What follows will make more sense if you read part one.
On the first day of eighth grade, I was randomly assigned to the smart class. Had I been placed in the dumb class (which we weren't supposed to call the dumb class), as I should have, I would've probably had a whole different life. While the smart class was indeed made up of smart kids, the dumb class was just everyone else, the ordinary kids -- with the exception of a few aggressively-stupid boys. Testosterone poisoning + stupidity = aggressively-stupid.
When I was 13 I thought this phenomenon was limited to boys. Turns out that girls are so much smarter than boys -- and women so much smarter than men -- that boys and men are often too stupid to spot an aggressively-stupid female. Men should be grateful that the feminist movement has made it socially acceptable for women to openly be as aggressively-stupid as men -- if they choose to reveal it to us. Makes 'em slightly less dangerous.
So, it's the first day of school, eighth grade, and I show up as required. I'm not a happy camper. I'm introverted, somewhat shy, and this is a new school. I don't know anyone, and though I love to read -- I'm willing to check out anything and everything for at least a minute -- I'm no scholar. I'm living in suburbia for the first time in my life and the school building seems huge.
Interesting paradox in that the densely packed, densely Catholic inner city neighborhood I came from had small Catholic grade schools, several of them. My new school drew from a much larger geographic area that wasn't nearly as densely populated and a given family was just as likely to be Protestant (or Satanists for all I knew at the time) as Catholic. Where I came from there were (mostly) Catholics, Protestants, and heathens. We Catholics were right, and assured a place in heaven, as long we followed all the rules. The many, many rules. Everyone else was wrong and probably going to hell, but it wasn't polite to tell them. We loved them anyway, and that's why one of our seemingly endless fund-raising drives each year was devoted to saving Pagan Babies.
Many of the many, many rules have radically changed, or vanished, since I was a kid. I can't help but wonder if there's a get out of hell free card available for anyone that died in sin before a priest could get there to punch their ticket to paradise.
Now, though it may seem as though I'm digressing my butt off what I'm actually doing is trying to paint a picture with words, to contrast my life before eighth grade with what came next. Though officially a typical, conservative Catholic grade school, run by a nun that had the sensibilities of a USMC Drill Instructor, there was music in the cafes (church social hall) at night and revolution in the air. And I was randomly placed in the "smart" class of eighth graders because though I had been properly registered by my mum, no one had decided which eighth grade I should be in and added my name to the appropriate list. Instead, two nuns had a brief conversation and it was decided on the spot to put me in with the smart kids and see what happened. They could always dumb me down later if necessary.
Well, I managed to hold my own, in spite of Algebra. For the first time in my life, I had more than one teacher for the entire day. We didn't change classes, we changed teachers. We had a very cool nun come in to teach us Algebra, which took the edge off of that particular nightmare. We had a male lay teacher come in for Science, my first experience with a teacher that wasn't a woman. He wasn't nearly as cool as our Algebra nun, but the girls thought he was a cutie. Curiously, I can't remember either of their names or the name of the nun we had for all of our other classes. I can recall the names of almost all the other nuns and teachers I had up until this point, and most of my high school teachers as well. This puzzles me because it was the best year of school I ever had. I can't remember the name of the nun I had in first grade, but I've probably blocked it out because I was so traumatized (GRIN). There's a vicious rumor that claims one of my older sisters once had to unclench my fists from a wrought iron fence that I had latched onto in a futile attempt to keep from going to school that I refuse to either confirm or deny. However, it serves as a perfect illustration of how I felt about formal schooling as a child.
Returning to the fall of '66...it was the kids that made eighth grade my favorite school year. I was triply disadvantaged because they were, first, as a group, much more worldly, sophisticated and downright cooler than I was. They had older siblings in high school and college that were in the thick of the late sixties. My older sibs were out of high school and living, working and making babies in the real world. Not a one of them even lived in a commune. Also, many had parents that were professionals of some sort that made a lot more money than my blue collar dad and stay at home mom. And most of them were smarter than me. But I got lucky.
They were nice. They liked me. I liked them. They, the Algebra nun, a rebellious young priest, and my mum, who had subscriptions to Look, Life, and The Saturday Evening Post, opened my eyes to a whole new world. And next week I will finally explain what all this has to do with melting pots and mosaics.
Have an OK day.
©Mark Mehlmauer 2015
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Saturday, November 28, 2015
Saturday, November 21, 2015
Melting Pot (Part One)
I don't remember what grade I was in or which nun it was, but I have this specific memory of being told that the concept of America as a melting pot was wrong, that a more accurate way to describe it was as a mosaic. I've encountered this particular refinement to this particular metaphor many times since, but this was the first time. Sorta/kinda missing the point (hey, I was a kid) I decided that I liked the melting pot analogy better because it conjured up a vivid image of a huge cauldron, boiling and bubbling, powered by an intense fire, flames licking up the sides. A melting pot, or at least what I thought a melting pot should look like, having never actually encountered one. And no, my imagination didn't include people being tossed into the pot. You've clearly watched too many horror movies.
I didn't care for mosaics, as an art form I mean. I still don't, but considering my extremely limited knowledge of the visual arts, about which I'm going to do something one of these days (I've been getting psyched up for this project for better than forty years, so I'm ready), I feel obliged to throw in a buhwhaddle I know?
I say sorta/kinda because I knew what she meant. She explained that what she was talking about was that while there was truth to be discerned in the melting pot meme, in her opinion, America was more like a mosaic because while we held certain truths to be self-evident and that there was such a thing as American culture, we could all fit into the big picture without having to give up what it was that made us different from each other. Well, mostly.
But I took that for granted. Not intellectually, but intuitively. Within the bubble of my childhood, which, being a kid, I thought included everyone else, this was the way of the world, well, the way of the USA anyway. I'd been made aware that the Godless Commies of the countries behind the Iron Curtain (BOING! another vivid image) didn't see things that way.
See, I somehow managed to get through my preschool years and then grade school, until the eighth grade, with kids from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds (in the early 1960s) without having a clue that various groups were locked in power struggles with each other, like the ones you see in the movies. Not even black folks (they were called negroes at the time), though admittedly, there were not a lot of black people in my bubble.
This was in spite of the fact these were politically incorrect times and we thought it normal to use words like dago, pollock, mick and the like. I didn't hear the n-word very often, but that was only because, as I mentioned above, I didn't have much contact with African-Americans. I had no idea, at the time, that this was because of segregation. The various Sisters of Charity that were in charge of my intellectual and moral development certainly made us aware of the civil rights movement. But that was something that was going on down South, wherever that was. That was about mean-spirited, narrow-minded rednecks that never got over having their butts kicked in the Civil war. President Kennedy and Martin Luther King were going to get that fixed. Then we would all be one big happy family, and did you know that George Washington Carver was a great scientist?
It was a very strong bubble. I remember, in the second grade, that when we got this new kid, the first black kid in our class, that we were fascinated by the novelty of it. He taught us to stick out our hands, palm up, and say, "Gimmie me five" and then you turn your palm to the ground and say, "On the n-word side." We loved it. It was almost as cool as the time Mrs. Barrett broke her dreaded yardstick (I had a lay teacher that year) over his ass and he shed not a single tear. Our hero!
In the summer of 1966, we moved from the inner city to the suburbs. As far as I know, it was primarily so my dad could be closer to work. If it was about "escaping the inner city," this was completely lost on me. I don't recall feeling like I had escaped from anything. But things sure were different.
We moved into what was probably the most humble section of a fairly affluent community and I had my last year of Catholic education, eighth grade; my parents couldn't afford to send me to a Catholic high school, and I was in the process of rejecting Catholicism anyway.
Ironically, it was a handful of prosperous little all-white suburbanites that introduced me to the societal upheaval that changed everything and has ever since simply been called the sixties. This was exciting stuff, we were going to change everything and save the world! I took to it like a duck to water. Fortunately, I had no access to recreational pharmaceuticals. Nobody under the age of 18 should, 25 would be better. I never cared much for alcohol, or cigarettes for that matter, which were available. Drugs were just starting to trickle down to the high school level, in my world at least, towards the end of my sentence there. But that's a subject for another post, and it will be.
Two quick items that have virtually nothing to do with this post but are vitally important. One: Yes I graduated, smart ass. As a matter of fact, I also have 39 officially certified college credits. Also, in case I should drop dead before I get around to expounding on the secret of life, here it is.
The secret of life: So-called real life is just high school with money.
Anyways...somebody tipped over the melting pot and set the world on fire. Some of it was for the good, but a good deal of it wasn't. We've definitely got ourselves a mosaic now buddy.
To be continued...
Have an OK day.
©Mark Mehlmauer 2015
If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down.
Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.
I didn't care for mosaics, as an art form I mean. I still don't, but considering my extremely limited knowledge of the visual arts, about which I'm going to do something one of these days (I've been getting psyched up for this project for better than forty years, so I'm ready), I feel obliged to throw in a buhwhaddle I know?
I say sorta/kinda because I knew what she meant. She explained that what she was talking about was that while there was truth to be discerned in the melting pot meme, in her opinion, America was more like a mosaic because while we held certain truths to be self-evident and that there was such a thing as American culture, we could all fit into the big picture without having to give up what it was that made us different from each other. Well, mostly.
But I took that for granted. Not intellectually, but intuitively. Within the bubble of my childhood, which, being a kid, I thought included everyone else, this was the way of the world, well, the way of the USA anyway. I'd been made aware that the Godless Commies of the countries behind the Iron Curtain (BOING! another vivid image) didn't see things that way.
See, I somehow managed to get through my preschool years and then grade school, until the eighth grade, with kids from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds (in the early 1960s) without having a clue that various groups were locked in power struggles with each other, like the ones you see in the movies. Not even black folks (they were called negroes at the time), though admittedly, there were not a lot of black people in my bubble.
This was in spite of the fact these were politically incorrect times and we thought it normal to use words like dago, pollock, mick and the like. I didn't hear the n-word very often, but that was only because, as I mentioned above, I didn't have much contact with African-Americans. I had no idea, at the time, that this was because of segregation. The various Sisters of Charity that were in charge of my intellectual and moral development certainly made us aware of the civil rights movement. But that was something that was going on down South, wherever that was. That was about mean-spirited, narrow-minded rednecks that never got over having their butts kicked in the Civil war. President Kennedy and Martin Luther King were going to get that fixed. Then we would all be one big happy family, and did you know that George Washington Carver was a great scientist?
It was a very strong bubble. I remember, in the second grade, that when we got this new kid, the first black kid in our class, that we were fascinated by the novelty of it. He taught us to stick out our hands, palm up, and say, "Gimmie me five" and then you turn your palm to the ground and say, "On the n-word side." We loved it. It was almost as cool as the time Mrs. Barrett broke her dreaded yardstick (I had a lay teacher that year) over his ass and he shed not a single tear. Our hero!
In the summer of 1966, we moved from the inner city to the suburbs. As far as I know, it was primarily so my dad could be closer to work. If it was about "escaping the inner city," this was completely lost on me. I don't recall feeling like I had escaped from anything. But things sure were different.
We moved into what was probably the most humble section of a fairly affluent community and I had my last year of Catholic education, eighth grade; my parents couldn't afford to send me to a Catholic high school, and I was in the process of rejecting Catholicism anyway.
Ironically, it was a handful of prosperous little all-white suburbanites that introduced me to the societal upheaval that changed everything and has ever since simply been called the sixties. This was exciting stuff, we were going to change everything and save the world! I took to it like a duck to water. Fortunately, I had no access to recreational pharmaceuticals. Nobody under the age of 18 should, 25 would be better. I never cared much for alcohol, or cigarettes for that matter, which were available. Drugs were just starting to trickle down to the high school level, in my world at least, towards the end of my sentence there. But that's a subject for another post, and it will be.
Two quick items that have virtually nothing to do with this post but are vitally important. One: Yes I graduated, smart ass. As a matter of fact, I also have 39 officially certified college credits. Also, in case I should drop dead before I get around to expounding on the secret of life, here it is.
The secret of life: So-called real life is just high school with money.
Anyways...somebody tipped over the melting pot and set the world on fire. Some of it was for the good, but a good deal of it wasn't. We've definitely got ourselves a mosaic now buddy.
To be continued...
Have an OK day.
©Mark Mehlmauer 2015
If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down.
Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Republicrats v. Depublicans, Part Deux
The leader of the most transparent administration in American history has stepped up to the teleprompter once more. Demonstrating that when our way of life is menaced, even by our largest trading partner, Mr. Obama is prepared to act swiftly to protect us from the crafty, conniving Canucks. This is why it only took him seven years to rule that we're not about to let 'em build a pipeline to transport their nasty, tar sands-derived oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
Mr. O. made this courageous decision in spite of the fact the State Department has concluded that the pipeline will have no effect on global warming, one way or another because, one way or another, this oil has and will continue to be extracted, shipped and refined by somebody. His decision will ensure that boom times will continue for anyone involved in transporting oil via rail even though pipelines are proven to be more efficient, and considerably safer. He will not be swayed in spite of the fact constructing the pipeline would've generated a bunch of construction jobs, the exact number of which depends on whom you choose to believe. Anyway, as he has pointed out, these jobs would only last for a couple of years, though I must admit that the construction workers I know would be willing to trade a non-essential body part for a couple of years of well-paying, guaranteed work. As a matter of fact, I personally know of several citizens of Flyoverland who would be willing to sell one of their kidneys if it were legal...
...Which baffles me because the official unemployment rate is down again and many economists think that a 5% unemployment rate, allowing for all the folks in the process of trading a great job for an even better one, effectively constitutes full employment. I must have too many friends in low places.
The point is that despite the fact we Americans overwhelmingly support the building of the pipeline in poll after poll, Mr. Obama, once again is not afraid to ignore us, to save us from ourselves. He has courageously decided that we will not inflict Mother Earth with this particular 1,200 miles of pipeline even though we are already continuously expanding the 2,500,000 miles of pipes running under our feet. Now he has street cred he can use at the upcoming twenty-first meeting of the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Unlike the first twenty conferences, the world has a chance at reaching a workable consensus this time because China, that generates more carbon dioxide than the USA and Canada put together, recently promised that although the numbers will keep rising, they will peak soon and then start going down -- by 2030 at the latest. Barry made Jinping pinkie swear.
Meanwhile...
The Republicrats, the party of small government, continues their bipartisan alliance with Big sugar, and Big Gubmint Depublicans.
The Gubmint began subsidizing the American sugar industry in 1934, a temporary measure to aid farmers in the midst of the Great Depression. The price supports, quotas, and loans enjoyed by the industry, that the GAO says costs us almost $2,000,000,000 dollars a year, are alive and well 81 years later. Congress, demonstrating that they're capable of bipartisan cooperation when it's important -- or when it's needed to buy votes -- remains committed. For example, Marco Rubio, the Florida Republicrat senator running for president (alleged Rightie) and Al Frankin (proud Leftie, a Depublican of Saturday Night Live fame, that somehow became a senator from Minnesota) stand united to protect the sugar interests in their respective states. Which means that if you live in the USA, you're paying at least twice as much for sugar as the rest of the world. One of the rationalizations offered for this program is that it protects American jobs, and it does -- as long as the jobs are in the sugar industry. Unfortunately, the U.S. Dept. of Commerce estimates that every job protected in the sugar business results in three jobs lost in the candy business.
Egads! exclaims the gentlereader, how is this possible? Information Costs.
"The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups." Henry Hazlitt
When the phrase information costs is used by an economist, it refers to the fact that a given weasel, or group of weasels, can gain an unfair advantage in the market because while the advantage may be huge for them, it often goes unnoticed by the market as a whole. This is because we must choose our battles carefully since it's impossible to win them all.
The market is us. Or rather, the market is us, interacting with -- us. Filthy rich, desperately poor, or somewhere in between -- we all make choices, from moment to moment. Which burger joint should I go to? Who should I marry? How much will I pay for sugar? Who should I vote for? We choose based on available information.
The good news is that we're living in the dawn of the Information age. The bad news is we're living in the dawn of the Information Age.
Time is the cost of information.
Having an actual life, a given gentlereader may be too damn busy to know, or care, how economists define the term information costs. Having an actual life, a given gentlereader may be too damn busy to know, or care, that sugar costs too much -- as long as it doesn't cost enough to matter to a given gentlereader.
Step One. The weasels donate some of the money you pay them to politicians.
Step Two. The politicians use the money to buy your vote and get elected and/or stay elected.
Step Three. The politicians pass laws that help the weasels maximize their profits.
Repeat.
Move along, move along -- nothing to see here but pillars of the community protecting American jobs.
Or, more succinctly:
The weasels make a killing by gently extracting a small amount of your money and giving some of it to politicians to buy your vote with your money.
Have an OK day.
©Mark Mehlmauer 2015
If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down.
Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.
Mr. O. made this courageous decision in spite of the fact the State Department has concluded that the pipeline will have no effect on global warming, one way or another because, one way or another, this oil has and will continue to be extracted, shipped and refined by somebody. His decision will ensure that boom times will continue for anyone involved in transporting oil via rail even though pipelines are proven to be more efficient, and considerably safer. He will not be swayed in spite of the fact constructing the pipeline would've generated a bunch of construction jobs, the exact number of which depends on whom you choose to believe. Anyway, as he has pointed out, these jobs would only last for a couple of years, though I must admit that the construction workers I know would be willing to trade a non-essential body part for a couple of years of well-paying, guaranteed work. As a matter of fact, I personally know of several citizens of Flyoverland who would be willing to sell one of their kidneys if it were legal...
...Which baffles me because the official unemployment rate is down again and many economists think that a 5% unemployment rate, allowing for all the folks in the process of trading a great job for an even better one, effectively constitutes full employment. I must have too many friends in low places.
The point is that despite the fact we Americans overwhelmingly support the building of the pipeline in poll after poll, Mr. Obama, once again is not afraid to ignore us, to save us from ourselves. He has courageously decided that we will not inflict Mother Earth with this particular 1,200 miles of pipeline even though we are already continuously expanding the 2,500,000 miles of pipes running under our feet. Now he has street cred he can use at the upcoming twenty-first meeting of the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Unlike the first twenty conferences, the world has a chance at reaching a workable consensus this time because China, that generates more carbon dioxide than the USA and Canada put together, recently promised that although the numbers will keep rising, they will peak soon and then start going down -- by 2030 at the latest. Barry made Jinping pinkie swear.
Meanwhile...
The Republicrats, the party of small government, continues their bipartisan alliance with Big sugar, and Big Gubmint Depublicans.
The Gubmint began subsidizing the American sugar industry in 1934, a temporary measure to aid farmers in the midst of the Great Depression. The price supports, quotas, and loans enjoyed by the industry, that the GAO says costs us almost $2,000,000,000 dollars a year, are alive and well 81 years later. Congress, demonstrating that they're capable of bipartisan cooperation when it's important -- or when it's needed to buy votes -- remains committed. For example, Marco Rubio, the Florida Republicrat senator running for president (alleged Rightie) and Al Frankin (proud Leftie, a Depublican of Saturday Night Live fame, that somehow became a senator from Minnesota) stand united to protect the sugar interests in their respective states. Which means that if you live in the USA, you're paying at least twice as much for sugar as the rest of the world. One of the rationalizations offered for this program is that it protects American jobs, and it does -- as long as the jobs are in the sugar industry. Unfortunately, the U.S. Dept. of Commerce estimates that every job protected in the sugar business results in three jobs lost in the candy business.
Egads! exclaims the gentlereader, how is this possible? Information Costs.
When the phrase information costs is used by an economist, it refers to the fact that a given weasel, or group of weasels, can gain an unfair advantage in the market because while the advantage may be huge for them, it often goes unnoticed by the market as a whole. This is because we must choose our battles carefully since it's impossible to win them all.
The market is us. Or rather, the market is us, interacting with -- us. Filthy rich, desperately poor, or somewhere in between -- we all make choices, from moment to moment. Which burger joint should I go to? Who should I marry? How much will I pay for sugar? Who should I vote for? We choose based on available information.
The good news is that we're living in the dawn of the Information age. The bad news is we're living in the dawn of the Information Age.
Time is the cost of information.
Having an actual life, a given gentlereader may be too damn busy to know, or care, how economists define the term information costs. Having an actual life, a given gentlereader may be too damn busy to know, or care, that sugar costs too much -- as long as it doesn't cost enough to matter to a given gentlereader.
Step One. The weasels donate some of the money you pay them to politicians.
Step Two. The politicians use the money to buy your vote and get elected and/or stay elected.
Step Three. The politicians pass laws that help the weasels maximize their profits.
Repeat.
Move along, move along -- nothing to see here but pillars of the community protecting American jobs.
Or, more succinctly:
The weasels make a killing by gently extracting a small amount of your money and giving some of it to politicians to buy your vote with your money.
Have an OK day.
©Mark Mehlmauer 2015
If you wish to like, react, leave a comment or share -- please scroll down.
Mobile gentlereaders, if I've pleased you, there's additional content to be found via laptop and desktop.
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