..... and handle the business at hand?
I had an annoying experience this evening at a store. One that seems to be happening more and more frequently. I got caught in line behind someone talking on their cell phone at the checkout. Now there is nothing wrong with talking on the phone while you check out. I do it all the time. I have gotten the puzzled looks from the cashier when I tell her "I love you!" LOL! But I have a headset.. What's annoying is people who talk on the phone, holding it up to their ear with one hand, and try to put their groceries on the counter with the other. Then try to get their wallet out with one hand.. then try get their money/credit card out with one hand and then try to gather all their stuff up .. with one hand. Meanwhile those of us stuck in line behind them just have to wait while they fumble through these simple TWO handed tasks, which are considerably slower and clumsier when performed with just ONE hand. Maybe part of me is just jealous, because I have never been able to hold the phone up to my ear for more than a coupla minutes. These huge guns I got get heavy and I either gotta put the thing down or go to the headset pretty quick.
Look, you.. and you know who you are if you are guilty of this. I know you're cool.. and I know the person on the other end of the phone is cool too. But you know what?!?! Neither of you is so cool that I and others get to stand around for several extra minutes in line while you fumble around trying to do stuff with one hand that would take seconds to do if you just said "Dude lemme handle this and call you back." Really.. it's that simple. It's not that the rest of us are in a huge hurry. Most of us accept that when we go to the store there is a certain amount of waiting around that is built in. However when YOU turn my allotted 5 minutes of waiting in line into 10 minutes just because you can't bear to put the phone down for THIRTY FREAKIN SECONDS!!?!? Well.. you just cashed in all your cool chips and have been relegated to full fledged selfish jerk status. Your time is not any more valuable than anyone else's. Okay? So I say again, if you absolutely insist that you need to be hearing your honey's or your homeboy's voice every second of every day. Get a damn headset so you can still function. I mean they come free with most cell phones these days and I've seen even bluetooth models for under 20 bucks. So there really is no excuse to be walking around kickin it old school with the radiation emitting device right next to your ear. Then again I suppose I may be judging these people too harshly. After all, if they have been holding this little brain cancer causing agent next to their heads for some time, they may already be losing brain function and I should have more sympathy for them..
.
.
.
Nah.. I like the selfish jerks assessment better.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Take heart Arizona.. justice will eventually be done.
Here we sit, a few days past the date when the controversial Arizona SB1070 went into effect and then a couple of days after some judge decided that she knew better than the Arizona assembly and voters what should be done about illegal immigration. I know the knee-jerk attack from opponents of this law is to call anyone who supports it "racist" and "anti" this or that. But that's just a very lame copout. Arizona, by virtue of enacting this law, has attempted to correct a problem, which affects its citizens every day. The judge who overturned key components of the law rightly ruled that the power and responsibility for regulating immigration rests with the Federal Government. But anyone who has been paying attention has noticed the Feds are not even remotely interested in dealing with this problem and holding up their end of the bargain. What this ruling does is essentially sent the message to states that not only is the Federal Government not going to enforce its immigration laws but they don't want anybody else doing it either.
Lest it go unnoted, Arizona hardly has a spotless record in race relations. They were famously the last state to ratify the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday and they had that asinine episode where some idiots demanded that a black face on a mural on the side of an elementary school be lightened. Clearly there are some idiots in Arizona when it comes to race. And I'm am sure some of the people supporting the law absolutely hate Mexicans. Period. But that's not the issue here. There are tons of people in all walks of life who are racist. Get over it. This isn't about a few narrow minded jerks. This is about the law. A nation without laws is not a nation at all. We have immigration laws on the books which are being flouted by our neighbors to the south. We are spending billions and billions of dollars in additional law enforcement, health care, education and other services for these folks. It also bears noting that the amnesty route, which is favored by many who lobby in favor of the immigrants, has been tried before. Some 10-12 million illegals were granted amnesty 20 years ago. Clearly all that did was empower the next generation to ignore our immigration laws.
What angers me most is that these politicians who use the issue to make political hay during the election cycle and then basically let it drop once that time has passed. We have between 12-20 million people living underground in this country illegally. I don't care which side you fall on the issue of immigration, you cannot sanely argue that this is a good thing. There is additional crime, there is additive stress on services, schools etc. Yes America is the richest country in the world, but this notion that we have trillions of dollars to keep giving away forever and ever needs to be checked. In reality, we don't. We have trillions of dollars worth of our own problems that need solving, Mexico can get in line with the rest of the other countries we give aid to. Isn't the amount of money we are wasting in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places around the world one of the rallying points from the left? Don't we hear from them that we need to get out of these other countries and let them handle their own business? Why then is it acceptable to be spending between 100 and 150 billion a year on Mexico's and Latin American's "problems?"
I know I know.. "Ronnie you are just racist against Brown people!!" right? Wrong.. I live in a hugely Mexican area, and acknowledge readily that Mexicans are the hardest working people on the planet. They are also fiercely family oriented which I love and they have a strong religious bent. And oh yeah, I have two half Mexican children from my marriage to a Mexican woman. So save the "racist" accusations. I aint.. Period. But I AM criminalist. As in thoroughly anti- criminals. Particularly criminals who cost me money. And despite all the hard working Latinos and Latinas who come here and bust their humps for a better life, the fact that damn near half of all jail inmates in my state are illegal aliens, a large percentage of murders, rapes and other violent crimes here are committed by illegal aliens tells me, no screams at me, this is a problem and it needs to be addressed. Instead of brow-beating Arizona for trying to address it, we need to be applauding them for calling out the Federal government for not doing its job. Whether people admit it or not, their laxity in this area is placing all of us in grave danger in addition to the dollars it's costing us. All I know is, if some illegal alien breaks into my house and rapes and murders my wife and child as happened recently in Oregon, I might be tempted to finish what Al Quaida tried to do on 9/11 and fly a damn plane into the Capital Building while Congress is in session.
Okay that would be extreme. But clearly our legislators need to get the message that this is serious. I think it's happening. Arizona is just the start I think. I suspect other border states are considering similar measures. Even if they won't talk about it openly. This country cannot survive if it continues down this path of open border-ism. And I think people are starting to wake up to that fact. Not everyone will agree. Some will continue to maintain that we just welcome everyone with open arms and spend as much money and effort as it takes to do so. That's a nice pollyana-ish view but it simply is not practical. My goal is to simply keep voices raised so that the politicos hear us. So all together Arizona, "Hey you guys in D.C. , how about we enforce our immigration laws!??!'
Lest it go unnoted, Arizona hardly has a spotless record in race relations. They were famously the last state to ratify the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday and they had that asinine episode where some idiots demanded that a black face on a mural on the side of an elementary school be lightened. Clearly there are some idiots in Arizona when it comes to race. And I'm am sure some of the people supporting the law absolutely hate Mexicans. Period. But that's not the issue here. There are tons of people in all walks of life who are racist. Get over it. This isn't about a few narrow minded jerks. This is about the law. A nation without laws is not a nation at all. We have immigration laws on the books which are being flouted by our neighbors to the south. We are spending billions and billions of dollars in additional law enforcement, health care, education and other services for these folks. It also bears noting that the amnesty route, which is favored by many who lobby in favor of the immigrants, has been tried before. Some 10-12 million illegals were granted amnesty 20 years ago. Clearly all that did was empower the next generation to ignore our immigration laws.
What angers me most is that these politicians who use the issue to make political hay during the election cycle and then basically let it drop once that time has passed. We have between 12-20 million people living underground in this country illegally. I don't care which side you fall on the issue of immigration, you cannot sanely argue that this is a good thing. There is additional crime, there is additive stress on services, schools etc. Yes America is the richest country in the world, but this notion that we have trillions of dollars to keep giving away forever and ever needs to be checked. In reality, we don't. We have trillions of dollars worth of our own problems that need solving, Mexico can get in line with the rest of the other countries we give aid to. Isn't the amount of money we are wasting in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places around the world one of the rallying points from the left? Don't we hear from them that we need to get out of these other countries and let them handle their own business? Why then is it acceptable to be spending between 100 and 150 billion a year on Mexico's and Latin American's "problems?"
I know I know.. "Ronnie you are just racist against Brown people!!" right? Wrong.. I live in a hugely Mexican area, and acknowledge readily that Mexicans are the hardest working people on the planet. They are also fiercely family oriented which I love and they have a strong religious bent. And oh yeah, I have two half Mexican children from my marriage to a Mexican woman. So save the "racist" accusations. I aint.. Period. But I AM criminalist. As in thoroughly anti- criminals. Particularly criminals who cost me money. And despite all the hard working Latinos and Latinas who come here and bust their humps for a better life, the fact that damn near half of all jail inmates in my state are illegal aliens, a large percentage of murders, rapes and other violent crimes here are committed by illegal aliens tells me, no screams at me, this is a problem and it needs to be addressed. Instead of brow-beating Arizona for trying to address it, we need to be applauding them for calling out the Federal government for not doing its job. Whether people admit it or not, their laxity in this area is placing all of us in grave danger in addition to the dollars it's costing us. All I know is, if some illegal alien breaks into my house and rapes and murders my wife and child as happened recently in Oregon, I might be tempted to finish what Al Quaida tried to do on 9/11 and fly a damn plane into the Capital Building while Congress is in session.
Okay that would be extreme. But clearly our legislators need to get the message that this is serious. I think it's happening. Arizona is just the start I think. I suspect other border states are considering similar measures. Even if they won't talk about it openly. This country cannot survive if it continues down this path of open border-ism. And I think people are starting to wake up to that fact. Not everyone will agree. Some will continue to maintain that we just welcome everyone with open arms and spend as much money and effort as it takes to do so. That's a nice pollyana-ish view but it simply is not practical. My goal is to simply keep voices raised so that the politicos hear us. So all together Arizona, "Hey you guys in D.C. , how about we enforce our immigration laws!??!'
Monday, February 8, 2010
Gay marriage.. I'm all for it.. wait.. no I'm not.. no.. yes ..
Yeah it's like that with me .. the whole gay marriage thing. I go back and forth on it.. Some days for the most part I am indifferent as to whether my gay brothers and sisters can tie the knot. I am not deeply affected either way. Part of me thinks it would serve yall right to get this "right" so yall can suffer like the rest of us.. All the joys of marriage... including divorce, child support, alimony "half!" But that's just mean-spirited. On other days there is that part of me that believes homosexuality is indeed an abomination before God and is to be condemned and not legitimized in any way shape or form. I guess my main opposition isn't so much to the gay folk, many of whom cannot help who and what they are and only want the same things in their relationships that us straight folk take for granted.
No my opposition is to the hypocrisy of the whole deal. I mean gay folk have spent decades fighting for the "right to be different" and to not have society treat them in a negative way because of it. For the gay movement now to turn around and demand this 'sameness' with respect to marriage kind of bothers me. You wanted to accepted as different, fine.. Now you want to be different but you want it called the same thing.. Not so fine. I am similarly annoyed with the mantra that when a vote goes a certain way that agrees with your agenda then "the people have spoken." Then when those same "people" vote a way you don't agree with then "the people are idiots and we have to sue for our rights" and find a sympathetic judge to overrule the will of the people. Pure hypocrisy. It is an unavoidable fact that in a Democracy some votes are going to go your way, and others are going to go the way of the opposition.
At last count every state that has put gay marriage to a vote except one or two has resulted in a resounding "NO" from "the people." That is not to say that the majority should be empowered to rain injustice down on the minority. I fully understand that sometimes, the majority is just plain wrong. But our system has shown a remarkable ability to allow for corrections of injustices. And maybe all these lawsuits are the way a wrong gets righted with regard to gays getting married. I do not presume to have the final word on this issue. But I do wonder that if millions of Americans have expressed at the polls that they do NOT want gay unions to be considered the same thing as heterosexual marriage, mainly because it isn't, then maybe the grandstanding politcians and activist judges might want to pay attention.. since it IS supposed to be "the people" they are supposed to be representing. My gut tells me that eventually most every state will have some form of legal gay marriage on the books. And as long as that is what the majority is comfortable with then I think I will be okay with it too. But if these laws are enacted over the objections of 75-80% of the voters, then I think we will need some new politicians, because the ones currently "serving" will have bowed to special interests while ignoring the base. Yes sometimes doing just that is the right thing to do. I'm just not so sure it applies in this case. I'm sure this topic is not going anywhere anytime soon.. So I expect to revisit it some time in the future.
No my opposition is to the hypocrisy of the whole deal. I mean gay folk have spent decades fighting for the "right to be different" and to not have society treat them in a negative way because of it. For the gay movement now to turn around and demand this 'sameness' with respect to marriage kind of bothers me. You wanted to accepted as different, fine.. Now you want to be different but you want it called the same thing.. Not so fine. I am similarly annoyed with the mantra that when a vote goes a certain way that agrees with your agenda then "the people have spoken." Then when those same "people" vote a way you don't agree with then "the people are idiots and we have to sue for our rights" and find a sympathetic judge to overrule the will of the people. Pure hypocrisy. It is an unavoidable fact that in a Democracy some votes are going to go your way, and others are going to go the way of the opposition.
At last count every state that has put gay marriage to a vote except one or two has resulted in a resounding "NO" from "the people." That is not to say that the majority should be empowered to rain injustice down on the minority. I fully understand that sometimes, the majority is just plain wrong. But our system has shown a remarkable ability to allow for corrections of injustices. And maybe all these lawsuits are the way a wrong gets righted with regard to gays getting married. I do not presume to have the final word on this issue. But I do wonder that if millions of Americans have expressed at the polls that they do NOT want gay unions to be considered the same thing as heterosexual marriage, mainly because it isn't, then maybe the grandstanding politcians and activist judges might want to pay attention.. since it IS supposed to be "the people" they are supposed to be representing. My gut tells me that eventually most every state will have some form of legal gay marriage on the books. And as long as that is what the majority is comfortable with then I think I will be okay with it too. But if these laws are enacted over the objections of 75-80% of the voters, then I think we will need some new politicians, because the ones currently "serving" will have bowed to special interests while ignoring the base. Yes sometimes doing just that is the right thing to do. I'm just not so sure it applies in this case. I'm sure this topic is not going anywhere anytime soon.. So I expect to revisit it some time in the future.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Holiday Musings..
Like so many in this country, I work for a company that is implementing "mandatory vacation" over the holidays. Now I don't really do well with a lot of time on my hands but it does afford me a respite from a ridiculously busy time both at work and at home. It also affords time to interact with a lot more people.. out shopping.. around the neighborhood et al. Mostly I do a lot of people watching. Twice during the shopping ordeal I stood in line with people who set their bags down and then simply walked away without them when the line moved. And it wasn't like it was their turn next. The lines were long so they would move several feet away from their belongings, with the back to them and not even look back at them for minutes at a time. The obvious thought to me was that it would be very easy for some desperate soul to make off with this stuff. People need to try to keep their wits about them during the holidays. I reminded them of that fact as I called out to them to come back and get their things. During one shopping day, whilest standing in line I encountered a gentleman with what can only be described as "hideous ears." The things were huge.. at least 5 inches from top to bottom. They were not deformed or injury damaged or anything, they were just so enormous and so full of wrinkles and pits in the back that they simply looked horrid. I stared for a bit in horror at them and eventually had to turn away. Naturally this set me to thinking, "Does everyone have ugly ears from the back? DoI?" So for the next several days I found myself checking out people's ears. Yes I felt weird about it, but I couldn't help myself. What I discovered was that the guy with the hideous ears must be quite rare, as I could not find anyone with ears even close to being that ugly. Even the kids who use the big hoops to deform their ears on purpose didn't look that bad.
Earlier this night, we took our little girl to downtown San Jose to experience the "Christmas in the Park" exhibit, which is a beautiful collection of Christmas trees, animatronic displays and a little holiday festival. This festival is also another fertile ground for people watching. One thing that always gets my attention is when I see a family or a couple taking turns taking pictures with one person always being left out. I volunteered to get "one of the whole family" for a couple of families and both families seemed genuinely appreciative. It's such a simple act, just snapping a picture, but it means so much to the dad or mom with the camera, who is never in any of the pictures he or she takes. I should know, I probably have several thousand such pictures of my wife, my kids, my relatives, with me nowhere to be seen.. because I'm behind the camera. Some years back I bought a little portable tripod for just such occasions.. but it's not always practical to get everyone to stand aside from that perfect picture spot while you set up your impromptu studio.
Those little encounters inspired me to actually come back to my blog and write about it. Little random acts of kindness like taking a picture of a family at a tourist spot costs us nothing and can do so much for the recipients. I am bound to ask myself, why don't we do more of that kind of thing for one another? Our forefathers did.. even as recently as my childhood people were kinder to each other, neighbors were more neighborly, strangers on the street waved and smiled at each other. People struck up conversations in line at the grocery store and weren't even trying to sell anything. Where did that go? Strike up a conversation with a lady at the grocery store now and you're labeled as "hitting on her." Guys are a little easier, since everyone wears some article identifying their favorite teams so them you can at least talk to about how said team is doing. Sure it's idle chit-chat, but it passes the time, which you would otherwise spend staring blankly into space or trying to figure out who buys "the Star" or "the National Enquirer" and these other ridiculous rags on the shelves at the checkout. Conversation really is becoming a lost art. Everybody wants free wi-fi in their downtown areas so they can surf the web from a coffee shop.. interacting with people all over the world, while ignore those within 10 feet of them. What's wrong with this picture? When did we become so obsessed with escaping our lives that we expend so little energy interacting with those nearest to us. I love the possibilities the internet opens up for us. But, as with all good things, there has to be balance. I think part of that balance is NOT making it so easy for people to sink into some "online shell" and barely have to acknowledge other human beings sharing their same space. That's a New Year's resolution I would wish upon the whole world.. more kindness, more human interaction. Wonder if we can make it happen?
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
The Case for Affirmative Action .. at least for now..
Those who know me, know that I consider myself to be a Conservative. I believe in smaller government, free enterprise and lower taxes. Like most people, however I cannot be summed up with a single word. There are a couple of issues which I suppose I would have to admit, I am hopelessly liberal. Affirmative Action is foremost among those. Some would argue that this is a contradiction. That how can one believe in the things I cite, and yet still favor race based assistance for college admissions and hiring. Well the truth is, I don't really. It occurs to me that while ethnicity plays a major role in the extent to which equal opportunity is presented to people in this country, it is not the only player. Clearly socio-economic hardship plays a large part in that as well. The inner city is the inner city, regardless of what color your skin is, if your school spends more on metal detectors and grief counselors than on books and college preparations counselors and your parents are both junkies, you are at a significant disadvantage. Period.
At the risk of seeming narcissistic, I turn again to my own example. My annual statement from the Social Security Administration tells me that I have made several million dollars in my career so far and will make several million more before I die of a heart attack at my desk. It also tells me that by the time I have that heart attack I will have paid somewhere between 3 and 4 million dollars in taxes. Federal, state, property, sales etc. My Harvard education, most of which was paid by government grants and other aid, cost about $45,000. One need not be a Harvard economist to be able to compute that $3 million in return for a $45K investment is money well spent. 3000% ROI is a return Wall Street would turn cartwheels over. So what does that have to do with Affirmative Action?
Well listen up and I will tell ya. First let's look at what Affirmative Action (sorry I can't to the AA abbreviation without thinking of Alcoholics Anonymous so bear with me) for? What's it supposed to do? Well it's simple. It is supposed to afford an opportunity for people who, for reasons which can best be characterized as "institutional injustice" have not been afforded an equal opportunity by our society. So what the hell does that mean? Stay with me and I will explain. As has come to light with the New Haven firefighter case and the ongoing NYFD lawsuit, there are issues with how people are evaluated in this country. Not so much anymore because of any insidious desire for exclusion, but simply because the people doing the evaluation assume certain things, certain knowledge, a certain familiarity with concepts and ideas that are thought to be "common sense" so to speak. Yet for some, these concepts are as foreign as the Chinese alphabet to us Americans. The easy answer would be to say "Well if you want the job/college admission/whatever then it is incumbent upon you to go learn what you need to know to get it." And to some extent that would be true. If not for the not so small problem of people not even knowing what it is they don't know. Again to harken back to my own experience. When I took the SAT, I was immediately aware upon reading through the test that there was stuff on it that I had not ever touched in any classroom. Even though I was as intelligent as any kid taking that test, maybe more, there were questions on it that I was never going to be able to answer, at least not with any confidence. And there was no way for me to know what I didn't know, until I took the test. Yes I know that kids now have access to SAT prep classes and some schools even have the prep people on campus full time. I have seen the whole cottage industry that has grown up around test preparation. But again, how many of those facilities are in the inner city? Or out in rural Arkansas? Yes, kids who go to school in affluent areas have access to all that stuff, but what about the rest? What about the kids whose parents never finished high school, which is going to be a very large number in the next generation as dropout rates climb toward 20% nationwide? What about those kids who don't know enough about the college boards to even begin to know where to look for help preparing for them? What about the thousands and thousands of kids who go to high schools that don't even have guidance counselors anymore?
As luck would have it, I did well enough on the SAT to get into Harvard and every other school I applied to. Maybe I was a really good guesser. Was I an Affirmative Action admit? Maybe, maybe not, I don't really know.. And don't care.. I know that there were ZERO professors at Harvard who gave me "Affirmative Action" grades. My guess is Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson or Judge Lynn Toler or Governor Deval Patrick or yeah.. that President guy would probably say the same thing. Harvard professors as a rule seemed like hard asses who wanted to challenge and push all their students to the brink of suicide! But I digress. Once you get into the school, you still gotta do the work. And if you are underprepared, which I was, you will find it difficult to get off the ground. What I found upon arriving at Harvard was that there were kids, black and white and everything in between, who had come from MUCH better schools than my gigantic public school in Orlando. Nothing against public schools, but the prep schools in New England, the great schools in the Virginia commonwealth, the great schools in Cali, yes I said Cali, which used to have one of the 5 best secondary educational systems in the country. Those kids came to Harvard with a HUGE head start on kids like me. Faced with that, I had two choices. Fold and declare myself a failure who didn't belong here.. or get to work playin catchup. I chose the latter. So I caught up with some, passed some others and never got within shouting distance of still others because they were both at least as brilliant as me and worked just as hard or harder AND had the huge head start that I was never going to make up. But the point is, you have to take it on. A kid has to be willing to accept that challenge and fight that uphill battle for four years.
Without program like Affirmative Action, a kid like me might never get that chance to accept that challenge. My parents were both high school dropouts. I was the first member of my family to graduate from college. If I look at it honestly without the opportunity to go to a college like Harvard.. I probably still would have gone to college.. To UCF maybe.. Maybe Valencia Community College. Gee how different would my life be now had that been the case? I don't think I would have ended up on drugs or on welfare. I was never that kind of kid, but my earnings, and with it my taxes paid, would certainly be less than half what they have been. Harvard has opened more doors for me than I can count. I have had no less than a dozen interviews in my career for jobs I was unqualified for, just because the interviewer "wanted to meet somebody that went to Harvard." I have no illusions that I was somehow "special" and that's why I received the opportunity I did. I got lucky. I fell under Mrs. Betsy Folk's section of the alphabet. Mrs. Folk was a godsend. But she's a topic for another blog.
In the worst case scenario a kid like me struggles through one crappy job after another and spend a significant amount of my life on the government dole. My wife could give birth to 5 or 6 kids, each of which would increase the amount of the government dole we could qualify for, and maybe one day in a momentary lapse or reason or out of desperation I commit a crime, get busted, end up in jail. Get out a few years later, a convicted felon. Game over.. life over.. Likewise my kids just inherited that life sentence with me.. and probably their kids with me. Instead, my kids grow up with a college degree all but a foregone conclusion of their education process. Never get into any legal entanglements beyond traffic tickets and the like and the cycle, at least for my lineage, is broken forever. 45 G's = 3 million in tax revenue, 5 people (myself, my wife and kids) likely never to commit a crime and never to need government assistance (because I am certain I will die before I collect any social security.) Seriously, does anyone wanna argue that this is an investment worth making over and over again?
Oh yeah, I'm forgetting the "innocent victims" of Affirmative Action, the people displaced by the beneficiaries. These people argue correctly that "two wrongs do not make a right." And that is true. However, the continuation of the rewarding those for whom the system is already rigged in favor of, is a greater wrong. Affirmative Action is our society's way or recognizing that we have a system that is rigged in favor of some to the detriment of others and attempting to make amends. Some would ask "Okay fine, but how long do we keep this up? At what point will the debt be repaid to minorities in this country?" My answer is always the same.. My people were oppressed in this country for 300 years. My parents were alive when it was still illegal to teach a black child to read in some Southern States. 300 years. Let's go ahead and keep Affirmative Action in place for half that.. Then let's talk..
At the risk of seeming narcissistic, I turn again to my own example. My annual statement from the Social Security Administration tells me that I have made several million dollars in my career so far and will make several million more before I die of a heart attack at my desk. It also tells me that by the time I have that heart attack I will have paid somewhere between 3 and 4 million dollars in taxes. Federal, state, property, sales etc. My Harvard education, most of which was paid by government grants and other aid, cost about $45,000. One need not be a Harvard economist to be able to compute that $3 million in return for a $45K investment is money well spent. 3000% ROI is a return Wall Street would turn cartwheels over. So what does that have to do with Affirmative Action?
Well listen up and I will tell ya. First let's look at what Affirmative Action (sorry I can't to the AA abbreviation without thinking of Alcoholics Anonymous so bear with me) for? What's it supposed to do? Well it's simple. It is supposed to afford an opportunity for people who, for reasons which can best be characterized as "institutional injustice" have not been afforded an equal opportunity by our society. So what the hell does that mean? Stay with me and I will explain. As has come to light with the New Haven firefighter case and the ongoing NYFD lawsuit, there are issues with how people are evaluated in this country. Not so much anymore because of any insidious desire for exclusion, but simply because the people doing the evaluation assume certain things, certain knowledge, a certain familiarity with concepts and ideas that are thought to be "common sense" so to speak. Yet for some, these concepts are as foreign as the Chinese alphabet to us Americans. The easy answer would be to say "Well if you want the job/college admission/whatever then it is incumbent upon you to go learn what you need to know to get it." And to some extent that would be true. If not for the not so small problem of people not even knowing what it is they don't know. Again to harken back to my own experience. When I took the SAT, I was immediately aware upon reading through the test that there was stuff on it that I had not ever touched in any classroom. Even though I was as intelligent as any kid taking that test, maybe more, there were questions on it that I was never going to be able to answer, at least not with any confidence. And there was no way for me to know what I didn't know, until I took the test. Yes I know that kids now have access to SAT prep classes and some schools even have the prep people on campus full time. I have seen the whole cottage industry that has grown up around test preparation. But again, how many of those facilities are in the inner city? Or out in rural Arkansas? Yes, kids who go to school in affluent areas have access to all that stuff, but what about the rest? What about the kids whose parents never finished high school, which is going to be a very large number in the next generation as dropout rates climb toward 20% nationwide? What about those kids who don't know enough about the college boards to even begin to know where to look for help preparing for them? What about the thousands and thousands of kids who go to high schools that don't even have guidance counselors anymore?
As luck would have it, I did well enough on the SAT to get into Harvard and every other school I applied to. Maybe I was a really good guesser. Was I an Affirmative Action admit? Maybe, maybe not, I don't really know.. And don't care.. I know that there were ZERO professors at Harvard who gave me "Affirmative Action" grades. My guess is Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson or Judge Lynn Toler or Governor Deval Patrick or yeah.. that President guy would probably say the same thing. Harvard professors as a rule seemed like hard asses who wanted to challenge and push all their students to the brink of suicide! But I digress. Once you get into the school, you still gotta do the work. And if you are underprepared, which I was, you will find it difficult to get off the ground. What I found upon arriving at Harvard was that there were kids, black and white and everything in between, who had come from MUCH better schools than my gigantic public school in Orlando. Nothing against public schools, but the prep schools in New England, the great schools in the Virginia commonwealth, the great schools in Cali, yes I said Cali, which used to have one of the 5 best secondary educational systems in the country. Those kids came to Harvard with a HUGE head start on kids like me. Faced with that, I had two choices. Fold and declare myself a failure who didn't belong here.. or get to work playin catchup. I chose the latter. So I caught up with some, passed some others and never got within shouting distance of still others because they were both at least as brilliant as me and worked just as hard or harder AND had the huge head start that I was never going to make up. But the point is, you have to take it on. A kid has to be willing to accept that challenge and fight that uphill battle for four years.
Without program like Affirmative Action, a kid like me might never get that chance to accept that challenge. My parents were both high school dropouts. I was the first member of my family to graduate from college. If I look at it honestly without the opportunity to go to a college like Harvard.. I probably still would have gone to college.. To UCF maybe.. Maybe Valencia Community College. Gee how different would my life be now had that been the case? I don't think I would have ended up on drugs or on welfare. I was never that kind of kid, but my earnings, and with it my taxes paid, would certainly be less than half what they have been. Harvard has opened more doors for me than I can count. I have had no less than a dozen interviews in my career for jobs I was unqualified for, just because the interviewer "wanted to meet somebody that went to Harvard." I have no illusions that I was somehow "special" and that's why I received the opportunity I did. I got lucky. I fell under Mrs. Betsy Folk's section of the alphabet. Mrs. Folk was a godsend. But she's a topic for another blog.
In the worst case scenario a kid like me struggles through one crappy job after another and spend a significant amount of my life on the government dole. My wife could give birth to 5 or 6 kids, each of which would increase the amount of the government dole we could qualify for, and maybe one day in a momentary lapse or reason or out of desperation I commit a crime, get busted, end up in jail. Get out a few years later, a convicted felon. Game over.. life over.. Likewise my kids just inherited that life sentence with me.. and probably their kids with me. Instead, my kids grow up with a college degree all but a foregone conclusion of their education process. Never get into any legal entanglements beyond traffic tickets and the like and the cycle, at least for my lineage, is broken forever. 45 G's = 3 million in tax revenue, 5 people (myself, my wife and kids) likely never to commit a crime and never to need government assistance (because I am certain I will die before I collect any social security.) Seriously, does anyone wanna argue that this is an investment worth making over and over again?
Oh yeah, I'm forgetting the "innocent victims" of Affirmative Action, the people displaced by the beneficiaries. These people argue correctly that "two wrongs do not make a right." And that is true. However, the continuation of the rewarding those for whom the system is already rigged in favor of, is a greater wrong. Affirmative Action is our society's way or recognizing that we have a system that is rigged in favor of some to the detriment of others and attempting to make amends. Some would ask "Okay fine, but how long do we keep this up? At what point will the debt be repaid to minorities in this country?" My answer is always the same.. My people were oppressed in this country for 300 years. My parents were alive when it was still illegal to teach a black child to read in some Southern States. 300 years. Let's go ahead and keep Affirmative Action in place for half that.. Then let's talk..
Friday, July 24, 2009
Gates arrest shines the light on a deep dark issue.
I've alternately lampooned it and pontificated about it on various forums, but it's time to take a longer look at the arrest of Professor Gates this past week. Let me begin by saying I do not know Professor Gates nor Sgt. Crowley personally. Never met either of them to the best of my knowledge. The media has beaten this thing to death to the point that the President of the United States felt compelled to weigh in and then later to try to excuse himself from the fray. Usually I long for the media to leave celebrity stories alone quickly. Not because this story does not merit attention but because the media has a way of twisting a story until it becomes a perverted mess. It is my sincere hope that this one won't end up that way. It's too complex and important. Some might ask why it's so important. Well sit back and relax and I will explain.
To jump right into the meat of the matter. The Gates case has an opportunity to effect significant change in how men of color are treated by law enforcement in this country. The Gates incident involved a celebrity of sorts, which is the only reason the media gave it even a second thought. Black men are treated with something less than respect by law enforcement every day in this country. This incident brims with the possibility of putting a serious dent in that problem. I don't believe for one second that either Gates or Sgt. Crowley or the president for that matter handled this situation the best way they could have. How ironic that of that threesome, only the President has been humble enough to admit that HE overreacted. Gates and Crowley seem to be dug in, which is unfortunate. The two of them could do a great deal for the relationship between Black men and law enforcement in this country by simply admitting their own culpability in this matter and taking a more conciliatory tone.
As I am a black man, who spent my formative years in the segregated South, and a man who has gone through two separations and one divorce, I am fully able to empathize with Professor Gates' indignation at being treated like an interloper in his own home. I understand what it feels like to have to defend one's presence in one's own house. I've been pulled over for "DWB" a number of times, most of them in "progressive" California. In that context it would be very easy for me to automatically side with Gates and never even consider the cop. But at some point in my maturation process, I learned that cops, for the most part, are decent people trying to do a job. Because they are drawn from the pool known as the human race, some of them are jerks, maybe even outright assholes, but coloring them all with the same brush is exactly what led to racial prejudice and racial profiling to begin with. So I learned to treat them with respect and in turn I found out they would gladly reciprocate. Gates should have done exactly this in his situation. If he had thanked the officer for looking into the call and protecting his neighborhood and his home, offered him some coffee and given the identification immediately when requested and without attitude we would never have heard a peep about this. But in his defense, Gates was tired and grumpy from a long trip and clearly annoyed at having to break into his own home. This obviously impaired his judgement momentarily. That could happen to any of us under those circumstances. At the same time, the cop was probably aware of where he was responding to the call. He knew it was the home in the area of where Harvard puts up professors and other staff. He might even have known it was Gates' residence. If you've met many Harvard professors, you would understand how cops might be a little irritated with their elitism and the sense of entitlement and superiority they exude. Well.. not all of them but some.
The lesson that needs to be learned here is that parties in this sort of situation need to ask themselves one simple question before they react and that is simply: What would a reasonable person do here? Reasonable middle aged men don't scream at cops. Reasonable cops don't arrest middle-aged men who prove they're in their own homes and there is are no warrants or restraining orders to service. And certainly a reasonable head of state does not undermine law enforcement off hand without the slightest clue as to the facts. The bottom line is it's high time we in America grew up about race. It needs to stop being a topic that is either completely off limits or spoken of only in hushed tones or in some clinical academic setting. People need to re-learn how to talk to each other. To appreciate each other's differences, and to understand how insignificant those differences truly are in the grand scheme of things. Some of those differences are funny. Others are charming. But not of them really amounts to a hill of beans in the cosmos. In the blink of an eye that is our life span here on this planet, to expend the amount of time and energy we do dividing ourselves based on the .3% (or whatever the number is) of our genetic make-up that is different is beyond ludicrous. Any intelligent life looking in on us would rightfully conclude we are absolute morons.
But I digress. This is about cops and black folk. Black men in particular. Black men need to quit feeling the need to act like one of the "Boyz in the Hood" every time we have to engage a cop and in turn cops should try not to see a character from "Oz" every time he encounters a black male. Yes there will be times when both will be the case.. but those will be the exception and not the rule. Remember the "What would a reasonable person do?" rule. How about we try it, just for a while?
To jump right into the meat of the matter. The Gates case has an opportunity to effect significant change in how men of color are treated by law enforcement in this country. The Gates incident involved a celebrity of sorts, which is the only reason the media gave it even a second thought. Black men are treated with something less than respect by law enforcement every day in this country. This incident brims with the possibility of putting a serious dent in that problem. I don't believe for one second that either Gates or Sgt. Crowley or the president for that matter handled this situation the best way they could have. How ironic that of that threesome, only the President has been humble enough to admit that HE overreacted. Gates and Crowley seem to be dug in, which is unfortunate. The two of them could do a great deal for the relationship between Black men and law enforcement in this country by simply admitting their own culpability in this matter and taking a more conciliatory tone.
As I am a black man, who spent my formative years in the segregated South, and a man who has gone through two separations and one divorce, I am fully able to empathize with Professor Gates' indignation at being treated like an interloper in his own home. I understand what it feels like to have to defend one's presence in one's own house. I've been pulled over for "DWB" a number of times, most of them in "progressive" California. In that context it would be very easy for me to automatically side with Gates and never even consider the cop. But at some point in my maturation process, I learned that cops, for the most part, are decent people trying to do a job. Because they are drawn from the pool known as the human race, some of them are jerks, maybe even outright assholes, but coloring them all with the same brush is exactly what led to racial prejudice and racial profiling to begin with. So I learned to treat them with respect and in turn I found out they would gladly reciprocate. Gates should have done exactly this in his situation. If he had thanked the officer for looking into the call and protecting his neighborhood and his home, offered him some coffee and given the identification immediately when requested and without attitude we would never have heard a peep about this. But in his defense, Gates was tired and grumpy from a long trip and clearly annoyed at having to break into his own home. This obviously impaired his judgement momentarily. That could happen to any of us under those circumstances. At the same time, the cop was probably aware of where he was responding to the call. He knew it was the home in the area of where Harvard puts up professors and other staff. He might even have known it was Gates' residence. If you've met many Harvard professors, you would understand how cops might be a little irritated with their elitism and the sense of entitlement and superiority they exude. Well.. not all of them but some.
The lesson that needs to be learned here is that parties in this sort of situation need to ask themselves one simple question before they react and that is simply: What would a reasonable person do here? Reasonable middle aged men don't scream at cops. Reasonable cops don't arrest middle-aged men who prove they're in their own homes and there is are no warrants or restraining orders to service. And certainly a reasonable head of state does not undermine law enforcement off hand without the slightest clue as to the facts. The bottom line is it's high time we in America grew up about race. It needs to stop being a topic that is either completely off limits or spoken of only in hushed tones or in some clinical academic setting. People need to re-learn how to talk to each other. To appreciate each other's differences, and to understand how insignificant those differences truly are in the grand scheme of things. Some of those differences are funny. Others are charming. But not of them really amounts to a hill of beans in the cosmos. In the blink of an eye that is our life span here on this planet, to expend the amount of time and energy we do dividing ourselves based on the .3% (or whatever the number is) of our genetic make-up that is different is beyond ludicrous. Any intelligent life looking in on us would rightfully conclude we are absolute morons.
But I digress. This is about cops and black folk. Black men in particular. Black men need to quit feeling the need to act like one of the "Boyz in the Hood" every time we have to engage a cop and in turn cops should try not to see a character from "Oz" every time he encounters a black male. Yes there will be times when both will be the case.. but those will be the exception and not the rule. Remember the "What would a reasonable person do?" rule. How about we try it, just for a while?
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Hey Mediots? What is it with the MJ hate guys?
So two weeks have gone by since the theatre of the absurd known as "Michael Jackson died coverage" has kicked off and truthfully there is no end in sight. Not sure what to think about that but in truth it doesn't really bother me all that much because I never watched much CNN/Fox News/MSNBC/Entertainment Tonight/{You name the tabloid show} in the first place. I have read the various laments about how overblown the coverage is and find it very easy to agree. What I do not agree with is the tone of some of the laments. "He was a pedophile and a child molester!" asserts one pundit. "He was no Beethoven!" writes another. "He simply was not that significant a person...." is the refrain coming from many corners.
As we live in America, I fully support the right of these people to their opinions about Michael Jackson, his legacy, his alleged crimes, the stupid media coverage, the fans who travel thousands of miles just to stand around hoping for a glimpse of his casket. I get that. But why be in attack mode? Why attack a dead man? Why attack people who adored him whatever their reasoning for doing so? His humanitarian efforts on behalf of children alone render him worthy of high praise and reverence in my opinion. That much of his music was simply formulaic pop is of no consequence. Most music of the rock era can be described thusly. Who cares? It is no less pleasant to listen to just because it isn't filled with full orchestra arrangements and full choir backing vocals. Some people like mystery novels, some people like comic books. Both are legitimate preferences. This whole business of looking down upon those who do not share in our "intelligent" view of the world is extremely distasteful to me. Live and let live. What harm are these "people who mourn a stranger" doing to me, you or the uppity pundits looking down their noses at them? If teenage girls faint at the sight of the Beatles getting off the plane or out of a limo, why would we expect they would have a measured response to the passing of a pop icon like Michael Jackson. The tone of those sitting in judgement of them speaks to the ongoing undercurrent of hate in our society. It has colored our politics for at least the past 2 decades and it has gradually infiltrated all corners of our society. One simply cannot be "somebody" unless one is asserting one's superiority over others by putting them down.
Those who know me know that I am as cynical and sarcastic as anyone, but I do it with tongue planted in cheek. I don't take myself or my rants all that seriously and encourage others to follow suit. I'm just a guy, trying to live life the best I can. I am not trying to tell others how they should live, what they should think, who they should vote for, whatever.. So called journalists shouldn't either. Reporters should go back to "reporting." These commentary shows that vie to brainwash people to the hosts way of thinking should be taken off the air. People should think for themselves. If they want to know about something they should gather facts and formulate their own opinion, not wait for some talking head to tell them what to think. If they don't understand something, they should turn to someone they know and trust and engage in discussion. Maybe a neighbor, maybe a coworker. Someone known to be intelligent. Not even necessarily someone whose opinion they share. In fact it is often more productive to engage in discussion with someone with the opposite viewpoint than someone who agrees with you. This Michael Jackson thing is not such an issue by the way. Death is not complicated. Nor is a family's loss of a brother and son or children's loss of their father. No one should need to have that explained to them. Speculation about whether he is the kids' father, who gets his money, who does he own money, who gets his children, how much plastic surgery did he have, how many kids did he molest and a long laundry list of trivialities have no place in this. And shame on us for legitimizing this behavior by continuing to tune into it. Maybe its time we should those "smarter and holier than thou" talking heads what "class" is.. by turning them off.
As we live in America, I fully support the right of these people to their opinions about Michael Jackson, his legacy, his alleged crimes, the stupid media coverage, the fans who travel thousands of miles just to stand around hoping for a glimpse of his casket. I get that. But why be in attack mode? Why attack a dead man? Why attack people who adored him whatever their reasoning for doing so? His humanitarian efforts on behalf of children alone render him worthy of high praise and reverence in my opinion. That much of his music was simply formulaic pop is of no consequence. Most music of the rock era can be described thusly. Who cares? It is no less pleasant to listen to just because it isn't filled with full orchestra arrangements and full choir backing vocals. Some people like mystery novels, some people like comic books. Both are legitimate preferences. This whole business of looking down upon those who do not share in our "intelligent" view of the world is extremely distasteful to me. Live and let live. What harm are these "people who mourn a stranger" doing to me, you or the uppity pundits looking down their noses at them? If teenage girls faint at the sight of the Beatles getting off the plane or out of a limo, why would we expect they would have a measured response to the passing of a pop icon like Michael Jackson. The tone of those sitting in judgement of them speaks to the ongoing undercurrent of hate in our society. It has colored our politics for at least the past 2 decades and it has gradually infiltrated all corners of our society. One simply cannot be "somebody" unless one is asserting one's superiority over others by putting them down.
Those who know me know that I am as cynical and sarcastic as anyone, but I do it with tongue planted in cheek. I don't take myself or my rants all that seriously and encourage others to follow suit. I'm just a guy, trying to live life the best I can. I am not trying to tell others how they should live, what they should think, who they should vote for, whatever.. So called journalists shouldn't either. Reporters should go back to "reporting." These commentary shows that vie to brainwash people to the hosts way of thinking should be taken off the air. People should think for themselves. If they want to know about something they should gather facts and formulate their own opinion, not wait for some talking head to tell them what to think. If they don't understand something, they should turn to someone they know and trust and engage in discussion. Maybe a neighbor, maybe a coworker. Someone known to be intelligent. Not even necessarily someone whose opinion they share. In fact it is often more productive to engage in discussion with someone with the opposite viewpoint than someone who agrees with you. This Michael Jackson thing is not such an issue by the way. Death is not complicated. Nor is a family's loss of a brother and son or children's loss of their father. No one should need to have that explained to them. Speculation about whether he is the kids' father, who gets his money, who does he own money, who gets his children, how much plastic surgery did he have, how many kids did he molest and a long laundry list of trivialities have no place in this. And shame on us for legitimizing this behavior by continuing to tune into it. Maybe its time we should those "smarter and holier than thou" talking heads what "class" is.. by turning them off.
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