better than the first sequel. Of course, the graphics and controls have evolved. But the story and characters seemed less forced. We are not talking high art, after all. There were plenty of wild takes, pratfalls, and flatulation jokes to keep the young-uns amused. There were also enough cultural references to both our modern world and to the various fairy tale universes to keep the adult intellect from nodding off.

But I was inspired to write this because of the audience. I hadn’t been to a kids movie with mostly kids since I was one of them. There never was a moment of silence from the audience. But to the credit of the herders, nannies, and moms, the dialog was only rarely drowned out. Some babies cried, some toddlers whined, and elder siblings sometimes forgot the public setting and began narrating along, until shushed. It really wasn’t too bad, once I accepted the inevitable. I’m about as adaptable as a cat, that way. Grudgingly.

I will have to see the movie again, in a venue where I can hear the nuances of the voices.

Schrecklichkeit? A German word that translates to “fearsomeness”.

Writing on a NYT blog, Olivia Judson argues that we should abolish “Darwinism.” Here’s what she means:

I’d like to abolish the insidious terms Darwinism, Darwinist and Darwinian. They suggest a false narrowness to the field of modern evolutionary biology, as though it was the brainchild of a single person 150 years ago, rather than a vast, complex and evolving subject to which many other great figures have contributed. (The science would be in a sorry state if one man 150 years ago had, in fact, discovered everything there was to say.) Obsessively focusing on Darwin, perpetually asking whether he was right about this or that, implies that the discovery of something he didn’t think of or know about somehow undermines or threatens the whole enterprise of evolutionary biology today.

Sounds good to me. That way, it will be more apparent that the Creationists are arguing against an entire phalanx of theorists, biologists, statisticians, geologists and biochemists (among others). Without the term “Darwinism,” it would be more apparent that the Creationists can’t win simply by claiming that a single man stands between them and our science classrooms. I agree with Judson that to call modern evolutionary biology “Darwinism” is like calling aeronautical engineering “Wrightism.”

I only disagree with Judson in one regard. She suggests that Darwin accomplished more in his lifetime than any of us could accomplish in two lifetimes. I would suggest that the proper number is ten or more, based upon Darwin’s far-ranging achievements. He was truly an extraordinary scientist and thinker.

You can buy a casket at Costco. I don’t really have any comment about this fact.  I was simply surprised to see that you could buy a discount coffin (and other discount accessories for the dead).  For less than $1,000, you can get the “In God’s Care Casket.” Not bad, considering that the average price of a casket is $2,000.

I can just imagine someone heading out the door right now, saying “I’m heading off to Costco to buy a casket!  They got some great deals out there on funeral accessories.”

I’m not in the market for a casket, mind you.  And when I do die, I’d like to be cremated and scattered to the winds.  Maybe by then, Costco will have a drive-thru cremation service.

This video of John McCain is truly incredible. The questioner asked whether insurers, who cover Viagra, should also cover birth control pills.

The simple answer should have been that insurance companies should, indeed, cover birth control pills. Any organization that covers Viagra and Prozac (and vasectomies, much less surgery for tennis elbow) should cover the pills and medical care necessary for people to control if and when they will get pregnant. But McCain was incoherent. Here’s the Straight-Talk Express at work:

This is not the first time McCain has shown profound ignorance on birth control and sexuality. And see here for much more. The problem is that he is trying to hold onto the radical right, which wants to outlaw all effective birth control. See also, here, regarding the political positions on birth control pushed by those bastions of misinformation, “Pregnancy Resource Centers,” which dot the land, often well-funded by tax dollars. The Republicans are controlled by those who believe that they should control when and how you feel sexual pleasure. And here’s more proof. And check out the special proms for prepubescent girls. For more proof of this Republican ignorance, check out the statistics demonstrating that abstinence-only education (also well funded by the federal government) is a joke. I should clarify. I think that abstinence can be a substantial part of sex education for adolescents, but not the only part. The phrase “Just say no” doesn’t, on its own, stop kids from unintentionally getting pregnant.

Also check out McCain’s ignorance on the relationship between condom use and HIV.

As you can see, then, even when you set aside the issue of abortion, Republicans are further determined to tell you if, when and how to get pregnant. How can they not see that this should be a decision left to individuals? The answer is that Republicans are pandering to the radical “religious” Right’s wacko view that use of birth control pills constitute a method of causing an “abortion.”

Think globally, act locally.  That’s the message of this Common Dreams article, entitled “Energy-Addicted US Can Learn a Lot From Europe.” And yes, we can really learn a lot about energy from Europeans.

Someday soon, we’re going to be having fantasies that we had their fleet of tiny cars, those same cars we laughed at a couple years ago.   Cars that look like this one I photographed in London three years ago:

The huge U.S. fleet of gas-guzzling SUVs is putting us in a straight-jacket.  Actually, it’s even worse.  It’s a national security issue.

And what can you say about a government that allowed us to accumulate a fleet of oversized cars that we can’t afford to use?  A fleet that causes us to act belligerently across the globe in an attempt to fill our huge cars with fuel?  If only, 5 or 10 or 20 years ago, we had used the tiny amount of IQ necessary to see this energy crisis coming, so that we would have downsized our energy-using equipment in order to be prepared for what we’re about to face.

Have things changed since 1966? Those of us alive back then (I was ten in 1966) might need to think back before answering yes. Things must have changed since then, but in what ways? Let’s see . . . there were no personal computers. Color TV was a luxury. No astronaut had yet walked on the moon. People lived in much smaller houses closer to city centers.

I was at a courthouse in St. Clair County, Illinois, today when it hit home in another way. Take a look at this photo of the membership of the St. Clair Bar Association in 1966 (I took a photo of a big photo). Notice the total lack of women. Notice the almost total lack of any lawyers other than those who were Caucasian males.

It is so incredibly different now. Now, approximately half of all law school students are women and more than ¼ of all practicing lawyers are women. Currently, about one law student in five is non-white.

I’m not trying to pick on St. Clair County. I’m certain that the demographics of lawyers were similar in many other places back in 1966. Back then, no matter where you lived, being a lawyer almost guaranteed that you were a white male.

I’m 52 now, yet 1966 doesn’t seem like a long time ago. By the time I entered law school in 1978, it was no longer unusual to see women and minorities in law school classes. Things have changed dramatically, but it wasn’t an obvious change while it happened. In the case of the demographics of lawyers, it is all for the better.

Incremental change can be statistically dramatic, yet invisible.

I carry a little camera with me much of the time, just for moments like this. I was riding a light rail train across the Mississippi River today. The west end of the bridge consisted of a series of heavy metal girders and cables, as well as stone arches. The train was going about 30 mph, with the light from the windows flashing by, the south view of the river in front of me and the north view of the river reflecting off of the train windows. I took about 10 photos, most of which weren’t interesting. I found this particular photo delightful, though. It looks like a montage, kind of a “life on the river while gliding across an old bridge” pasting of images. I can assure you, though, that this photo is completely (completely) untouched. You can also see a blurring about many of the edges, due to the speed of the train. This photo is expandable, if you want to see more details.

We like to believe, as Americans, that this country is a meritocracy. The idea—Horatio Alger, Thomas Edison, McGuyver, all emblematic of this notion—that the best qualified rise to the top, that those who can display and apply ability, skill, and intelligence are the ones who are selected—either by themselves or through the recognition of society—to do important jobs and that this, as opposed to elitist canards like family or school affiliation or looks or race, counts for more in this society. We like to believe that we judge people by their competence, not other things. It’s a driving national myth.

We like to tell ourselves that such people are Heroes.

Like most myths, there’s an element of truth to it. It is certainly the case that the opposite of such ability gets derided once exposed and the people who are less capable lose whatever consideration they’ve received. Eventually. Under the right circumstances.

But we all know that as a guiding ethic, merit is like anything else, and does not hold universal sway over our sentiment.

Perversely, many people display what can only be described as fear of people who are genuinely competent and talented, depending on the circumstances. All one need do is look at the condition of regard in which science is held by many people and the way professionals are often mistrusted and we’ve all seen instances where the person at the party who actually knows a thing or three—and dares express that knowledge—often as not ends up not invited back.

It’s a complex and contradictory attitude Americans have toward ability. We admire and respect it—until it contradicts a long-held belief or runs afoul a prejudice or makes us feel, in ourselves, a bit stupid.

It is probably more cloyingly and illogically represented in our general attitudes toward race.

Let me put it as bluntly as possible—in American history, how often has genuine merit been rewarded if the potential recipient is not white? Or male?

This is largely rhetorical. Most people very well know the answer—seldom, and often when such a person does stand out, attempts are made to diminish his or her achievements. We have been persistently whittling away at this problem for a long time now and we may be forgiven if from time to time we seem to feel it has been solved. It takes a shock to remind us how far we have yet to go.

In fact, part of the aftershock ought to be a recognition that this is a problem somehow wired into human nature, and that if we solve it for one group, it will simply move to another.

What kind of shock am I talking about?

Let me point you to this from John Scalzi’s Whatever. Go read it, then come on back here.

A couple of things I note—one, the reporter in question is herself clearly a minority. So one wonders why she would be duped into reporting this in this way without being outraged. The other is, the unattributed assertions made in the report.

But the main problem goes back to the merit argument.

These two people—Barack and Michelle Obama—are representative of our mythical Competent People ideal. They’ve Done It. They are deserving of our respect for their achievements and therefore deserve to be considered on their abilities.

However.

They seem to be of the wrong group. Hmm. How did that happen?

Wrong group? Do we still think that way?

Well, you know, maybe not, but we have this other national ideal that tends to undermine the first one, and that is Winning Is Everything. We talk about fair play and sportsmanship and all that, but we don’t believe in it, not when the possibility of losing is in the mix, and this is a presidential race. In politics, all the stops get pulled out, and if one of the weapons is to be race, well, then, perhaps the engineers of such tactics are not themselves blatant racists, but they have no qualms about using discredited tactics in the all-important attempt to win, merit aside.

Because you really don’t see people very often graciously stand aside for the better qualified. It would be nice if you did, it would say so much to the next generation about what is important. But we’ve debased that coin for 200 + years.

Equally important, though, is the question of why those who put this out there would believe it would have any impact.

Because it will. Because a lot of Americans, though they might never say it, still fear the ramifications of such a possibility.

Which is why I will believe no poll this year. I believe people will be ashamed to admit their prejudices and tell pollsters that they will support Obama, but once they’re inside the voting booth will stop and ask themselves if they’re really ready to see a black man as president.

Unfortunately, this is America. We may surprise ourselves. Or we may see the upcoming election one in which the next president is the one who simply lost least.

Joanna Russ, a teacher and science fiction writer and savvy thinker, published a book in 1983 called How To Suppress Women’s Writing. It is a lucid textbook on cultural oppression. The subjects are women and writing, but the methods and tendencies she lays out apply to virtually any sub-group and occupation. It is worth finding and reading. It delineates the subtle—and not-so-subtle—ways in which we as a culture steal merit from those we don’t wish to see possess it. In the prologue, she writes:

In a nominally egalitarian society, the ideal situation (socially speaking) is one in which the members of the “wrong” groups have the freedom to engage in literature (or equally significant activities) and yet do not do so, thus proving that they can’t. But, alas, give them the least reall freedom and they will do it. The trick thus becomes to make the freedom as nominal a freedom as possible and then—since some of the so-and-so’s will do it anyway—develop various strategies for ignoring, condemning, or belittling the artistic works that result. If properly done, these strategies result in a social situation in which the “wrong” people are (supposedly) free to commit literature, art, or whatever, but very few do, and those who do (it seems) do it badly, so we can all go home to lunch.

Some will do it well, and then you see the tactics of disenfranchisement take a few steps up the scale of panic and ugliness. Never mind that Hank Aaron actually broke Babe Ruth’s record, he’s black, and shouldn’t have been able to, but since he was about to anyway he had to be prevented. Death threats ensued. Washington Carver was a brilliant chemist, certainly, but look what he did! All his research was based on, well, peanuts. What can one expect from a black man? (It wasn’t, but even so, the denigration ignores the achievement.) Frank Yerby was a brilliant novelist, but he was fluke, the exception that proved the rule that blacks couldn’t write anything other than about themselves. He moved to Spain finally to get away from the racist belittlement of his work.

The list goes on and on. Add now this absurd, obscene attempt to paint Michelle Obama as exactly the same as every white bigot’s worst fear of a welfare queen sitting in the White House.

Merit is ignored. Ignored long enough and thoroughly enough, and it cannot shine through.

At least, so such purveyors of intolerance wish.

It might not work this time. If it doesn’t, it would be nice to think that, for a change, merit counts for more. But it may also be that further attempts like this will trigger another American ideal, that being our almost reflexive sympathy with so-called underdogs. If that puts Obama in the White House, well, goody for us. But it would also be success that ignores merit. It will be a serendipitous achievement based on our national dislike of bullies.

What then will be learned from it all?

If we were, as we would like to believe, concerned with ability and competence above all, then it is inconceivable that George W. Bush could have been elected, even in the first place. Both his opponents are by any measure his superiors in ability.

The truth is, we value comfort more and Bush, in his own way, is comforting to many people. He’s not our better. He’s “just like us” in presentation and, sadly, ability. He doesn’t make us feel inferior (by now, probably, quite the opposite) and he doesn’t challenge us to rise above mediocrity. With Bush you could share a beer and talk about baseball. With Obama? In truth, you probably could, but more likely if the subject moved on to something real—like taxes or foreign policy—most of us likely couldn’t keep up. He understands these things in a way that most of us don’t.

Not because we can’t. Because we have neither the time or patience to really understand them.

How can I say that?

Well, the evidence. If we did understand such things, we wouldn’t have had to put up with Bush for eight years.

And we wouldn’t be afraid of Obama.

Conflict: competitive or opposing action of incompatibles: antagonistic state or action.

Pornography: (3): the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction.

What else could it be, other than conflict pornography, when a major media source unnecessarily frames a story in such a way as to concoct a “conflict” in order to arouse a quick intense emotion reaction in its readers? That’s exactly what Newsweek did this week with its cover story: Lincoln vs. Darwin: Who Matters More?

I can imagine what the Newsweek Editors were really thinking: Americans get easily bored unless there is conflict. Even concocted or unnecessary conflicts will do the trick. Let’s turn Lincoln against Darwin to sell more advertising. Just as we’ve turned every election into a horse race rather than a sober choice. Let’s conjure up conflicts everywhere so that Americans don’t get distracted and thus turn away to watch one of the dozens of sports contests playing at every hour of the day. Let’s frame all of our stories as conflicts so that Americans don’t run off and watch any of innumerable movies where violent conflict appears to be the plot itself, rather than a means to a higher end.

Americans can’t help themselves when there is a conflict to behold. The corporate media knows that Americans are war-mongers. They know that when we are troubled, we are always relieved to know that we can go to war. As we’ve repeatedly done in Latin America. After all, war is movement. War is doing something. Not going to war is nothing. War is conflict. All movement is progress. Therefore, War is progress. Peace is boring. Darwin is boring. Lincoln is boring. But Lincoln versus Darwin is a conflict and thus it is interesting. Just like attacking Iran is more interesting because it is laden with conflict rather than peaceful resolution based on compromise.

Therefore, let’s not have any more stories based on resolved conflict. Let’s not herald two great men. Let’s pit them against each other. Just like we’ve done with God versus Allah. Or gays versus straights. Or Blacks versus Whites. Or Liberals versus Conservatives.

Human animals are rigged to give immediate and sustained attention to conflict. We need to be more aware of our propensity because we are so easily manipulated by those who choose to frame their communications as conflict when, in reality, other frames are much more appropriate. Because we are so vulnerable to apparent conflict, manipulative news media can make irrelevant things look relevant and un-compelling things look compelling. The news media all too often feeds our base craving for stories full of conflict. For a lot of evidence, just check out your local TV news. Huge issues involving the survival of the American way of life (exhaustion of resources, overpopulation and white collar systemic fraud) are overlooked. Rather, we get massive doses of the local crime report and sports. A bit of conflict will make just about any story look compelling.

But our yearning for conflict is addictive, just like our yearning for sweets, fatty or sugary foods, drugs, physical possessions and (for some of us) indiscriminate sex. These cravings run deep in human animals. We need to be made more aware of them, so that we don’t pursue warped priorities.  We could know more about them if we studied Darwin, even if we don’t worry about whether he was more important than Lincoln.  If we take that time to know more about the biology of human animals, maybe we wouldn’t run around getting mesmerized by conflict pornography.

Here’s a thoughtful and well-researched article on the safety of bicycling by Alan Durning of Grist.  Here’s his bottom line:

Biking is safer than it used to be. It’s safer than you might think. It does incur the risk of collision, but its other health benefits massively outweigh these risks. And it can be made much safer. What’s more, making streets truly safe for cyclists may be the best way to reverse Bicycle Neglect: it may be among communities’ best options for countering obesity, climate disruption, rising economic inequality, and oil addiction.

He also concludes, based on ample research, that

if you’re a cautious, law-abiding, risk-averse cyclist, biking is far safer than you’d think from the aggregate statistics, which are inflated by the proliferation of two-wheeling daredevils.

Durning thinks we can do a lot better to protect cyclists.  He advocates better cycling facilities, such as bikeways, bike boulevards, traffic calming, blue lanes, and cycle signals (the use of bike lanes is disputed, however, as you can see in the comments).  He also advocates for better educating drivers and cyclists.  For instance, in Germany, fourth graders are required to demonstrate cycling proficiency.

At this site, we’ve often advocated cycling as a mode of transportation (see here, for example).  I’m linking to Durning’s article because it is a good resource.  The comments continue the good discussion well.

As I read the statistics in Durning’s article, I had to agree with the need for cyclist education, as well need to educate motor vehicle drivers of the existence of bicycles. But back to those cyclists.   I cringe at the way half of them ride.  They violate virtually every traffic law.  They weave all over.  They don’t wear helmets.  Many of them ride much fast than is safe in the traffic.   I would think that U.S. bicycle/car collisions could be cut in half were the cyclists made to feel that the traffic laws pertain to them too.   My concern is a source of optimism, too, because it might be possible to dramatically cut the bicycle collisions without any substantial costs.

This is the definition of death-defying. Actually getting out and surviving this sport is only half the job.  If your work is not captured on video, it’s like it didn’t happen at all.

I used to work as an attorney for insurance companies.   These videos make me wonder the extent to which insurers specifically try to exclude activities this dangerous.

Those who are truly interested in community-building (rather than striving to enhance their own status through resource-exhausting displays of material wealth) might want to take note of two ways city folks play in water.

This idea occurred to me while walking through Tower Grove Park in St. Louis last week. Dozens of children splashed in a modest shallow pool fed by a fountain. As you can see from this (expandable) photo, the children were being closely watched by their parents. It was a communal celebration on a warm night. No one was there to display his or her financial assets. This sort of community-building occurs in many cities every day.

Sometimes a municipality builds a big pool rather than a small pool and fountain, with the same result (as seen below, a photo of the Maplewood, Missouri municipal swimming pool. Anyone can join for a relatively modest fee.

This is a photo of my seven-year old daughter going down a water slide into a municipal pool. You might be thinking, “What kind of parent are you to allow your daughter to share a swimming spot with strangers?” What kind, indeed! The same kind that knows that strangers can get along. We can even share beaches!

As shown in the above photos, people of modest means can actually enjoy playing in water quite well when they share. And they can share and they do share, just as they did decades ago while I was growing up in a middle-class neighborhood. In fact, almost no one had their own pool (other than inflatable pools for infants). Swimming was always done as a community only a few decades ago. And (believe it or not), government was competent at running swimming pools (and libraries and fire departments). The bottom line is that people shared swimming spots and yet the world did not fall apart. And because people shared, there wasn’t as much wasting of natural resources (the water, the chemicals, the electricity to run the filters, the pool companies using fuel to drive out to do maintenance, and even the energy used to heat these pools in October).

Compare the park fountain at the top of this post to the following photo I took two days ago while flying over Boston suburbs. Many of these houses have their own swimming pools (none of them being used on this hot day while this photo was taken). Based on their decisions to build their own pools, none of these people were interested in sharing swimming spots. “Come on over,” I can hear them saying to their private friends. “We have our own pool. No strangers are allowed.”

I’m seeing it everywhere these days: resource-wasting displays of wealth that have been acquired in an attempt to elevate social status. In these days of more expensive oil (though it’s still cheap), SUV’s will undoubtedly once again become an item of special status for the rich, as the middle-class decides that it can’t keep up with the rich. They won’t be able to afford the oil.

As cheap oil disappears, we’re going to put most of those middle-class pretenders back in their place in many ways. So much of what they thought they “needed,” including those pools in their own back yards, will disappear. At that point, luxury items like unnecessarily large vehicles and unnecessarily private swimming pools will once again come to be displays of real status, real power and real wealth. The rich can once again breathe easy that they will once again come to look rich.

RJ Matson, Roll Call

Mike Lester, The Rome News-Tribune

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune

Postura Climatica
Tab, The Calgary Sun

The G-8
Dario Castillejos, El Imparcial de México

Televictim
Angel Boligan, El Universal, Mexico City

[Admin note:  All Cartoons are being published at DI with full permission by Cagle Cartoons]

I wrote about complacency once before. I focused on the complacency of most Americans in the face of the energy crisis that is clearly upon us. We have no assurance that gasoline won’t double or triple in price over the next five or 10 years, throwing our economy into a massive depression. With stakes like these, you would think that prolific energy wasters like us would immediately jump on our energy consumption problem by enacting a national conservation plan to cut our petroleum use in half. This could be accomplished by modifying our wasteful energy usage in dozens of ways. For instance, we really could carpool. We could build up our mass transit systems and encourage their use. We could walk and bike more. We could make our homes much more energy-efficient. Instead of building new homes in existing farm fields, we could renovate homes that already exist. While we’re at it, we could cut our use of all other forms of energy in half too. For instance, the technology already exists to make zero-carbon footprint buildings.

Others have written extensively regarding many methods by which we could reduce energy use. Due to the widely accepted law of supply and demand, cutting our use of energy would also have the effect of lowering the price of energy (relative to whatever it would have been had we not taken such measures), thereby diminishing the financial damage from our perennial trade deficits and budget deficits.

My concern is that so many people (including many people I know personally) are absolutely complacent about the need to change the way we produce and use energy. I keep hearing people say that “they will make our gasoline out of corn” or “we have plenty of coal” as though some unspecified “corn plan” would produce net energy without causing people to starve or some fantasy “coal plan” could be a foolproof substitute for petroleum, without somehow contributing massive amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

People are finally buying more energy-efficient cars, but that is only in response to the spiking costs of gasoline. It’s like we need to be kicked in the shin in order to get our attention. Many mainstream news articles discuss that this price jump of gasoline occurred “suddenly,” as though it was impossible to see that high gasoline prices were in our future. We still don’t get it, though. For example, many news articles are currently talking about the high price of gas as though gas will continue to be five dollars per gallon five years from now, as though we’ve hit a stable plateau.

As I suggested in my prior post about complacency, I sense that there’s a rampant attitude that most of the big things in life are not under our control. Rather, they simply “happen.” According to many people, the “free market” decides what will be available for sale and at what price it will be sold. Similarly, “God” makes decisions about disasters and diseases such as heart attacks and lung cancer (even though people cause many of their own problems through climate change in lifestyle at choices). The people who are big believers in the free market and a sentient God see humans as powerless children who simply react to situations. We act like there’s nothing we can do to root corporate corruption out of our national political system.

From so many people, I hear this solution: “They” will come up with something to solve our energy problems, our medical problems, our food production problems, our natural resource supply issues and our pollution problems, as though these problems don’t start with each and every one of us. As though we are not responsible for what “they” need to do. As though we don’t make the messes that “they” need to clean up.

I have no doubt that we could cut our energy usage in half. We could substantially reduce our risks of certain diseases by changing our lifestyles. We could eat foods that are friendlier to the planet, such that the average item of food would not actually need to travel 1000 miles or more to our plates. We could start making difficult decisions that would ensure sustainable supplies of water well into the future, at least for many communities (Las Vegas might not be in the plans). By using much less of everything we consume we could substantially cut the amount of toxic waste we generate. When “we” live more responsibly, “they” have less work to do to save us.

Admittedly, some bad things do seem to just happen to us. On the other hand, many of our biggest problems are caused by us. Therefore, to act complacently as a general rule is a huge cop-out virtually guaranteeing disaster. The real solution is to force ourselves to follow the chain of production through our use of our products and resources so that we can see that our local actions often have tangible national and global consequences. We are incapable of assessing these big problems to the extent that we allow ourselves to overlook problems that have solutions that would be expensive or inconvenient to us.

Sacrifice is a dirty word these days. No politician wants to tell the citizens that we will need to give up some of our wasteful ways. The same thing goes for the many “greenwashing” articles out there. For instance, I read several “green” magazines, including Plenty; they are extremely light on the need for self-sacrifice. (more…)

What’s with white people?  If you’d like to know, check out this Salon interview of Christian Lander, creator of Stuff White People Like.

Here’s an example of Lander’s sharp sword: “The presence of an improper apostrophe on a menu can ruin an otherwise delicious meal for a white person.”  As you can probably already tell, when Lander uses the term “White People,” he’s actually referring to a specific sub-category of “white people,” namely,”left-wing, upper-middle-class.”

At his blog, Lander weighs in on quite a few consumerist tendencies of “white people.”  Here’s his riff on bottled water:

It’s all about ranking. It’s essentially a contest. It used to be that bottled water was a status symbol. You drink Evian, or you drink Fiji, or what is the most expensive water.

But advanced-level white people, the higher-ranking white people, realized that they were creating a lot of waste, and so they switched over to the Nalgene bottle. That also reminded them of going camping. So then they could take a stance of superiority over the people who were drinking bottled water. And then, that whole story came out about Nalgenes leaching I don’t know what the exact toxin is [Bisphenol A]. So then super-advanced white people went even further and got those metal Sigg bottles, and now you have this really solid hierarchy and ranking of white people of commercial bottled water, Nalgene bottle and either the glass or metal, twist-top bottles.

[This example fits well with many of the consumerist critiques on this site].

Bottom line, if you want to keep up with “White People,” you now know where to go.

I learned about this sculpture in Nature (June 26, 2008 Edition, available online only to subscribers).  Scroll down after clicking the link.   You won’t miss it.

The creator is Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. What does the sculpture mean? In the Nature article, Martin Kemp indicates that Cattelan leaves some clues:

The title, La Nona Ora, or The Ninth Hour, the first of the time of Christ’s death on the cross. This representation of the death of Pope John Paul II might be an imitation of Christ. In a typically elusive interview, Cattelan said, “I like the idea that someone is trying to save the Pope, like an upside down miracle, coming not from the heavens but from the earth.” But he adds dismissively, “In the end it is only a piece of wax.”

Cattelan’s sculpture is certainly compelling.  Is it yet another unhappy encounter between science and religion?

The same issue of Nature features a spread of articles concerning the manner in which the solar system was pummeled by meteorites just after its formation 4.6 billion years ago.  According to the article on page 1160, “The hole at the bottom of the Moon,” It was a ferocious and sustained blast of debris.  “The barrage even knocked off enough of Earth to Create the Moon in the first place.”   By 3.8 billions years ago, though, “impact rates had tailed off to a level not too different from those of today.”

How often was the Earth a target of a big meteorite?  Author Eric Hand reports on a conservative estimate: “Every million years, something would come along big enough to make a 1,000 kilometre basin.  Such impacts would have vaporized Earth’s oceans ad steam-sterilized the surface . . . an atmosphere of rock vapor could linger for thousands of years after the impact.”

Why would we elect one of the prisoners at Guantanamo as the next President of the United States? Well, the logic is becoming quite clear to anyone who has followed the corporate news media for the past few days. Prisoners at Guantanamo have that special ingredient that John McCain has that makes him an especially good candidate to be president. He was a prisoner and he was tortured! According to many pundits, this confined torture makes McCain a better candidate than Barack Obama.

What provoked this discussion? Recent statements of Wesley Clark that John McCain’s military service doesn’t make him better qualified to be President:

He hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded — that wasn’t a wartime squadron . . . I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

Please note, however, Clark’s additional words indicating that Clark nonetheless honored McCain’s military service:

I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands of millions of others in the Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world.” Clark continued: “But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in Air — in the Navy that he commanded, it wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, ‘I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it publicly?’ He hasn’t made those calls, Bob. [Addressed to interviewer Bob Schieffer of Face the Nation].

Invoking only the Clark’s comments that question whether McCain’s military service makes him a better candidate for President (but not Clark’s acknowledgement that McCain was a war hero), the national media is especially going wild making two false claims:

A) That Wesley Clark disparaged John McCain’s military record; and
B) That doing the sorts of things McCain did in the military make him a better Presidential candidate.

I’m not exaggerating when I suggest that the media is going crazy hawking these falsehoods. Watch this compilation and see for yourself: