what if?

Whooooo Has This Gene?

Sometimes I wonder how much of who we are is free will - and how much is exceptionally difficult to change.

Whooooooooooooo do you know like this?

My Optimism

Many times, I have argued about affirmative action with people.  My opinion is that, immediately after the passage of civil rights laws, affirmative action made some sense.  An entire people had been denied so long.  In so many arenas of life, no role models existed.  Blacks had been excluded completely.  Thus, "set asides" and guaranteeing that at least some black folks made it into slots had a certain sense to it.  In part, I saw it as an immediate remedy, as one might apply with other legal damages.

But those days are now gone.  Some of the effects of slavery and Jim Crow are not.  And assuredly, racism has not disappeared.  Still.  Today it is difficult to find some aspect of American life that is not integrated, and where people of all backgrounds cannot be found.

So, I say that affirmative action today causes more harm than good.  If people of a certain race or religion are being illegally discriminated against - then take action against the perpetrator(s).  If a practice is racist, change it.  Do not, however, teach that people of all races are capable and able to reach all goals - and then set in place rules that make it appear one group of people cannot achieve without special dispensation.

The Black Informant is a blog I much enjoy.  Duane, it's proprietor, often takes a view of optimism that I share.  In this post, he alerts us to the progress blacks have made on Wall Street.

On Wednesday April 25, Black Enterprise and NYSE Euronext will host a fundraiser to support the completion of Duvivier's documentary and the on-going efforts of Operation HOPE, Inc.

"We complain that there are not enough positive images out there so, when we are afforded an opportunity to help change that, we need to step up to the plate," said Marchman, who Duvivier said has been a "driving force" behind this event.

The event will honor African Americans who broke ground on Wall Street and the firms that have supported and encouraged diversity. Members of the 2006 Black Enterprise "75 Most Powerful Blacks on Wall Street" will be introduced and firms who sign on to sponsor the event can select African American employees to honor.

Duvivier has been overwhelmed by the support from big name firms like Goldman Sachs, Wachovia Securities, Morgan Stanley, and Lehman Brothers. "The support from the financial services community has been significant. It shows that they are serious about diversity and inclusion by recognizing their African American executives."

Duvivier was even asked by the NYSE to ring the closing bell on April 16, an extraordinary experience that she said made her feel "blessed".

My thanks to Duane for sharing this story.  It's a story that is shared by more and more.

Green Myths

What you might not know about Saving The Earth.

Not to mention - I hope it's OK to use more than 1 square at a crack.  (My apologies; I just couldn't help myself!)

I Feel Your Pain

Is it necessary for your psychiatrist to have been clinically depressed to understand your battles with depression?

Can only blacks understand the sting of racism?

Good analysis from Doctor Richard Friedman.

What is critical to understanding someone is not necessarily having had his or her experience; it is being able to imagine what it would be like to have it. Thus, I do not have to be black to empathize with the toxic effects of racial prejudice, or be a woman to know how I would feel about being denied promotion on the basis of sex.

Contrary to what many people believe, being empathic is not the same thing as being nice.

"Only Man Can Prevent"

Earlier this week, what if? paid tribute to Professor Librescu, the Holocaust survivor who sacrificed his own life so that his students might live.  Joseph Tartakovsky muses about how and why this hero chose as he did, and the greater implications of Professor Librescu's courage for the rest of us.

Librescu was 76 years old, which means that he was fourteen when the Second World War ended. Sixty-two years later, the day after Holocaust Remembrance Day, he died defending the lives of young men and women not much older than he was when he became a survivor. Some see in this a tragic irony. They should. But I wonder if it was precisely his exposure to murder, as a teenager, that prepared him to act as he did. It seems natural for it to be beyond the imaginings of his students that someone could enter their classroom to destroy them. But not to a man who survived the Holocaust. He would have heard of similar atrocities in wartime Romania; he may have seen one himself. Couldn't witnessing the greatest cruelty have primed him to act with the greatest heroism? Couldn't his escape from death have taught him to act instinctively to preserve the lives of others? And shouldn't his bravery do more to steady our faith in the possibility of human goodness than the crimes of death-dealers like Cho Seung-hui do to destroy it?

To answer Yes is to see in Librescu a kindred spirit with the most famous Romanian-Jewish survivor, Elie Wiesel. In his 1986 Nobel lecture, Wiesel said, "A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent." Wiesel, as a defender of human rights, has dedicated his life to this proposition. Librescu gave his life for it. I believe we can justly presume that their common experience led them to this common wisdom.

If these words do not inspire as to seemingly impossible goals that man can achieve, hard to imagine what will.

This Stinks

If it could happen there (New York City) it could happen anywhere.  That's what scares me.

New York City's Gillies Coffee Co., founded in 1840 and one of the oldest coffee merchants in the United States, has built its reputation on its own delicious, fragrant brand of coffee. But not everyone likes the aroma of freshly-brewed coffee: New York City's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has cited Gillies for "polluting" the air - in an industrial area - with the smell of roasting coffee.

Incredibly, the DEP ruled that the "fugitive odors" coming from the Brooklyn business - namely, the smell of roasting coffee - is an illegal air pollutant that violates the New York City Air Pollution Control Code. Hy Chabbott, the co-owner of Gillies, has agreed to pay the $400 fine but says it will be impossible for the company to meet the DEP's demand that they completely eliminate the coffee smell in the future.

"Research has shown that coffee smells like coffee. There is nothing that can reasonably be done to separate the natural smell of already roasted coffee from a coffee business," explained Donald Schoenholt, president of Gillies. "Under the current interpretation [of the NYC Air Pollution Control Code]," Schoenholt asserted, "shoe stores, barber shops, doctor's offices and flower shops are all in violation of the law."

Gillies was convicted of the violation on April 2, 2003 by the city's Environmental Control Board, the municipal administrative court run by the DEP. The matter cost the company over $30,000 on legal bills. Schoenholt is constantly aware that his company could be fined again, because the law has not been taken off the books.

Occam's Razor

For a good part of the Iraq war, we've heard unceasing criticism of this administration for the failure to find stockpiles of WMD.  I myself was and continued to be perplexed.  How could it be that previous administrations believed Saddam to have WMD - and yet none were found?  How was it possible that virtually all intelligence units around the world thought WMD would be discovered once we penetrated Iraq - but all were wrong?

Sometimes, as in Occam's Razor, the answer is that the simplest of conclusions is the correct one.  Previous administrations were not wrong.  The intelligence was not wrong.  Saddam did have WMD.

A wild tale is emerging that creates an "axis of embarrassment."  According to Dave Gaubatz, from the U.S. Air Force special investigations, caches of WMD were found in Iraq after the start of the war.  Horribly, however, rather than seizing control of them and securing them, they were allowed to be raided.  Iraqis and Syrians, along with the help of Russians, moved the WMD to Syria.  And now, these same WMD which provided one of the vital reasons for which we went to war, are being used against us.

Gaubatz continues that no one in the government wants to talk about, for political reasons.  The administration, so the story goes, fouled up horribly by not having the stockpiles secured, and by losing all sorts of evidence of the events involving their loss.  Democrats don't want the story to get out; they live on the tale that "no WMD were ever found." 

Is this amazing story true?  Who knows? 

Assuredly it should be investigated.  Yet, it's possible that it will be chalked up as the rantings of a crackpot.

To me, however, it sounds like it may be a continuation of Occam's Razor.  It sounds simple, and possible.  Let's hope that somehow, somewhere, a serious investigation occurs.  If true, it would be a bitter pill to swallow.  Still, as always, knowing the reality of a situation is superior than remaining in the dark.  Painful as the truth may be, that pain is always an improvement to ignorance and falsehoods.

Escaping the Ovens

Yet dying decades later attempting to save lives from another sort of madman. 

Professor Librescu embodies the true meaning of a hero.  And my thanks to The Captain for this amazing story of bravery in the face of sudden horror.

Political Philosophy in Pictures

Enjoy!

 

David Corn is Right

I don't frequently agree with David Corn.  But one issue developed this week, and on this issue, I do hold Corn's position.  Visiting Alabama this week, Giuliani was asked his position on the Confederate flag; should it fly at the statehouse?  Giuliani's answer?  This decision should be left to the states.

Fine.  Frankly, as far as it goes, I agree with Giuliani.  Nevertheless, one need not answer that, and then remain mute.  What happened to, "Although I believe this is a states' rights issue, I do not think that the flag should be displayed, except for historical reasons"?  Whether or not the states ought to have the right to do something that is offensive and hurtful to a significant proportion of its citizens, and something that is a painful reminder of a terrible time in our nation is one thing.  Whether they ought to do so is another.  Giuliani ought to have been clear on that.

David Corn raises this issue in this Pajamas Media discussion.  I'm happy to add that the conservative viewpoint is in concert with Corn. 

Let's hope that Giuliani revisits this issue soon, and next time around, takes the high road.  If he loses some racist Southern votes; so be it.  He may find himself losing some of his constituency - like myself - if he doesn't clarify his position.

The Other State Department

Preferred by some.

A Day

What a difference a day can make! 

This week, Wednesday presented us with a snowstorm.  Outside my windows, it appeared to be the middle of January - not April.  Thick, wet snow covered everything.  If you were driving, it was a mess.  But if you love the clean, crisp look of glistening snow throughout nature, the storm was a treat.

In the world of media, another storm visited us this week:  the Storm of Imus.  Calculating the number of words spent on this whirlwind would be impossible; I don't plan to add too much more.  Nevertheless, the Imus incident raises some important issues.  So, a few comments are in order.

When I first heard the tape play, I felt a little sick.  One can hear ugly speech easily with the communications available to us today.  But, to hear these kinds of comments about college students is particularly gross.  The announcement that Imus would be off the air for a couple of weeks surely seemed appropriate.

Still, I couldn't help but wonder about how our society judges this sort of speech.  Why the firestorm about Imus and his racist, sexist talk, when words like these appear on BET and MTV every day of the week?  Why is our nation up in arms when a talk-show host who routinely has a potty, vulgar mouth uses nasty language - once again - yet "artists" making tens of millions of dollars spewing far worse language to teens rarely receives commentary?

Please don't take my statements as indication that I wasn't bothered by Imus' comments.  I was; they were bilge.  What perplexes me, though, is why one old white guy insulting college girls dominates every aspect of our media for days . . . . And daily, constant, repeated sexist, misogynist, vulgar talk sexualizing young women gets little more than a yawn?

I'd like the storm to cover more than one day - and more than one individual.  Let's hope that more sunshine and fresh air comes to our discourse.  It's about time.

Welcome to Wal-Mart

This video perhaps has more occurrences of the "f" word than anything else on youtube. 

Yet, if you can make it through the 27+ minutes and stomach a little bit of nudity at the end, you'll get an amazingly thorough, instructive and amusing lesson on capitalism in America.

Enjoy!

Racism of Another Sort

The story of Don Imus and his racist comments which (appropriately) got him suspended from his day job could only have been missed if your television and radio were out of service and you were consigned to bed.

Another story, however, gets a bit of attention.  And yet, this story could have a profound effect on how all of our children do in school.  It's the story of why our nation has choice in so many aspects of life - but not when it comes to a choice in schools for those with modest incomes.

Shay at Booker Rising gives us these excellent quotes and questions from Clint Bolick.

"When the Clintons came to Washington, D.C. in 1993, they could choose any public school for Chelsea. Being responsible parents of means, Bill and Hillary Clinton sent her instead to the elite private Sidwell Friends School. Two years later Mr. Clinton vetoed a bill that would have allowed low-income D.C. parents to use public funds to send their children to private schools. (A subsequent version of that program was signed into law by George W. Bush.) And today presidential candidate Mrs. Clinton continues to stridently oppose school choice....John Edwards, Mr. Populist, decries that 'America has two school systems -- one for the affluent and one for everyone else.' He should know. When he joined the U.S. Senate he sent his children to a religious school because, according to USA Today, the D.C. 'public schools are deeply troubled.' Mr. Edwards, however, opposes private school choice for low-income families on the curious grounds that this would 'drain resources' from public schools. By such logic Mr. Edwards himself 'drained' approximately $132,000 from the D.C. public schools.....

How do liberal politicians explain sending their own children to the finest schools available, while the children of their neighbors must attend schools they themselves would never consider for their own children?  As in some communities, the children stuck in poor neighborhoods and equally poor schools are children of color - is this not racism of another sort?

Too bad so much attention is being devoted to Imus' ugly statements of the other day - and so little to this far more important issue.

Nice Work

If you can get it.

The Ford Motor Company paid its new chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, $28.18 million in his first four months on the job, the automaker said in a regulatory filing yesterday.

His compensation included an $18.5 million bonus that Ford, which reported a record $12.7 billion loss last year, disclosed in September when it hired him from Boeing.

Call me crazy.  But, doesn't it seem a bit absurd to be paying someone over $28 million dollars for four months of work - when the company that person heads has a record $12+ billion loss?

Liberals shriek like banshees about the out-of-whack compensation being doled out to the heads of many U.S. corporations.

Add me to their chorus.  This just does not make sense.

Keeping America Safe!

Our men and women in Washington. 

Oy.

Off Putting

Well informed what if? readers probably are aware that Al Gore, High Priest of the Religion of Man Made Global Warming, uses more energy in one year than many citizens of Fort Dodge, Iowa (where they make me go to play my next bridge competition) do in half a lifetime.  Yet, Al Gore needn't worry about being one of the Top Ten Hypocrites of the World and being a terrible Earth Despoiler, 'cause he buys carbon offsets!

Are you someone who actually tries to watch their energy use, and therefore has no burning need (heh heh heh) for carbon offsets?  Not to worry!  What if? shall happily provide you with other forms of offsets, some of which the most eco-friendly among us surely can utilize.

To My Religious Friends

Happy Passover and Happy Easter!

And my thanks to the Captain for alerting me to this excellent column by Dionne on faith versus atheism.  May we all have our rights to believe - or not - preserved.

Rich and Poor

Professor Burgess-Jackson hits many nails on their heads with this post about inequality in America.  Our concern should not be that some have a great deal more than others - but that most of us are at least doing OK.  In addition, it is not equality of assets or income that should matter. What should matter is that we have relatively equal opportunities to do well.  (I say "relatively" because to make everything completely equal is literally an impossible goal and should be viewed as such.)  Finally, the good professor is also correct in stating that both liberals and conservatives do want to help the poor.  Where they disagree is how should aid should be administered; not whether or not it should be.

Why do we see these disparities between the left and the right?  I think that much of it is a function of how the two groups view people's abilities.  The left (at least, many of the left with whom I have corresponded) believes that much in our life is beyond our control and no more or no less than pure luck.  As a result, the government should step in when life deals disparities and "rectify" what bad or good luck has dealt out.

The right, on the other hand, believes that people have a fair share of control in their destiny.  While good or ill fortune surely can play a roll, our own actions contribute mightily to what happens in our lives.

Liberals want to take from the rich and give to the poor because they see few other ways for the poor to "get out" of poverty.  Conservatives want to help the poor learn how to get out of poverty through their own efforts - because they believe it is possible to do it.  And ultimately, the latter method is the superior method to better ensure that people will stay out of poverty.

Inconvenient Truths

Shrinkwrapped may work as a psychoanalyst in New York City.  Nevertheless, he is one of the superior philosophers on the internet.

In this post, Shrinkwrapped well describes how so many of us - irrespective of our political leanings - find it difficult to reexamine our paradigm beliefs. Even when the evidence may be strong that what we thought to be the case may well not be so, rather than alter our construct, we try to massage the data to fit with what we believe.

We all tend to be strongly wedded to ideas and beliefs that fit into and support our system of looking at, and understanding, the world. The ability to question our assumptions and critically evaluate new data is crucial to change. The current demand by our MSM and by many in the blogosphere that our politicians adhere to rigid, ideologically defined positions, and that anyone who changes his mind is a "flip flopper" (an accusation that did not start with the Junior Senator from Massachusetts) damages our political discourse. How much better would it have been to have had reporters pin down Mr. Kerry to explain what new data led to his change in approach?

For the current political season, would it be preferable to have reporters and commentators playing "gotcha" with Hillary Clinton viz Iraq or with Rudy Guliani viz abortion, or try to find a way for the candidates to fully explicate what their positions are, how they have evolved, or stayed the same, and how they arrive at their conclusions? Do we want a candidate who remains faithful to positions when conditions change, or is able to change his opinions and course when the situation warrants?  And, most importantly, how do the candidates differentiate between their underlying, bedrock convictions, and their more expedient political positions?

Exactly so!  But - do read the whole thing.