I love my GPS

 

In ages past, people getting ready for a long trip would visit their local AAA office to get a customized 'Trip-Tik'.  These were ring-bound 5"-by-8" strip maps each showing 50 to 300 miles of major travel roads.  AAA travel consultants would select the proper set of strip maps for the journey you had in mind and stripe them with highlighter pens to show the recommended route.  The back of each sheet listed recommended hotels, motels, restaurants, and service stations related to the route on the front side, each with its AAA-rating.  It was a complete, coherent collection of all the information you would need for that trip segment.  Together with its accompanying maps, it was everything you needed to know from leaving home to getting back home again.  Pretty neat, but labor-intensive, and when your plans changed mid-trip, useless, unless you could find a nearby AAA office to give you an update.

Automation has come to the rescue, thanks to a cluster of 69 satellites being used by three different positioning systems.  31 of them are what enable the GPS in your car.  As long as your GPS can 'hear' at least three of them, the built-in software can tell you where you are within about 50 feet anywhere on the surface of the planet.

We got our first GPS in 2009 in preparation for a road trip into the American Southwest.  We used it for a few weeks to get used to it before we left on vacation, then used it in our rental car when we got there.

Our first stop was at Canyon de Chelly (shay-ye) in Arizona.  The canyon has a 'v' shape with the two legs of the canyon extending generally east from the town of Chinle, AZ.  There are 'rim roads' along the south rim and the north rim.  On our first half-day there, we explored the south rim road.  The next day was spent taking guided tours into the canyons.  On our last day, we drove out along the north rim road to catch any sights we might otherwise have missed.  When we were satisfied that we had seen everything there was to see, I programmed the GPS for the next leg of our trip: to Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado with an en route pass by Shiprock, an ancient volcanic basalt core whose cone has eroded away over the eons, and which became a sort of 'mile marker' for pioneer wagon trains as they headed for California.  The GPS ordered me to turn right (east) out of the parking lot.

"No," I thought, "that's not right.  I have to go west into Chinle to pick up US-191 north."  My second thought was that this was a vacation and that I should go where the GPS pointed.  We turned east through rough wilderness via BIA-64 and BIA-12 and BIA-13 and BIA-33.  It was some time before I realized that these were Bureau of Indian Affairs roads, and the GPS was taking us directly through the Navajo (I presume) Reservation.  At one point, we were zig-zagging our way up the side of a mountain when we reached the high point and could see, straight ahead 30 miles away across the plains, Shiprock standing there like an obsidian ax blade sticking up out of the desert.  The GPS had given us a magnificent view as our reward for having faith in its ability.

You know how a GPS picks a route, don't you?  It has a vast encyclopedia of roads and facts about those roads.  It knows that from here to there, the speed limit is v and the distance is s, so the time to get from point A to point B is t.  It picks your route by adding up all the times from each possible route and selecting the smallest of those.

There are downsides to placing too much faith in a GPS, however.  Sometimes its advice is just plain wrong.  Usually this happens when you're in the vicinity of a city or metropolitan area.  The GPS may give you directions that seem to take forever!  The reason for this is simple, so simple that I'm amazed GPS-makers haven't added the SMOP (Simple Matter Of Programming) to their software that would correct it.  The mis-routing happens because the GPS doesn't allow for the time your speed will be zero because you're waiting at a red light.  The simple 'fix' is to charge 25 or 35 or 45 seconds to the route-time for every traffic light along the way.  You won't get stopped at every one of them, (unless you're on State Street in Erie PA) but when you do get stopped, it will be for several minutes.  Charging the route-time this way operates to make certain routes poor options for through traffic, and the normal GPS software will usually, then, de-select such routes even if they are more direct.

For road trips, however, most moderns have given up using AAA Trip-Tiks, and now rely exclusively on their GPSs, whether built-in or added-on.  Don't leave home without it!

 

Stop+Space+Space

 

In ages past when adolescent women took a 'business track' in high school, they studied stenography (Gr.: short writing) usually referred to as "sten and transcription".  'Stenography' is the art of quickly writing dictated words by recording their sound patterns.  'Transcription' was the process of re-converting all those mysterious cryptic squiggles back into something legible.  In general, that meant typing it onto paper.  Naturally, one also had to become proficient at typing.  One of the first lessons in typing class would have been 'double space between sentences', or 'double space after a full stop'.

The reason for the double-space was to give a visually-clear indication that one sentence was ending and another beginning. In the age of word processors, the habit of 'double space after a full stop' has become deprecated. That is, it is no longer taught, and is now considered improper. We live in a world of 'single space between sentences'. Most word processing software will actually remove what it considers 'extraneous blanks' between sentences. Even if you deliberately period-space-space as you type, MSWord may just erase all those 'errors' the first chance it gets. Well, really, does it make any difference? Let's see. To illustrate the change in visual clarity engendered by that change in policy, this paragraph has been keyed as 'single space between sentences'. All the others are keyed 'double space between sentences'. Can you detect the difference?

Admittedly, the change may be hard to detect, but as you read the text with your eyes there's a voice in your head that 'reads the text aloud' to you.  It has a different pacing and you may be able to actually feel the presence or absence of a... pause?... between the sentences.

I am a great fan of that old double-space.  Everything I write uses it.  It's old-style.  Why would anyone be such an old stick-in-the-mud?  (Aside, that is, from enjoying being a curmudgeonly fuddy-duddy.)

When writing fiction (as I often do) control of pacing is something greatly to be desired.  I want my readers to hear, to feel that pause between thoughts that often accompanies dialog between characters.  Similarly, when writing a letter to someone who will personally read it, one may also want to control that pacing.  That might mean eliminating that pause between thoughts to transmit a sense of urgency, or to include the pause to gently nudge the reader into a thoughtful mood.

Thankfully, in recent times it has become possible to customize one's word-processing software settings to prevent it eliminating all those laboriously typed spaces.  For those who (like me, occasionally) write in HTML, there's a way to prevent the HTML processor from compressing the text: the non-breaking space.  A non-breaking space is never eliminated; it is always kept.  Its symbol is ampersand-nbsp-semicolon ( ).  Each place where your eyes detect 'too many spaces' is the probable result of a non-breaking space after a period plus a regular space such that the reader software is forced to insert an empty character after the period and before the single space character that cannot be further compressed.

I hope that your own eyes will urge you to the position that the second paragraph here is the least easy to read, and that you'll come to value an extra space here and there in your own writing.

 

Hunter Biden, Director

 

Why all this focus on Hunter Biden?

Some people have a tendency to not 'connect the dots'.  They may look at all the attention paid to Joe Biden's son Hunter and his employment on some obscure Ukrainian energy company's board (Burisma) and jump to the obvious conclusion:  the Republicans can't find anything on Biden, so they go after Biden's family.  If that's true, it would be despicable, and we would all be justified in heaping scorn on the GOP for such dirty politics.

There's a spare dot in the middle of this picture that's hidden from view.

Ukraine, like many other countries, is a recipient of U.S. foreign aid.  The threat of withholding that aid can be used to move their politics in any desired direction.  "Aha!" you say, "so Ukraine leans on Burisma to put Biden's son on their payroll and pay him a pile of loot so that they'll have an 'in' when it comes time to collect some more foreign aid!  That seems like a sound business decision!"  and you just missed the hidden dot.

The hidden dot is that Burisma has deep connections to the Ukraine government itself, the same government that gets all that foreign aid.  Burisma can pad its invoices to cover Hunter Biden's hefty (and likely unjustified) directorial 'salary' and Ukraine winds up paying that bill.  Burisma just passed Hunter's salary through to the Ukraine government which paid that salary using U.S. foreign aid money.  Hunter Biden is not being paid by Burisma, he's being paid by you.  Foreign aid money is being 'laundered' from your pockets right back into the pockets of the Biden family.

Hunter sits on several such boards in several similarly-situated countries despite the fact that Hunter Biden has no experience in the workings of the oil and gas industry.  His only 'experience' is as the son of a long-term U.S. Senator and Vice President.

Who wants to bet that if the U.S. cuts off aid to Ukraine, Hunter Biden would be flushed from Burisma's board within the week?

Lord Peter Bauer once pointed out that "Foreign aid is an excellent method for transferring money from poor people in rich countries, to rich people in poor countries."  And to rich people in rich countries, too, it seems.

 

P.s.:  Paul Pelosi, Nancy's husband, just resigned from a board in a country that looks very much like a laundry.

 

Riqui — May 15, 2006 to October 4, 2019

 

Norene and I both expected to be emotional basket cases when the day came, and I'm not saying we were not sad, but...

Riqui (Suncatcher's Periquita, officially) had a bout of congestive heart failure on January 3rd and the vet told us then "3 months... maybe 4" so this wasn't exactly "a surprise".  With excellent care, she lasted through October, but in recent days she started huffing more, not exactly a cough, but respiratory.  She also started getting foggy.  She'd go outside on the lawn and seem not to know exactly why she was there.  She was becoming incontinent, but... knew where the Puppy Pads were and what they were for.  Friday when we took her to see the vet again, her tongue was purple.  She was visibly struggling to breathe.

You always wonder "Am I doing this for my convenience?" but there's a flip-side to that coin: "Am I keeping her alive so that I, myself, won't feel pain?"  In the end, we opted to take the pain to save her from it.

I suspect it's going to hurt a long time.  Memories are like that, damn it.

 

Dave Boyd and the STSS

 

When I worked at IBM's Field Engineering headquarters Information Systems Department (FEIS) in the late 70s, I had the good fortune to collaborate on several projects with David P. Boyd, a truly gifted systems analyst with an impressive résumé of accomplishments, including writing the curriculum for the first Autocoder class.  (I don't know what 'Autocoder' is, by the way.)  Dave was the analyst and the brains behind the Suggestions Tracking and Statistical System (STSS), FE's first IMS DB/DC application.  For reasons that were not initially clear, I, a very junior programmer, was tasked with doing the core programming for this quite-elaborate application.

Management at FEHQ was very averse to slipping a date once the client had signed off on it.  That meant that on occasion programmers (and sometimes the analysts) would work through the night and sometimes through the weekend.

On one such overnight effort, Dave and I were returning from FE's Sterling Forest Data Center in the wee hours of the morning.  I don't recall the project or whether it was a one-day or a multi-day work-through, but I do recall that Dave had driven us there in his Porsche 914.  As soon as we were sure the project would make its deadline, we wrapped up and headed for the parking lot.  It was around 2 AM when we set off for Yorktown Heights where Dave and I both lived.  The only plausible route was Seven Lakes Parkway winding through Harriman State Park, one lane in each direction, heavily forested, and unlit save for the occasional traffic circle.  As we approached Tiorati Circle, Dave casually mentioned that Tiorati was the highest elevation on Seven Lakes Parkway.  "You know what that means, right?" he asked me.  I admitted that I did not know what he was asking.  "It means that we could coast from Tiorati all the way to the Bear Mountain Bridge.  Are you in a hurry to get home?"  I shook my head.  A minute later, Dave negotiated Tiorati Circle at 45mph and as he rejoined the main road, slipped the 914's stick into neutral.  For the next 20-something miles, gravity provided all the motive power to the car, and Dave only put it back into gear when we could see the bridge at the end of a long downslope.  It was the weirdest sensation: racing down a darkened country road at highway speed, with the road ahead illuminated only by the car's headlights, and the Porsche engine purring contentedly.

STSS had been mandated to FEIS by Corporate because the Suggestion Department in Endicott (NY) was nominally run by the Field Engineering Division even though it served all non-plant locations in the United States and thus served several different divisions' employees.  The nature of the project involved a great deal of data entry, so much that it stretched over several years.  Since it was to be a 'flagship application' and involved technologies FEIS was largely unfamiliar with, the project time line was allowed to extend far longer than would otherwise be permitted.  While I did most of the design and coding, several other programmers would now and then be pressed into service to produce parts of the system as well.

When it was complete, the software was cut over to run in parallel test mode.  That is: Endicott considered it to be "running in production" even if everyone in 'production' considered it to be not-yet-installed.  Getting it documented and installed was my job alone since everyone including Dave had been shifted onto other projects leaving me as the last man standing.  After several abortive attempts to get 'the package' accepted by the production side of the house, it became clear that some sort of animus was at work to prevent STSS from becoming 'official', and the animus extended to my own management who steadfastly refused to intervene to get an otherwise perfectly-working software system past a gamut of ever-changing rules.  In August, 1979, with STSS still officially uninstalled, I left IBM for greener pastures.  Within six months, Endicott's management began complaining to Corporate management about the situation, and Corporate told FEHQ to 'get that installed or find a new job'.  Presto!  Installed!

Each of the plant locations also maintained their own Suggestions Departments and each therefore had the same problems associated with tracking and counting submitted suggestions.  Before too long, plants here and there started whining that they didn't have an STSS of their own.  Dave Boyd — as the most knowledgeable person regarding STSS — was pulled back from whatever he was then doing and assigned the task of visiting each plant and installing a copy of STSS for each of them.  Well, plants aren't only in the United States.  There are plants in Milan Italy, Corbeille-Essonnes France, Boeblingen Germany, and several other places.  Dave got The Grand Tour of Europe.

Years later, I would learn that FE was resentful at Corporate HQ 'ramming STSS down their throats' and assigned the newest, greenest programmer they could find to screw up that project to a fare-thee-well, but they never told me about their nefarious plans.  Thinking they meant the project to be a success, I did everything I could to get it to work.  They were very, very upset that I succeeded, and I think they were more surprised than I that it turned out as well as it did.

IBM, I hear, no longer has a Suggestions Program, so FEHQ got their wish after all.

 

A response to 16 liberal talking points

 

A friend posted these 16 theses on Facebook with the proviso: "(Got another opinion? Put it on your page, not mine)".  Each of these 'liberal talking points' deserves an individual reply, but since I have been disinvited to post anywhere but my own page...  so let it be written; so let it be done.

—==+++==—

1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members.  A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected.  Period.

Resp:  It is the essence of 'civilization' that the old, the weak, the infirm, and children are cared for and protected when they cannot do so for themselves.  On this count, there cannot be any argument without first abandoning any pretense of civilization oneself.

2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that's interpreted as "I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all."  This is not the case.  I'm fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it's impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes "let people die because they can't afford healthcare" a better alternative.  I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it.  And no, I'm not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.

Resp:  To say that healthcare is a right reveals a gross misunderstanding of the nature of 'rights'.  One cannot have a right without a corresponding responsibility.  My right to own a gun, for instance, carries with it a responsibility not to use it for evil.  What responsibility is associated with a right to healthcare?  It can only be that someone is charged with the responsibility of providing healthcare.  Who would that be?  Here is a case where, again, the productive sector is being asked — no that's not right — is being ordered to provide for someone who can't or won't provide for themselves.  If it were only the old, the weak, and the infirm, our innate moral sense would urge us to do this without coercion, but that's not what's at stake here, is it?

3. I believe education should be affordable and accessible to everyone.  It doesn't necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I'm mystified as to why it can't work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.

Resp:  What we see as 'the education crisis' is largely manufactured by bad public policy.  Suppose the government decided that teachers must be able to get to work teaching and offered a $10,000 tax rebate for any teacher who bought a new car.  What do you think would happen to the price of new cars?  If you guessed that the price of cars would suddenly jump by several thousand dollars, you can see why the price of a college education has quintupled in just a few decades.  (The same analysis, by the way, applies to that 'housing bubble' of a few years back.)  Market forces must be allowed to 'price' the value of a degree in Medieval French Literature or we will soon find ourselves with scholars who can quote verbatim 13th-century love poems but can't be employed anywhere but McDonald's.

4. I don't believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don't want to work.  I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this.  Ever.  I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can't afford to go to the doctor.  Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this.  Somehow believing that makes me a communist.

Resp:  Jack is not rich because Jill is poor.  There is not a causal relationship between those two things.  There is a causal relationship between 'Jack is rich' and 'Jack runs a government-sanctioned monopoly'.  If you're serious about solving the problem of wealth inequality, you're not going to do so with simple-minded redistributionist schemes.  Plus, recognize that there will always be some inequality; some people are more talented than others, and some don't see money as the be-all and end-all of life.

5. I don't throw around "I'm willing to pay higher taxes" lightly.  If I'm suggesting something that involves paying more, well, it's because I'm fine with paying my share as long as it's actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.

Resp:  Well, you just pinned two things that can't happen without government intervention, and you think the answer is 'more government intervention'.  I don't know how to counter that.  Checkmate.

6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage.  Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes.  What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water.  Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multi-billion-dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn't have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.

Resp:  Should companies have to pay 'x' dollars for work that isn't worth 'x' dollars?  What do you do with employees who don't/can't/won't contribute to your bottom line at least the equivalent of the minimum wage?  Answer: you fire them and replace them with machines.  What happens to your business if ALL your employees produce less than you are forced to pay them?  Your business is now 'your former business'.  Good idea?  Then, too, 'minimum wage jobs' aren't meant to provide a living wage.  They're meant to provide the kind of experience one needs to get a better job.  If you can only make minimum wage, you shouldn't be starting a family.

7. I am not anti-Christian.  I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc.  (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is - and should be - illegal).  All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs.  When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I'm not "offended by Christianity" — I'm offended that you're trying to force me to live by your religion's rules.  You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia law on you?  That's how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me.  Be a Christian.  Do your thing.  Just don't force it on me or mine.

Resp:  THAT is a true 'liberal' position, one that all the founding fathers would have applauded.  It boils down to 'leave me alone', a sentiment we find all through the revolutionary writings, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.  Where did we go wrong?  We said "Hmm.. clean food and untainted meat: good idea; let's have an FDA..." and we were off and running.

8. I don't believe LGBT people should have more rights than you.  I just believe they should have the *same* rights as you.

Resp:  Another true liberal position, but who says they have fewer rights?  Would that be... umm... Congress?

9. I don't believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN'T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they're supposed to be abusing, and if they're "stealing" your job it's because your employer is hiring illegally).  I'm not opposed to deporting people who are here illegally, but I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).

Resp:  While Republicans (and occasionally Democrats) might dispute this, the Constitution nowhere grants authority to anyone, Congress or the President, to control immigration (you could look it up).  Congress is granted power 'to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization', and that's as far as it goes.  Surprised?  Whether you acknowledge it or not, the root of the current malaise is not 'immigration' per se, but rather the welfare state we have allowed this country to become, that and the fact that Congress has bobbled the ball on that 'uniform Rule of Naturalization' thingy.

10. I don't believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc.  It's not that I want the government's hands in everything — I just don't trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc. are actually SAFE.  Is the government devoid of shadiness?  Of course not.  But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they're harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc.  Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.

Resp:  I would much rather have Consumer Union inspecting my food than FDA and USDA.  CU has a vested interest in maintaining their reputation for honesty and fair-dealing.  FDA and USDA?  Not so much.  Every drug ever recalled by the FDA was first determined to be safe and effective by the FDA.  As to 'consumers have recourse', I refer you to the vaunted 'tobacco settlement'.  Was any of that monster fine used to recompense anyone actually harmed by smoking?  Nope, and the terms of the settlement immunized the tobacco companies against lawsuits.  Nice people you're hangin' with...

11. I believe our current administration is fascist.  Not because I dislike them or because I can’t get over an election, but because I've spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities.  Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.

Resp:  If by 'fascist' you mean 'controlling the means of production', then we've been fascist for about 170 years.  I think what you mean is 'totalitarian', and we've been that for about 120 years.  Only the fact that 120 million Americans own 400 million guns and 300 billion rounds of ammunition has kept the government from lining people up against the wall.

12. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed.  Which means those with privilege — white, straight, male, economic, etc. — need to start listening, even if you don't like what you're hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that's causing people to be marginalized.

Resp:  Does that mean you want to forbid facial tattoos and eyebrow piercings?  Because if anything 'marginalizes' people, it's that.  Most marginalization of people results from the decisions of the marginalized rather than their skin color or gender.  Efforts to coerce an end to that marginalization results in bakers being sued for turning away profitable business.  Coercion is bad no matter what the reason.

13. I am not interested in coming after your blessed guns, nor is anyone serving in government.  What I am interested in is sensible policies, including background checks, that just MIGHT save one person’s, perhaps a toddler’s, life by the hand of someone who should not have a gun.  (Got another opinion?  Put it on your page, not mine).

Resp:  There is not a single 'sensible gun control policy' in the liberal catechism that would have saved even one life — ever.  If anyone has proof that that's incorrect, I'd like to see it.  120 million Americans own 400 million guns and 300 billion rounds of ammunition.  If any appreciable fraction of those were as dangerous and unstable as they are made out to be, there wouldn't be 30,000 fatal gunshots each year; there would be 30,000 fatal gunshots each month.

14. I believe in so-called political correctness.  I prefer to think it’s social politeness.  If I call you Chuck and you say you prefer to be called Charles I’ll call you Charles.  It’s the polite thing to do.  Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better.  When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you're using, you now know better.  So why not do better?  How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person?

Resp:  I will happily call someone 'Theo' rather than Theodore, Ted, or Eddie, and I may even — if they ask politely — refer to them as 'Your Serene Boffness', but I'll laugh when I do.  Force me to do that?  That's really what this is all about, isn't it?

15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs.  There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil.  Sorry, billionaires.  Maybe try investing in something else.

Resp:  The laws of physics are immutable.  No amount of wishing will change the fact that wind, solar, hydroelectric, and thermal energy together cannot — that's an important word: cannot — sustain the world's current lifestyle, but it can destroy entire national economies trying prove that they can.

16. I believe that women should not be treated as a separate class of human.  They should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse.  Why on earth shouldn’t they be?

Resp:  The laws of nature are as immutable as the laws of physics.  Men cannot bear children and parthenogenesis doesn't work for our species.  That means that men and women are biologically different, and no one with even half a brain disputes that.  That women must bear the children and are in a relatively fragile state while doing so means that they cannot — there's that word again — work the same as men.  At some point, they are forced (!) to attend to the birthing process and not attend to 'their job'.  Men provide muscle mass and DNA; women create civilization; let's not screw that up.

I think that about covers it.  Bottom line is that I'm a liberal because I think we should take care of each other.  That doesn't mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money.  It just means I don't believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.

Resp:  That must mean you're anti-war.  What are you doing voting Democrat (or Republican)?

 

Kindly General Lee

 

While surfing the internet today, I was directed to a 'recommended link' from The Atlantic debunking the 'canard' of Robert E. Lee as a gentlemanly soldier and talented tactician.  Of course there was not an opportunity to comment on the article, and I always suspect foul play when a publication thus shies away from adverse opinions.  The author of the piece, Adam Serwer, suggests that Lee was a poor tactician, else why would he fight a conventional war against an industrial behemoth?  And 'gentleman'?  What sort of gentleman would own slaves?  According to The Atlantic, the war was all about slavery and Lee was responsible for hundreds of thousands dead or maimed.  No wonder they don't allow comments!

I warrant the vast majority of Americans today actually do believe the Civil War was 'all about slavery'.  Why wouldn't they?  It's what they've been taught in every American History class since they were six.  It's not true that slavery had nothing to do with the war, but to say it was the entire, or even the primary, cause of the war is provable nonsense.  The easiest proof of that can be found in the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Civil War started, we're told, on April 12th, 1861 when South Carolinian troops shelled federal troops occupying Fort Sumter.  The Emancipation Proclamation was issued January 1st, 1863.  Now, that's odd, isn't it?  The war was 'all about slavery' but Lincoln waited over 20 months after the war started before making the empty gesture of declaring free those slaves then in territory the Union had no control over.  Further, slaves in Pennsylvania and New York weren't covered by that proclamation because Pennsylvania and New York were not 'in rebellion'.  How strange that those slaves would continue as slaves when the whole conflict was 'all about slavery'!

At the time of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Union was getting its clock cleaned by someone who was, according to The Atlantic, not very good at warfare.  Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a sop to the abolitionists who, up until that time, didn't see much reason to enlist.  Afterwards, the war was 'a war to free the slaves' and abolitionists signed up in droves, filling the Union ranks.  That's where we get the idea that it was 'all about slavery'.

Lee could have fought a guerrilla war, and it would have been ghastly.  It also would have ended the United States as it was then seen.  Lincoln had already shown himself ready to trash the Constitution in the name of increasing federal power.  Federal troops occupied and shut down Northern newspapers whose editorial position opposed the war.  First amendment?  What First amendment are you talking about?

Lincoln couldn't, of course, shut down foreign newspapers, and the view from across the pond is enlightening.  Virtually every European newspaper of the day thought the cause of the U.S. Civil War was 'tariff and trade policy', not 'slavery'.  The U.S. heavily tariffed manufactured imported cotton goods.  The South produced cotton as its major crop, sold it to whomever would pay the going price, and that cotton would become shirts and other white goods in the mills of England, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, but the products arriving from Europe were exorbitantly priced due to the added tax.  Eventually, Europe stopped buying cotton from America because they weren't selling any product there, switched to Egyptian cotton, and left the South with only one place to sell their output: the North.  The North, now with no competition for the South's cotton, could squeeze the South on price.  It wasn't slavery that caused the Civil War, it was economics.  The South was getting screwed by the North, and everyone (especially in Europe) knew it.

So, why would Lee prosecute a conventional war with the North?  The South's attitude and expectations were likely a major factor.  Lee felt that if the South resisted assimilation, the North would eventually tire of it and just go away.  The South, it should be noted, didn't want to conquer the North; they just wanted to be left alone.  It was the North that wanted to conquer the South.  The U.S. Civil War thus isn't really 'a civil war' because there were not two factions fighting for control of the whole.  The South just wanted its independence and would have been content to leave the North in peace — and not have to fund a federal government that was already bloating.

At one point, a reporter is said to have asked Lincoln directly: "Why not just let them go?", and Lincoln's reply was: "Then who would pay for the government?"  Lincoln surely knew the 'civil war' was not about slavery.  It was about control, and he meant to have it no matter how many Americans had to die to get it for him.

After the war, Lee and Lord Acton (J. E. E. Dalberg, "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely") kept up a lively correspondence over the course of several years.  The letters back-and-forth are currently available in print.  Acton expressed his belief that the South had the better moral position(!!) in the conflict.  In one letter, Lee casually, almost off-handedly, remarks that had he known how Reconstruction was going to be implemented, he would have dispersed his army into the wilderness to fight on as best they could ('guerrilla warfare') and he would have surrendered only himself to Grant at Appomattox.

We should all be grateful that Lee was such a poor tactician that he did not do that, for had he done so, we would today be seeing roughly what we see with our troops in the Middle East: 4-to-6 deaths a day.

Every day.

For 155 years.