The Video Boogeyman

Last Friday, author, historian and former presidential speechwriter Peggy Noonan published an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal that I found both interesting and disturbing. Titled "We're Scaring Our Children to Death," the article discussed the proliferation of frightening images to which our children are continually exposed on television and the movies. The most recent example is the nearly constant airing, over several days, of frightening images of Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech murderer, glaring into the camera with his emotionless eyes, brandishing weapons, and ranting his litany of hatred. The aftermath of terrorist attacks, apocalyptic predictions about the effects of global warming, and televised dramas featuring unrelenting, graphic violence are all staples of modern news and entertainment programming.

It entertains and informs adults. But what does it do to our children?

I've written in this blog before about the role of the proliferation of violent imagery in desensitizing our children to violence, but Ms Noonan's article brings a fresh viewpoint to the discussion and is worth your time in reading - check it out at http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110009992. Ask yourself what type of adults we grow when we raise them on constant images of violent death, scientific disaster hype, and the newsworthy details of sexual predators. What happened to childhood?

The problem is, of course, worse in those countries where real violence, not just images, is a fact of life. Across the Middle East, and particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, generations of children are growing up scarred by relentless and random violence, much of it encouraged by the very religious leaders who ought to be speaking out against it. What type of adults will rule these nations in the future, having been shaped in childhood by a culture of constant violence and hate?

Children at home and abroad are being robbed of childhood. We can't do much about the rest of the world, but I think we ought to be paying more attention to the problem at home. The news and entertainment industries will continue to broadcast violent images - the adage, "If it bleeds, it leads" is a cornerstone of news broadcasts, and action shows featuring explosions and other violence are easier and cheaper to film than a thoughtful "Masterpiece Theater" drama. But we need to think seriously about what we're doing.

You only get one chance to be a child. And it's the job of parents (and grandparents, now that I'm one) to make sure that opportunity is used to grow happy children into healthy, well-adjusted adults.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

cn u rite?

According to a recent CNN report, an Irish education commission claims that the popularity of text messaging on mobile phones is threatening writing standards of Irish schoolchildren. These are the same schoolchildren who were among the top 10 performers in an international survey of literacy standards compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2003.

I guess we should have seen it coming.

I have written in this blog many times about the decline in writing standards among American children, as reflected in some of the ungrammatical, misspelled, and shoddily constructed stuff that crosses my desk - most of which was written by people who are college graduates. But I've seen it get worse over the years as, first, the looser and more free-wheeling spelling and grammar of e-mail worked their effect on writing standards, and, later, as text messaging reduced sentences to collections of letters and symbols.

How bad is it? Well, like so many things, it depends on who you ask and how you look at the issue. A quick Google search on this topic led me to a 2005 paper by graduate student Amanda O'Connor (http://www.newhorizons/strategies/literacy/oconnor.htm). The paper, titled "Instant Messaging: Friend of Foe of Student Writing?" offers an interesting look at the influence of evolving technologies on student writing and reaches somewhat more forgiving conclusions than I might have expected. Ms O'Connor concludes that "At this point in time, it is not possible to determine specifically the effects of instant messaging on formal writing." She does, however, also conclude that - for better or worse - instant messaging and related communications technologies are here to stay and are becoming an important part of childrens' literacy. She offers suggestions for how teachers can instruct their students in when various types of communciation are appropriate.

I'm not a nose-in-the-air linguistic purist by any means. I love puns (the worse, the better) and am not above sprinkling phonetic shortcuts and emoticons in my e-mail. But, as Ms O'Connor notes in her paper, there are times for which various types of communication and stylistics are appropriate. And to the extent that instant messaging and other shorthand forms of communication interfere with the ability to compile properly-spelled words into complete, grammatical sentences, and those sentences into formal letters, reports, or other official documents, I think they're a minor menace.

I can only hope that teachers of writing will do their best to ensure that their students graduate grade school, high school, and college understanding how to write for their intended audience. And to understand that this audience may not always consist of friends power-thumbing instant messages.

Have a good day. Write a comment and let me know what you think of this topic. Complete sentences will be appreciated!

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Kafka Lives!

I refer, of course, to the author Franz Kafka, who wrote unsettling stories of ordinary people caught up in bizarre and surreal events. The prime example is his novel "The Trial," which tells the story of a man named Joseph K who wakes up one morning and, for reasons never revealed, is arrested, investigated, and tried over a period of years for an unspecified crime, based on evidence he is not allowed to see.

No, it's not set in the Bush administration.

Franz Kafka's name has entered the language in the adjective kafkaesque, defined as "marked by surreal distortion and often a sense of impending danger; a 'kafkaesque' situation is usually bizarre and frustrating."

I am now in the third week of a bureaucratic knife fight with the managers of the self-storage facility where much of our accumulated junk resides when not needed. One day I received a dunning letter from the facility telling me that my access code to enter the facility had been disabled and a second lock placed on my storage unit because I was delinquent in my payments. Upon investigation, I discovered that they were claiming that I had not paid my rent for the month of March, 2007 (although I had a clear history of paying promptly and in advance, and had already paid the rent for April).

Well, I thought, this is silly. I spent some time on line and on the phone with my credit union and assembled a pile of documents proving that the payment had been made on time and my check had been cashed. You would think that would be sufficient to prove that I was innocent.

You would be wrong.

The manager of the storage facility says she has no record of receiving or depositing my check. Therefore, although I can prove the rent has been paid, she still insists it's my responsibility to prove that they actually received the money...and until I can do that, they're keeping me locked away from my property.

Is it just me, or am I being penalized for someone's inept bookkeeping?

I understand that mistakes sometimes happen. I think I may even have made one myself sometime. But when I can prove that I paid the bill in good faith, it seems to me that it's the storage company's responsibility to figure out what they did with the money. We're only talking about $133.95, so it's not likely that some shifty employee is partying in Rio on my March rent. It's more likely that my check somehow got diverted into some other renter's account...and I think I'll have a tough time figuring out how to prove that.

I have asked my credit union to send me - posthaste - a copy of the cancelled check, which the manager claims will let her see who cashed the check and where the money went. I don't mind doing this if it helps clear up this mess. I am bothered, though, by the guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude taken by the storage company.

I'll let you know how it comes out.

Kafka lives.

Have a good weekend. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Time Machine

One of the staples of science fiction stories and films is the idea of time travel. H. G. Wells wrote the classic novel The Time Machine, and many other writers and filmmakers have explored the fascinating possibilities of travelling back and forth in time. What few people realize, though, is that time travel is perfectly possible, at least in one direction...you need only look to the Middle East.

Welcome to the Arab/Muslim world. Set your watches back 1200 years.

Two things bring this thought to mind today. One is the news out of Iran that the authorities are cracking down severely on women guilty of the heinous crime of insufficiently modest, Islamic dress. Evidently the sight of an uncovered female arm, or a glimpse of a woman's hair, is such a danger to public morals that the religious authorities are making extra efforts to get such hardened criminals off the streets.

Oh, and they're detaining Western reporters who attempt to film the enforcement of Islamic morality. Evidently, they don't want the rest of the world to realize how backward they are.

The other thing that attracted my attention on the topic of time travel was a report on the MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) website. MEMRI report number 1562, dated April 27th, provids translated excerpts from a debate which aired on Al-Arabiya television on January 28th of this year. The topic of the debate among several Islamic scholars was whether women may serve as heads of state, and it makes amazing and unsettling reading. Consider this statement by Said Farahat Al-Mungi, an Islamic scholar from Al-Azhar University:

"We sympathize with the woman because of [the emotions] that surge in her and lead her to desire everything. We treat women with the utmost honor and respect, but there is a limit to the positions she is allowed to fulfill. Even the things most specific to women are beyond her capabilities. For example, the dresses worn by women are made by men. The food that she eats is produced by men. One cannot find even a single successful female gynecologist. She is incapable of doing even the things most specific to women. Men do them. In no way to I mean to belittle women's capabilities. After all, women constitute half of society, and they are the ones who raise the other half."

Set that watch back another few hundred years while you think about this ridiculous drivel from a "scholar."

If you needed any proof that the Middle East is and will remain a religiously-stultified cultural backwater, important only because it sits on the oil the rest of the world needs, statements like this ought to give you something to think about.

I could write more on this topic, and I will in the future. For now, I recommend you just read the MEMRI report in its entirety (click the link in my recommended link list to get there fast) and think about what it will mean to all of us if rigid and inane social and religious opinions like these are allowed to spread without being held up to the ridicule they deserve.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Name of the War

Two recent articles, one by Max Boot in the Wall Street Journal and the other by Michael R. Gordon in the New York Times, look at the issue of what we call the interconnected wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the other, related, below-the-radar military actions elsewhere in the world.

In the beginning, we had the "Global War on Terrorism," or "GWOT" (pronounced "gee-watt"). Most thinking people realized that this was stupid, because the enemy in this war is not "terrorism," which is a tactic. Then former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld floated the name, "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism," which was too long for the required media sound bites and took up too much column space in print...it was quickly deep-sixed. Some conservative historians and commentators suggested "World War IV" (which assumed that the Cold War was "World War III")...this didn't get any legs and also died quickly. "The War Against International Islamist Terror Networks" was too long and - worse - politically incorrect, so it disappeared almost before anyone heard it. The latest stab at a name came from General John Abizaid, the former head of the US Central Command, who called it "The Long War" in recognition of the fact that it was both a political and a military contest that would probably last for many years.

And, as you might expect, "The Long War" had a short life, too - it was quietly retired by the new CENTCOM commander, Admiral William Fallon, who believed the name worked against his desired focus on achieving results as quickly as possible to recover political will to continue the fight. And a CENTCOM spokesman explained that the change was "...a product of our ongoing effort to use language that describes the conflict for our Western audiences while understanding the cultural implications of how that language is construed in the Middle East."

In other words, "The Long War" implied to the populations of the Middle East that we would be killing people and breaking things there for a long time.

Long-time readers of this blog will recall that my undergraduate academic background is in Linguistics, while my masters' degree is in International Relations. The "what do we call this war" debate is one of those rare areas in which I can connect the two in my thinking.

As I've noted many times here, words matter. Don Imus now knows that, and an understanding of the power of negative words may even finally be getting through the ossified brains of the rap and hip-hop music communities. But as disgusting as rap lyrics may be, they are a mere noxious nuisance when compared to the power of descriptive words to shape international opinions about US policies. We can't say "crusade," because some people in the Middle East don't understand that the crusades ended more than 700 years ago. We can't say "War on Islamist Terrorism" because it's insufficiently politically correct. We don't want to say "The Long War" because it implies that this will be a ... well ... long war.

So what do we call it? A thundering term on the order of "World War Two" doesn't quite work for a grinding and poorly-focused counterinsurgency and counterterrorism effort. The original "Operation IRAQI FREEDOM" is sort of a bad joke now, since we appear to have given the Iraqis the freedom only to unleash the murderous passions long suppressed by Saddam Hussein.

I suggest that we can't call this war anything until we understand a few things about it. We need to clearly define:

Who's the enemy?

What's our desired end state (how do we know when we've either won or lost)?

Do we have the political will to win?

Do we have the military power to win?

The only one of these questions I think we can answer is the last one: we clearly have the military power, if we can just learn how to wield it smartly as part of a larger, clearly thought- out strategy that combines it with the other political and economic elements of our national power reach a clear political goal.

So the question remains: what do we call it? I suggest we go for the simple and direct approach.

Let's just call it "The War" until the President and his advisors figure out what it really is.

But don't hold your breath waiting for the answer.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Enforcing the Laws We Have

An anonymous reader posted a comment to my blog entry from last Saturday, in which I offered comments on America's gun culture and the changes in law and thinking I believed were necessary. I wrote that Cho Seung-Hui, the man who killed more than 30 people at Virginia Tech last week, had purchased his handguns legally. The commenter correctly pointed out an error in my discussion: Mr Cho, as a duly reported and registered mental patient, was in fact ineligible to purchase guns under Virginia law. Had his case been reported to the proper authorities as required by state law, he would have been prevented from buying the guns he used in his rampage, at least from any registered gun dealer in Virginia. The commenter goes on to make the perfectly valid point that "New laws are not necessary when effective laws are not enforced."

I stand corrected and thank the reader for pointing out my error. He also makes a point that I have long tried to make myself: that we seldom need new laws - we need to enforce the laws we already have on the books. If one person kills another because he's prejudiced against the victim because of race, we don't need a new law that makes it a "hate crime" - it's murder, which is already a crime (and has been for thousands of years). I do not advocate creating new laws to overly regulate gun ownership per se, but I do advocate enforcing laws which impose severe penalties for the use of a gun in any crime, whether felony or misdemeanor. I fail to see how even the most ardent pro-gun supporter could object to such laws, which criminalize the action and not the simple possession of the weapon.

I do, though, stand by my position that we need seriously to rethink the types of guns we ought to make available for purchase. There isn't much need for average persons to own semiautomatic weapons, for example: few hunters use a handgun to hunt elk in the mountains, and a hunter who blasts away at his quarry with shot after shot needs to pay more attention to his aim and less to the size of his magazine. The easy availability of powerful semiautomatic weapons with large capacity magazines certainly doesn't cause crime, but it does make it easier for a person to commit crimes. Worse, ready availability of a gun can make an already dangerous situation even worse: it's one thing for a husband and wife to argue, but quite another when one can go to the nightstand, pull out a gun, and shoot the other in the heat of passion. Yes, the same result can be had with a knife or a blunt instrument, but a gun allows immediate and deadly application of force from a distance in a way a club or knife cannot.

I've resigned myself to the belief that we will never have a rational discussion of the danger of unregulated gun ownership in this country - there are too many people who view their Second Amendment rights almost as a religion, and are unable to compromise in any way for fear that compromise will lead ultimately to the loss of their cherished guns. But I'd like to think that incidents like the Virginia Tech massacre would at least make everyone think about what the potential dangers of gun ownership are and, at the very least, support the strong enforcement of laws we already have which penalize the use of a gun in a crime.

I don't know how any rational person could argue with that.

But, sadly, the word "rational" doesn't often figure in the passionate discussion of gun ownership in America.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Fate of the Infidel

On April 18th, five Turkish men stormed into a Christian publishing firm in the city of Malatya, tied up three employees of the store, tortured them, and finally cut their throats. They left a note at the scene which read, "This should serve as a lesson to the enemies of our religion. We did it for our country."

This heinous crime reminds us again of the dangers posed by radical, intolerant Islamists. These are people so sick of mind that they viewed three representatives of a company that sells bibles as a grave threat to Turkey - which is more than 99% Muslim. To the deeply radical Islamist, anyone not a Muslim is an infidel, not to be tolerated, not to be respected, not to be considered a friend or a neighbor. An infidel is beneath dignity. An infidel must be killed.

I am still looking, without success, for strong condemnation of acts like these from the "mainstream" Muslim community here in America or abroad. I didn't find any mention, much less condemnation, of this crime at the website of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and I haven't found a single instance of a significant Islamic figure speaking out against this brutality and intolerance.

The reason, of course, is that Islam - particularly as practiced in the Middle East - is not a tolerant religion. It's all or nothing. You are a Muslim or you are an infidel. If you choose to convert from Islam to another religion, you are even worse - you are an apostate, and it's the duty of other Muslims to kill you for this hideous crime.

Muslims everywhere insist on rights and priviliges they absolutely forbid to other religions in majority Islamic countries. In their minds, there is nothing wrong with this. They don't recognize the validity of any other religion. You are a Muslim, or you are an infidel. You are nothing.

America was founded on a tradition of religious tolerance by people who left Europe in disgust at the lack of religious freedom there. Today, Muslims pour into America from the Middle East, seeking the freedom under Western law to recreate and force on infidels the intolerant religious and social practices that have made their homelands an economic and cultural backwater. They demand the rights and priviliges they routinely deny to everyone else.

Any Islamic reaction to these comments other than condemnation of my point of view is unlikely in the extreme. I am, after all, an infidel, guilty of the ghastly crime of choosing to worship God in a way not approved by those who consider themselves believers in the one, true religion.

I have a hard time picturing a God who could create the infinite grandeur of the universe and the glorious splendor of life on Earth worrying about what we eat, whether men wear beards, and whether women must be hidden away under yards of shapeless clothing.

Somewhere, the just and merciful God of Christian tradition is shaking his (her?) head at the horrific crimes committed in his (her?) name by radical Islamists. And sadly, the average Muslim doesn't find any need to speak out against the hideous crimes carried out in the name of their religion.

Because you and I are infidels, and deserve no better.

Have a good day. Enjoy, appreciate, and defend the freedom you have in America to worship God according to the dictates of your conscience.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The Right to Bear (Necessary) Arms (of Appropriate Types)

The tragic massacre of innocent students at Virginia Tech this week reminds us once again of the dark side of one of Americans' most cherished freedoms: the right, enshrined in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, to "bear arms." There will be much study and agonizing over who might have prevented Cho Seung-Hui from murdering more than 30 people before killing himself. Indeed, reports now surface of a very angry young man who had already been identified as a potential threat to others...but because he had done nothing for which he could be arrested, he continued in freedom to fester and plan his hideous end. One thing, though, is certain. Mr Cho was able to kill so many people in such a short span of time because he was able to purchase - totally legally, as was his right - powerful semiautomatic pistols.

The statement on the website of the National Rifle Association, the ultra-powerful lobby which prevents even rational discussion of the dangers of unrestricted gun ownership, simply says, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families. We will not have further comment until all the facts are known."

It seems to me, as it must to any rational human, that the salient facts are these:

1. The Constitution gives every American citizen the right to own weapons.
2. Mr Cho purchased his weapons over the counter at a licensed gun dealer in a perfectly legal fashion.
3. Mr Cho used his legally purchased and owned weapons to carry out the worst school massacre in American history.

It's time to step back and think about this for a minute.

At the time the Constitution and Bill of Rights were written, America was a wild and dangerous place. Americans were distrustful of over-powerful government, having just thrown off a distant king, and believed that a well-armed militia, rather than a standing army that might be abused by a ruler, was the best defender of their liberties. In addition, most Americans outside of major cities still depended for their daily meals on meat they shot themselves.

Guns were critically important.

But I submit to you that times have changed. Most Americans hunt their dinner at the local Safeway. External threats, while present, are few and remote. We are protected against those external threats by the world's most powerful Army, and against internal threats by professional police forces. Granted, the potential for abuse of power is always present, but compared to any third-world country, Americans are not threatened in a measurable way by their government and its coercive authorities.

Why, then, do we need unrestricted permission to own firearms of any type and power?

The NRA and other strong supporters of complete firearm freedom say that a person like Mr Cho, bent on massacre, will find a way to carry out his plan no matter what laws are in effect. This is true. Consider, however, the difference between 1789 and today. If Mr Cho had chosen to commit his massacre in 1789, he would have relied on cumbersome single shot weapons. He would certainly have killed one, or perhaps two or three people, but the need to reload his guns would have given potential victims the time and opportunity to fight back. Today, Mr Cho had semiautomatic weapons that fired devastating bullets as fast as he could pull the trigger, and which were fast and easy to reload. The result: he was able to kill a huge number of people in a short time, and his vicitims were unable to fight back.

Gun apologists argue that the best defense against such attacks is for everyone to own a gun so that they can fight back. But do you really feel safer knowing that everyone around you is packing heat? Do you want to contest a parking space with someone who may be willing to kill you for it if he gets mad enough? Will someone shoot the lady who ties up the 15-items-or-less lane at the supermarket with her huge cart and in-your-face attitude? It's possible.

It's time to get realistic about both the pros and the cons of the Right to Bear Arms. I have no problem with a properly trained hunter owning rifles or shotguns. I do have a problem when everyone with enough money can buy a powerful handgun that offers a fast and deadly way to settle arguments.

Let's have the debate. And let's stop worshipping at the festooned altar of the Second Amendment. Keep the right to bear arms. Reconsider the types of arms that can be borne, and by whom.

We just may be able to prevent the next Columbine or Virginia Tech.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

3.

Compensation

Over the years, I've thought a lot about the subject of "compensation." Many people (including myself) think of it in terms of the paycheck and associated benefits that are the reason we go to work each day. But there are two other twists on "compensation" I thought I'd share with you today.

One is an unattributed quote I picked up many years ago: "Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor, to console him for what he is." I've always had a pretty vivid imagination, which could be either the cause or the effect of my love of reading and of old-time radio drama: the pictures I can conjure up in my head from either one tend to be more vivid and enjoyable than those on the TV or movie screen. I wrote about this in somewhat more detail on March 26th in a post titled, "What You Thought You Saw." And the quote is absolutely right: imagination allows us to escape from drudging everyday reality, and a sense of humor keeps us humble, and from taking ourselves too seriously (something I hope I will never be accused of).

The other twist on "compensation" is this thought: the only compensation for a man in growing older is that every year there are more women he thinks are attractive.

This is also true. As my hair turns gray, my body heads south, and I find myself needing to write everything down so I don't forget it, I have learned to appreciate the beauty of women of every age. The gold standard for beautiful ladies under 10 is, of course, my granddaughter Marcy. Young women in their teens and ladies in their 20's have the beauty of youth, and as they move into their 30's and 40's that beauty is enhanced (in most cases) by life experience and maturity. When a man is young, a woman over 50 may as well be on display under lights in a museum; but as I coast toward my 60's, I can vouch for the fact that there are a great many perfectly lovely ladies in the over-50 age group (the gold standard, of course, being my beloved wife).

So...

No particular message today...just some rambling thoughts on the things that compensate us for the battering we take in everyday living. We can't negotiate the compensation package we get in life...all we can do is try to enjoy it.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

The Things That Make Us What We Are

Sometimes I wonder how I ever survived to reach a normal and (more or less) well-adjusted adulthood.

As a child, I was not abused by my parents or relatives, my parish priest, or anyone else. I was called names and bounced around by schoolyard bullies. I drank water straight from the tap, the garden hose, and even the streams near our house. I was out of the house and out of parental sight during the summer from morning 'til after dark, often walking miles to visit friends, and was never abducted. I was occasionally humiliated by the cute girls in high school who tended to choose jocks over nerds, but still ended up with a beautiful wife and family.

It seems fashionable today to blame past abuses, real or imagined, as the shaper of our lives and the excuse for outrageous acts. The violent and bitter young man who murdered more than 30 people at Virginia Tech this week left videos and writings in which he accused everyone but himself for driving him to his killing spree, and the effects of a bad childhood are often cited in defense of even the most vicious criminals. And yet, many - if not most - people manage to overcome such adversity to become productive citizens, raise families, and contribute to society in ways large and small.

Thousands of events in the course of our lives shape us and make us what we are. Most are benign, some are terrible, and some are wonderful, and no two lives are the same. People will react to the same stimuli in different ways. I put up with the usual high school problems of bullies and competition for female attention and ended up a productive citizen. Another person may face the same problems and end up like a Cho Seung-Hui, plagued by inner demons that lead him to murder.

Psychologists and social scientists will continue to debate the reasons why we end up the way we do, but I believe one thing is sure: each of us contains, within himself, the capacity for good and for evil. How we react to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (sorry, Mr Shakespeare) shapes what we will become. I had the good fortune to have caring and loving parents, a stable home environment, and good friends. Others aren't so lucky. But we all end up having to share the same imperfect world. We can take charge of our destiny, or we can retreat into ourselves and claim the priviliges of victimhood to excuse bad behavior.

I'd like to think that most of us will make the right choice.

Have a good day. Remember what I wrote yesterday about giving and getting respect.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo