Joe Rogan Discusses the Protests/Rioting with Bret Weinstein

Good food for thought when Bret Weinstein sits down with Joe Rogan to discuss the protests and the civil unrest. I haven't been buying the standard line that these sustained protests are driven completely by the homicide of George Floyd. That horrific incident is certainly what triggered the demonstrations. However, the duration and intensity of the unrest , the organic "leaderless" groundswell, the unfocused attacks on virtually every American institution (including universities and STEM) and the unhinged demands (e.g., where "defund the police" doesn't actually mean defund the police) have convinced me this unrest is about far more than police abuses. Weinstein believes that many Occupy Wall Street demonstrators (he supported this movement) turned to anarchy and have now combined with the many demonstrators who fall under the Black Lives Matter umbrella, as well as other participants.

Weinstein is an evolutionary biologist living in exile from Evergreen State with his wife, Heather Heying, also an evolutionary biologist. These two biologists somehow survived intact the abysmal failure of Evergreen to deal with its own unrest in 2016, an incident that gives Weinstein a unique perspective on the ongoing crisis. In the first 30 minutes of this podcast, Weinstein and Rogan focus on the failures of BOTH political parties to represent the interests of the American working class. Ever since Bill Clinton, both parties have catered almost exclusively to the needs of their "clients," large corporations, which have rigged the game to screw small business and working people. This trend of catering to big corporations and screwing workers has continued under the current administration. One result of this: Widespread joblessness and hopelessness in both big cities and small that is now exploding on the streets.   This economic misery has hurt minorities living in urban areas especially hard, exacerbating their many concerns about institutional racism. Weinstein sees no short term or long term solution to this mess given the complete lack of political leadership, especially from the White House.

Continue ReadingJoe Rogan Discusses the Protests/Rioting with Bret Weinstein

Rule #1: Take Time to Say Hello to Strangers

Over the past couple of decades, I've become eager to say hello to people I don't know, but it wasn't always this way. I'm most definitely an introvert and it was easy to walk on by.  Through trial and error, though, I've learned that you have no idea who that person is, the one you are passing on the street. It might be a person with a fantastic story. For instance, when my kids were young, I often walked past a man at my kids' grade school, merely saying hello. It was months later that I learned that he was a Grammy Award winning jazz piano player who toured the world.

About 20 years ago, at a Christmastime event at the home of a neighbor of my former family-in-law my father-in-law asked me, "Erich, have you met James Watson yet?" I hadn't. That night, while most of the neighbors sang Christmas carols, I had the opportunity to discuss the double helix with the co-discoverer of DNA.

There's all kinds of interesting people all around you. Most of them don't send you any clues to their accomplishments, not until you say hello and strike up a conversation.  You will miss out on some of the best parts of life if you don't take the time to say hello to strangers.

Sixteen years ago, in April, 2004, I took the time to get to know a woman who walked her two dogs (Cara Mia and Bobinskion) up and down my street every day. The woman's name was Bisia and it turned out that she was a Polish Countess who had an unusual story, a heroic story based on her life in Poland during World War II. She was 85-years old when I sat down to interview her for the Flora Place neighborhood newsletter. At that time, Bisa was married to her 95 year old husband, Isham. They have both passed away since I interviewed with her. After I wrote up her story, I noticed that the local PBS station had produced a feature on her too. I've embedded that link below.

I wrote this 15 years ago and rediscovered it today. I'd like to once again share her story. I hope you enjoy this.

The Countess of Flora Place

Originally Published April, 2004

Each of us might not have ended up living on Flora Place.  Life offers many paths to many other places.  I, for instance, grew up in St. Louis County and learned of this beautiful street through friends. My personal path to becoming a Flora Place resident, then, was not surprising.

For others, though, the journey followed convoluted and precarious paths.  One such person is Bisia Reavis, who has lived with her husband Isham at 4122 Flora Place since 1958.  As one of the most prominent dog-walkers on the street, Bisia is virtually an institution.  Always ready with her kind smile and encouraging words, she is generally accompanied on her walks by Cara Mia (a Doberman) and Bobinski (“Bo,” a Poodle).

The current editor of this newsletter has decided to begin a series of articles highlighting the stories some of our many interesting neighbors. Bisia was kind enough to share her journey from Poland to Flora Place as the first article in this series.

Formerly known as Countess Elizbieta Krasicka, Bisia was the youngest of six children born in 1921 to Count August from Siecin Krasicki and Countess Isabella from Granow Wodzicka.  The family lived at the Castle at Lesko, in Poland (present day Ukraine) tucked along the Carpathian Mountains.  The sprawling estate stretched to the borders of both Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The bright red family coat of arms is the symbol of a lineage of nobility stretching back to 1540.  Bisia’s story involves many ancillary episodes.  Her Grandfather Stanislaw traveled to Mexico to serve as one of Maximillian’s officers in the 1860’s.   Her uncle, the Archbishop of Krakow, ordained Pope John-Paul II.

Bisia was 17 when war broke out in September, 1939. The Germans and Soviets quickly decided that the San River (which flowed through the family garden) would serve as their contentious line of demarcation.

Continue ReadingRule #1: Take Time to Say Hello to Strangers

Axiomatic Civic Responsibility

I’m looking at the “protesters” in Michigan and ruminating on the nature of civil disobedience versus civic aphasia. By that latter term I mean a condition wherein a blank space exists within the psyché where one would expect an appropriate recognition of responsible behavior ought to live.  A condition which seems to allow certain people to feel empowered to simply ignore—or fail to recognize—the point at which a reflexive rejection of authority should yield to a recognition of community responsibility.  That moment when the impulse to challenge, dismiss, or simply ignore what one is being told enlarges to the point of defiance and what ordinarily would be a responsible acceptance of correct behavior in the face of a public duty. It could be about anything from recycling to voting regularly to paying taxes to obeying directives meant to protect entire populations.

Fairly basic exercises in logic should suffice to define the difference between legitimate civil disobedience and civic aphasia. Questions like: “Who does this serve?” And if the answer is anything other than the community at large, discussion should occur to determine the next step.  The protesters in Michigan probably asked, if they asked at all, a related question that falls short of useful answer:  “How does this serve me?”  Depending on how much information they have in the first place, the answer to that question will be of limited utility, especially in cases of public health.

Another way to look at the difference is this:  is the action taken to defend privilege or to extend it? And to whom?

One factor involved in the current expression of misplaced disobedience has to do with weighing consequences. The governor of the state issues a lockdown in order to stem the rate of infection, person to person. It will last a limited time. When the emergency is over (and it will be over), what rights have been lost except a presumed right to be free of any restraint on personal whim?

There is no right to be free of inconvenience.  At best, we have a right to try to avoid it, diminish it, work around it.  Certainly be angry at it.  But there is no law, no agency, no institution that can enforce a freedom from inconvenience.  For one, it could never be made universal.  For another, “inconvenience” is a rather vague definition which is dependent on context.

And then there is the fact that some inconveniences simply have to be accepted and managed.

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You Can Live Without Toilet Paper — And Be Cleaner for It

As I watched stories of people hoarding toilet paper during the pandemic, wiping out entire stores, I felt secure that the meagre five rolls that I have in my own house would last me quite a while, even indefinitely.

Two years ago, I gave up most toilet paper use. I found something cleaner, cheaper, and more comfortable. It’s also more convenient, as I don’t have to keep buying it – at least not very often. I use a homemade bidet and I love it! I especially appreciate my bidet when I am stuck in bathrooms where toilet paper is my only option.

The bidet (pronounced bid-day) is a bathroom fixture that washes your crotch after you use the toilet.

In some countries, a bidet is a separate fixture that sits right next to the toilet. There are also many types of bidets that can be retrofitted to any toilet seat. Some are simple and other bidets are super fancy models with heated seats, warm water, adjustable jet sprayers and air dryer – all powered with a remote control. A bidet is like a car wash for your bottom.

I considered installing a simple bidet on my toilet, but then it occurred to me that bidets essentially squirt water. That’s not plumbing science. Lots of things can squirt water. I did a little research and found some squeezable plastic lab bottles with bent squirt nozzles. They were $4 each. Perfect. Then I went to a thrift store and found some cheap but luxuriously soft washcloths. Now before you get grossed out – bear with me. What I’m doing is way more hygienic than what you’re doing with toilet paper!

After peeing, instead of wiping with dry toilet paper, I rinse off with water from my squeeze bottle bidet and pat dry with a soft dry washcloth. The first time I tried my system, I was amazed at how much better and cleaner it felt than toilet paper. It was like walking out of a shower and toweling off. It’s kind of luxurious.

Ok . . . so what about pooping? I do use toilet paper for that, but just a fraction of the amount I used to use. When cleaning with a stream of water first, I only need a very small amount of toilet paper to finish the job. I have considered a system that uses dry washcloths for that too, and probably will. Having washed cloth diapers when my kids were little, I know that this system is doable and not anywhere near as gross as you’d imagine. I’ll get to that in a moment.

I use my squirt bottle bidet in my master bathroom and it was an easy experiment because I’m the only who uses that bathroom. The only thing keeping me from putting it my guest bathroom is that it’s a little awkward to tell guests how to wipe.

But change is initially changing a mindset and then changing habits.

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Bertrand Russell Tossed me a Life Preserver in 1943, Before I Was Born

As a 17-year old boy, I was incredibly lucky to find a book by Bertrand Russell at the local public library.  This was a key time in my development--I was skeptical about many things back then, but I felt alone. The people in my life were earnestly telling me things about life, politics and religion that didn't make any sense to me and discussions with them mostly resulted only in strange and condescending lectures.

I remember the joy and relief I felt when I first started reading the first paragraph of Russell's 1943 essay, "AN OUTLINE OF INTELLECTUAL RUBBISH," which was a chapter in a book I found at the library.

Man is a rational animal-so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favour of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents. On the contrary, I have seen the world plunging continually further into madness. I have seen great nations, formerly leaders of civilization, led astray by preachers of bombastic nonsense. I have seen cruelty, persecution, and superstition increasing by leaps and bounds, until we have almost reached the point where praise of rationality is held to mark a man as an old fogy regrettably surviving from a bygone age. All this is depressing, but gloom is a useless emotion. In order to escape from it, I have been driven to study the past with more attention than I had formerly given to it, and have found, as Erasmus found, that folly is perennial and yet the human race has survived. The follies of our own times are easier to bear when they are seen against the background of past follies. In what follows I shall mix the sillinesses of our day with those of former centuries. Perhaps the result may help in seeing our own times in perspective, and as not much worse than other ages that our ancestors lived through without ultimate disaster.


Russell's full essay is much longer than this excerpt and it is filled with many other pointed observations, permeated throughout with Russell's wry sense of humor. Until the teenaged version of me saw this essay, I thought I was alone in my skepticism. That's a difficult place to be trapped for a teenager. This was in the 1970's, long before the Internet. I sometimes wondered whether there was something wrong with me. I didn't think so, but when I would express doubts about religion, for example, everyone else got quiet and started to look nervous The only exception was my mother, who often had the courage to ask simple questions. As I am writing this article, my mother is a vibrant and independent-living 87 year old.  How lucky I am in that regard, too. I sometimes thank her for her unbridled curiosity and "blame" her for the fact that I became somewhat subversive.  She laughs and says she doesn't know what I'm talking about.

Reading this essay was a joyride for the 17-year old version of me. I discovered that I was not alone. I learned that it is critically important to speak up, even when you are the only one in the room taking a controversial position. When I first read Russell's essay, I learned that I was not crazy. This was the beginning of a whole new way of thinking for me, and it gave me the courage to take stronger stands on my own against things that made no sense to me.

Continue ReadingBertrand Russell Tossed me a Life Preserver in 1943, Before I Was Born