And then I thought

I have been wondering about all the heroes and villains I have identified in recent times. First I thought that perhaps some of the heroes had done things not well known or advertised that were perhaps not so laudable. Perhaps, and I believe that some of their opponents are busy digging up such dirt to disturb or disrupt our beliefs. Then I came to realize that it is patterns of behavior and misbehavior that should be noted but that present trends and good deeds perhaps outweigh misdeeds of the past. At least I hope that is the case with retard to my own misdeeds. With that hope my attention turned to the ones I put into the villains groups … and there are many … including some noted politicians and entrepreneurs. I recall writing in an essay penned when I was in graduate school on truth that it is at times the truth that is selling that matters … at least to some of those unwilling to smell anything beyond their noses. It was then that the notion of patters of behavior re-entered my thoughts … it is who we have been and what we  have done that define who we are and who we are becoming. And I seem to recall Nietzsche’s criticism of Socrates that one is never in a position to judge oneself. Still, we hear very little of any misdeeds that Socrates might have committed, although there is a tendency to lionize and praise heroes and belittle and disparage villains. The truths they are telling about an ex-president leave me thinking I may have much less money and many fewer admirers, but I do have a relatively clear and clean conscience in spite of many misdeeds that seem small and minor in comparison to some I have seen in recent years by the one I still consider villains.

Mike

December 2022 with best wishes to all the many heroes for a better and happier 2023

Are the Russian people really that stupid?

Can it be that Russians do not see the horror that Putin has unleashed against the innocent people in the Ukraine?

The Shema – Hear O’ Israel …

 

The Shema is a cornerstone prayer for Jews and it is why we put a mezuzah (see https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/256923/jewish/The-Mezuzah-Scroll-and-Case.htm) on our doorposts … but the words that have stuck with me are these: “teach them thoroughly to your children”  … but what shall we teach our children … all of the commandments in the Torah? That was my father’s answer, and he made an effort, I suppose, but my recollection is that the focus of my parents was more narrow … focused on the 10 commandments and a few other things … and then there is the Al Chet prayer (see https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/confessing-our-sins/) on Yom Kippur in which each person asks forgiveness for any transgression that any member of the community has committed. I also asked my father, the Rabbi, why we ask for all and he answered that is what makes a community. If anyone commits that transgression, then the community has failed. Those thoughts from my upbringing have outlived my parents and are still with me.

Hear, fellow Americans, fellow worlizens, hear ye, hear ye … we must rise about hate and violence … we must, or our community will not survive … we must end poverty and prejudice, we must, or our community will not survive, we must tolerate and respect each other, we must, or our community will not survive … we are losing our community … our humanity … we are losing to the purveyors of hate, violence, poverty, prejudice, intolerance, and ill will … we are losing, we are lost.

Hear ye, hear ye. The silence is deafening. 

 

Thoughts That Come And Go

 

Thoughts That Come And Go

 

Hillel	Trump	Anyone Else
If I am not for me, who will be?	I am for me …	Family, friends, free people
If I am only for me, what am I?	It is who I am …	A selfish bigot
If not now, when?	Me first … always …	Yesterday

 

My get up and go moved to Bali about five years ago … unfortunately, my body was left behind…

My brother used to say that the history of humankind could be told as the history of war … of course he was right but my personal understanding is that the history could also be told as the history of self-interest starting with that first apple and all those who not only followed the money but grabbed as much as they could for themselves along the way …

We are born innocent … few remain in that pristine state …

Where was I when the mountains were formed … “a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas” …

How does hatred develop?

Why are we suspicious of those who seem different from us?

Is there balm in Gilead? Tell me, tell, I implore. Quoth the raven … nevermore.

Who would win a debate between DJT and Abou Ben Adhem?

Which comes first – self-awareness, self-interest, greed, ego-mania? Which comes last? Which can last?

Why can I not stop these thoughts from trickling out? I bite my fingernails but not my fingers … ouch.

Who am I? Someone who denies facts? Denies elections? Who admits to doing no wrong? Admits to limited knowledge? Admits to being all too human? I once got lost in a large department store? I am still lost … no direction-home-finder.

When I was thirteen, I read these words in front of the congregation … comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith the lord … well, I read them in Hebrew … na-hamu, na-hamu, ahmee, omar el-lo-hay-hem … of course with a Southern accent and four part harmony …

My professor asked, after discussing and dismissing the notion of substance as what properties got stuck in, what is love? I said it was what people got stuck in and others laughed … he said he thought it was the glue that binds us together … no one laughed …

What do I know about learning, technology and teaching? Not a lot … nearly everyone else in this department and other similar places knows a lot more about such things … I just try to ask questions and search for answers and tidbits of meaning … crumbs are what I usually find … old and forgotten crumbs … perhaps remnants of a big bang long ago … crumbs in a crumbling world … in the beginning there was chaos and the void and not much has changed since … just more stuff for a privileged few … more stuff and less substance …

I know so little yet I wanted to know so much … what has happened along that wayward path? Many a friend has come and gone and I am left with one hand waving free … the other hand pounding on a keyboard … it is all I know how to do …

Mike Spector

October 2022

Voting Advice

 

What advice might I give to those prior to the 2022 elections. Here it is, plain and simple: Do NOT vote against someone or something … Vote FOR someone or something in which you have confidence and deep agreement. Avoid bias and prejudice and vote what you genuinely believe is right … especially in the long run.

Mike Spector

Untimely Reflections

 

An unexpected thought just occurred to me … I may have learned more from my students than they have learned from me. Once that thought entered, it was followed by many more, confirming the original thought. What a surprise for this old man. Then I started thinking about my kids and grandkids and had a very similar thought. What have I been doing all these many years as a teacher and parent??? Learning it would seem. What a surprise.

Civil War Redux – An Uncivil Uprising

 

Seems like folks are all in for another civil war … this war even less civil than the last one. North versus South. White versus non-white. Richer versus poorer. Self-centered versus selfless. Who will win? Who won the last one? 

Odds are on those who lie the most and lie the least believably. Odds are we will all lose. The bigots are on the rise and the fall of the shining city on the hill is imminent. 

I am so sorry to say that my older and wiser brother, rest his soul, was right: what happened in Nazi Germany can happen here … is happening here. 

I feel so helpless to do anything. And then I remember Franz Jäggersätter … see In Solitary Witness by Gordon Zahn – see https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1500357.In_Solitary_Witness. 

I want to do something positive beyond contributing to the campaigns of those dedicated to peace, love and kindness but I am not sure what I have to offer at this late stage of my life. Three governors who manipulate those seeking asylum in this country from tyrants have treated innocent persons to a taste of American tyranny. Woe is me.

Memories

 I find phrases popping into my mind as I reluctantly (habitually) listen to the news, which is generally quite disturbing. Phrases like “civil war” and “war between the states” came to mind as I listened to the President’s address yesterday.  But those phrases seemed totally out of place … out of tune. More appropriate would be “uncivil war” and “war within the states.” It is not north versus south or free states vs. slave states. Maybe it does involve the soul, or more simply, character. Whatever happened to other phrases that also came to mind, such as “love your neighbor” and “be kind to strangers.” It did not matter if your neighbor was black or white or stranger than Corporal Klinger. I was taught that love and kindness should be boundless and, while trying to live up to boundless love and kindness is often a challenge or even repugnant, that is what we are charged to do … my father was referring to a higher power, of course. I found those sentiments embedded in writings that led up to the founding of today’s western democracies, and implied in the President's repeated use of "we the people." And yet … and yet … I am feeling old and my thoughts seem stale and passé. I have a grandson who is fascinated by dinosaurs … I will have to let him know that I am among those lost beasts.

Mike Spector

2 Sep 2022

What does being presidential mean?

 

I have witnessed the public behavior of a number of previous US presidents and have acquired an informal understanding of what it means to be presidential. The current ex-president does not seem to fit easily into my understanding of being presidential.

So, I started thinking about presidents in other contexts … presidents of a congregation, of an enterprise, of a university, of a professional organization, and so on. I also have some experience with some of those kinds of presidents. My father was president of our congregation in Oak Ridge, Tennessee prior to becoming an ordained Rabbi. I wrote the president of IBM when I worked at the SDD Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado expressing my disagreements with the war in Vietnam and hoping IBM would also express similar disagreement, and he wrote back in agreement. Surprising. I posted his response on my office cubicle bulletin board, which bothered at least one of my co-workers who complained to my supervisor. My university president is also a model of presidential behavior and walks a thin line between Texas politics and maintaining a humanistic campus. I have heard a previous CEO of a political organization express strong disagreement but always in a civil and reasonable tone. None of those persons ever used nasty language nor did I ever hear any of them curse at anyone or anything. Oh yes … I have to admit to having been the president of a professional organization and I have expressed strong discontent publicly while in that role but without cursing or personally attacking anyone.

It seems reasonable to expect the president and ex-presidents of our country to act presidential at all times, especially in public. One ex-president fails to meet my expectations of presidential behavior … only one. It seems so unusual that so many others do not seem bothered by that person’s public discourse and behavior. Do I need to reconsider what it means to be presidential?

 

Mike Spector

August, 2022

Classified Clearances

 

With all the news on the recent search of #45’s home at Mar-a-Lago and the boxes of documents classified as Top Secret Sensitive Compartmented Information, I have been recalling my years as an Air Force Intelligence Officer during the Vietnam conflict and the Top Secret SCI clearance that I had. We simply called it a coded clearance and it required a serious background investigation even though I already had a top secret clearance when I arrived at Clark Air Base as a recent graduate of the nine-month Intelligence School at Lowry AFB (now closed). I worked in a secure facility … 12 hour shift work, 3 shifts on and 4 days off … not so bad … lots of time to get into trouble which I managed to do … not on purpose, though. I read many highly classified texts … my job was to summarize and synthesize what I read during my shift to pass along to the high ranking officers the next day. Most or the time it was just the number of people killed although I read about John McCain’s capture and detention in North Vietnam during my tenure. I vaguely recall there being levels of TS SCI clearance and I think mine was at the third level – relatively low level … there were many more levels … at least eight, I believe … probably more than that. In addition, I learned that one could not share TS SCI information even with someone with the appropriate clearance if that person did not have a clear need to know. I even originated a rare few of those highly classified documents. I detested the war and hated my job but it was better than dropping bombs on people.

At one point, I hosted an Air Force Captain – he became a Major while there - who was headed to Hong Kong to co-lead a highly classified intelligence monitoring operation along with a British officer. He had to await his TS SCI clearance which took months to get. We became friends and on one of my breaks I decided to visit him in Hong Kong. He even took me to that classified facility in the New Territories on a mountain ridge and introduced me to the British co-commander and his wife. I learned that one task at that facility was monitoring all of the air traffic in that part of the world … from southern China down to Indonesia and east and west likewise. The system was not yet perfected so that transmission of information was not yet automated but was being tested with hand developed messages that were not timely. When back at Clark Air Base I was on my third day of duty on a swing shift (4 pm to midnight) with a fresh second lieutenant coming on duty after me. He had not been briefed on the Hong Kong facility (that was not my job) and got one of those dummy messages and believing it to be serious sent it to PACAF HQ as if it was the real thing ... classified as a war message… it reported unusual air traffic conditions in Indonesia and PACAF HQ thought it was real and timely and called him that night and told him to retransmit it to the Pentagon … as a level 8 message which I could not have read even if I wanted to … but I was off to Bagio on my days off. That was the beginning of my troubles. When I came back to work, The Colonel called me in and read me the riot act as if I was responsible. The Colonel was fired that same day for incompetence and I was blamed for that as well, although I had nothing to do with the matter. That was when the powers that remained at CLARK AB decided to punish me and send me to Thailand to be in charge of a group of enlisted misfits who had to build a fence around Ubon Air Base.

Well, the end of the story was that Al Gore senior eventually came to my rescue and I came back to Clark AB three months later to be with my wife and newborn son who just three months old … born just before I was sent to Thailand. So much for my TS SCI clearance. I did manage to escape the Air Force with an honorable discharge. 

 

Uncivil War

 

I think of my older and wiser and departed brother often. His academic studies involved war and international relations. He has more entries in the Sage Encyclopedia of War than anyone else. I recall when we were in high school a family visit to Gettysburg. I was fascinated by trees as we walked around that sacred place while Danny was interested in the battle and how it progressed. I also recall talking with him about that war and I said it could never happen again, and he said do not be so sure. He was nearly always right. As I listen to the news, which I seem unable to avoid, I am thinking how right he was. We seem to be on the verge of what I call an uncivil war. It is not a regional north versus the south affair. It is a fair versus fear affair. Fear seems inclined towards intolerance and violence whereas fair seems inclined towards openness and understanding. History suggests that fear will prevail. My training suggests that the future may not resemble the past. But my brother was smarter and steeped in history. I worry.

What bothers me most is that I have no control of what is happening or likely to happen in the future. I can vote, but it may not count. I can contribute to those I support, but my funds are limited unlike the deep pockets of the true believers and truly crazed supporters of the new uncivil war that is waging in this troubled land of the freely betrayed and home of the mentally wounded. What can I do? I feel hopeless. The few times I have strayed outside a small circle of similarly concerned people, I have been told to shut up and stay away … even by some family members. I am troubled.

I am so troubled that I seem to find it hard to focus on work. I did manage to submit a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation and teach a summer course but it was a struggle. I even volunteered to be considered to serve another term as the doctoral program director at UNT, but I am feeling less than competent to continue as a professor due to having such a troubled mind. Retirement is not attractive as that would only increase the amount of time I would be consumed by the troubling states of disarray in this troubled land.

“It takes a worried man to sing a worried song” echoes in my mind. What to do? Eat more ice cream? More watermelon and fried chicken? I grew up in the South. I have lived and worked and spent much time in the North, South, East and West, and in other countries. There seems no escaping the madness that has gripped this troubled land. Where will it lead? How many more will die and be assaulted?

Worse than those concerns is that the madness seems not just prevalent in this troubled land but across the globe. Still, against all odds, there is grit and resilience in Ukraine, hope in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and sanity in New Zealand. But many are fleeing madness in South America and Africa. In spite of isolated instances of humanity, the overall state of the planet might be considered endangered … not just by global climate change but by global intolerance and inhumanity.

A still small voice in a dark cave is asking, when will it end? How will it end? Who can end the madness? The still small voice goes silent.

Amazing Disgrace

 

How bittersweet the sound. Gather around, children, come and listen to things I have heard, but there are some discouraging words. 

I was taught when I was younger that the Confederacy lost the Civil War and that slavery had eventually been abolished in this land of the free to be as greedy as you please. But apparently the defeated are rising again … and of course it helps to keep many from voting. 

Meanwhile, they send the least advantaged to war only to withhold support for their wounds when they return. It does not help to befriend dictators who invade other countries with the hopes of building a hotel or casino in the dictator's land. I used to think this was the land of innovation and invention and opportunity and optimism. But division and dissimulation have become the norm and form of discourse and decision-making. The tired, the poor, the huddled masses would love to breathe free … or just breathe … but the air is not clean and the water not safe in areas where those tired and poor and huddled masses happen to live. 

This nation of immigrants is saying no to more immigrants and punishing many of those already here, except for models and wives of the wealthy. The media used to be trustworthy in reporting facts and analyzing complex situations but so many media people are now playing the gotcha game favored by politicians. 

Why do some people expect bumper sticker simple solutions to complex and challenging problems? Why do some people expect something simple to resolve something complex? Why do some people prefer slogans to solutions? A slogan will not solve the climate crisis or the gun violence crisis or the racial prejudice crisis or the health crisis or any other crisis condemning our children to a dark and dismal future. What is amazing are not the rare and few acts of kindness one might cite in response. What is amazing is how low we have fallen and how far our species is from the grace many used to praise and seek. 

The desert is not in some remote location. It is in the heart of your neighbor and even in yourself. Myself.

Short vs. Long

 

No, I am not thinking about Marc Short or Shelley Long. I am thinking about what a person values and what interests a person pursues. Of course, I first experimented on myself, which is not always a good or representative point of departure … but it is hard to avoid. In general, I found huge gaps between the two and noticed that when I was younger I tended to focus and act primarily on short term interests and values. I wanted to be a pilot, so I managed to get admitted to the Air Force Academy where my eyes started to deteriorate and I was not able to go to flight school and developed a strong interest in philosophy and was named the outstanding cadet in philosophy at ISAFA1967... yes, I am older than dirt. I opted for becoming an intelligence officer after graduation as I thought I would get to remain in the USA … this was during the Vietnam conflict in which about half of my Academy classmates died … and work on building an intelligence database … but then I was given a choice of learning Vietnamese or going to the Philippines as an intelligence officer. 

As I valued my life, I chose Clark Air Base in the Philippines. I think it was there that I began to shift from short term pursuits to a focus on long terms values and interests, such as acting in accord with that honor code we followed at USAFA. Truth … the truth began to be more important than being promoted or finding a better position in the Air Force. And, speaking truthfully in intelligence briefings and debriefings got me sent to Thailand and put in charge of airmen who were convicted of various offences and sent there to build a fence around the base along with machine gun bunkers … and I was put in charge of those people??? Surprisingly, I found many of them interesting and serious and managed to develop a working relationship in which I became Sergeant Mike to them in spite of my officer status. That might have been the result of my trading many roles of concertina wire for a box of steaks which we cook on the perimeter fence we had built. The person I replaced had built a machine gun bunker facing inside the base rather that outside the base. We had to rebuild it although we all thought it was an interesting way of protesting that officer’s mistreatment.

Anyway, I was saved from my own mistreatment by Senator Al Gore senior who managed to get me out with an honorable discharge as I was being treated as if I had committed an offence without a hearing or evidence and offered an honorable discharge or reassignment elsewhere. My choice of the discharge marks my shift from short term pursuits to a stronger focus on long term values. 

Of course things got worse after my discharge with unemployment and a divorce. I wandered about and managed to find a position with an IBM research and development lab outside Boulder, Colorado. I learned a lot at IBM, including being first in my programming class, but I found the work boring and wanted to do something that might have a more directly positive impact. So I got a leave of absence and went to Israel as a volunteer teacher for a year, where I reverted to short term interests and pursuits … i.e., girls. When I returned to IBM I really felt lost. 

My older and wiser brother was completing his PhD in history at the University of Texas and said I should apply to study there, which I did. I was admitted with a year delay due to a cap on admissions and lack of funding. At UT, I was initially a teaching assistant for an ethics course. I found the students uninterested although the professor was very supportive of me. In my second year there, the department had a dilemma as none of the faculty wanted to teach logic so I spoke up and said I could do that. I then became a lecturer for the remainder of my studies being paid half the salary of a beginning assistant professor. Teaching logic was easy for me but boring for most of the students. I was a little frustrated and I now know that part of the problem was me … I expected students to find logic relevant and useful but few did. Initially I blamed them, but the fault was mine as I later realized years later.

Anyway, I wanted to say something meaningful about focusing on long term values and interests rather than just pursuing short term interests. The discrepancy became obvious to me while watching and listening to such folks as Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Chris Murphy, and then contrasting their behavior and interests with those of such folks as Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham and Joe Manchin.  

It seems all too easy to differentiate those who emphasize long terms values and interests over short term gains and pursuits, yet the short termers seem to gain the support of so many others. Why is that? What am I not understanding? How could anyone belittle Liz’s heroic leadership on the Jan. 6 Committee or Adam’s willingness to say what he believes rather than pursue another term as Senator of Chris’ long time efforts to rectify the conditions that led to Sandy Hook and Uvalde. How? Yet they are continually attacked by small-minded people supported by a few with deep pockets and strong interests in deepening those pockets. But so many of those mindless followers fail to see that their own short term interests are being marginalized by the deep pocket people.

Whew … I had to get that off my mind and out of my fingers.

 Mike Spector

July 2022

 

So much evil in so many places

 

Due to the advice of family and friends, I am limiting the time I watch or listen to the news. However, it is impossible for me not to see so much evil in so many places, including our own supremely pernicious court. Putin reeks of evil, and it shows in his snake eyes. But more worrisome are the insurrection and climate deniers in my own country. What seems to matter to so many people are their own views and personal gain. When I was younger, I was somewhat like that, but I do not think I ever tried to deny obvious truths. My views on the war in Vietnam got me into trouble when I was an intelligence office in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Al Gore senior came to my rescue and I managed to escape from that madness. Gore senior later urged me not to lose faith in my country in spite of some faults that I saw. Gore senior was a rare politician … not many like him these days. There used to be men and women of integrity on both sides of the aisle. Not so many these days. A few come to mind, including Liz Cheney, whose father I abhorred, and Amy Klobuchar, for whom I voted, and perhaps a dozen more, mostly on the left side of that aisle of despair that threatens our democracy. That supremely divided court seems determined to return the country to the unhappy days of an imaginary past. I am slowly coming to understand one thing in the Jewish bible that my father could not adequately explain to me – namely why the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the children and children of the children for several generations to come. I seem to recall my father telling me that was simply a description of human behavior … what was likely to happen based on human behavior. The point was to be a beacon of good as a parent so that one's children would do good all their days. Perhaps my father was right. I cannot recall anything wrong he ever did … I cannot even recall him ever cursing although my mother could curse up a storm when upset. So I wonder about the childhood of Donald Trump and Valdimir Putin and Clarence Thomas and teens with AR-15s and so many others who seem determined to spread hatred and violence in what I used to think of as a beautiful planet in my youthful backpacking days. I have seen much natural beauty and met some amazing individuals, but as I age I worry that those sights and special people are being systematically lost and put down and destroyed. I really wish I could ignore all that is happening these last few years, but it seems to me that what I regarded as beautiful in nature and righteous in people is being destroyed by a minority of misguided bigots. I write to try and rid my self of these thoughts … to no avail. What gives me hope are my children and grandchildren ... the children are our future. 

 

Mike Spector

July the first and hopefully not the last, 2022

Higher Order Hypocrisy

 

The Supremely Hypocritical Court ruled against Roe v. Wade because abortion was not mentioned in the Constitution. Of course airplane travel was also not mentioned in the Constitution yet we have a Federal Aviation Authority. The right to bear arms was given to state militia, not to teenagers … oh, I almost forgot, AR-15s were also not mentioned in the Constitution, nor was the right to safely attend elementary school without fear of hiding from weapons of war in the hands of teenagers.

We have lost our democracy to bullies, billionaires, intolerant and hateful religious groups, far-right-wing anarchists, holier-than-God bigots, white nationalists, and others comprising a powerful and highly vocal and volatile minority of citizens. I am guessing that AR-15s are owned mostly by men and many in Texas where an 18 year old person can purchase multiple AR-15s and untold boxes of death yielding bullets. According to ownership data, most gun owners are while, male, and Republican. Let’s simply say that assault rifle owners are mainly white males. According to medical reports, [most] abortions are performed on women … of all races and political orientations. If men decide gun-ownership issues, then women should decide abortion rights issues. Yet, that is not how democracy in these divided and misguided states works. The supremely stupid opinion removing the 50 year old Roe v. Wade ruling was made with the premise that abortion was not mentioned in the Constitution and Roe v. Wade was dividing Americans, in spite of polling evidence suggesting that the overwhelming majority of Americans were in favor of keeping Roe v. Wade.

Who is dividing Americans? The gun-righteous fanatics who want to allow AR-15s in the hands of teenagers? The righteous- religious fanatics who want to completely ban abortions of all kinds everywhere in America? One can no longer believe that anyone being nominated to the court will tell the truth when being vetted by Senators. One can no longer believe many Senators, although the minority righteous leader does seem to usually tell the truth even wallowing in his beloved nickname, Moscow Mitch.

I now have tremendous respect for Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger who seem truth-oriented without appealing or yielding to popular far-right sentiments. And there are hollow regrets at the court’s ruling offered by such lawmakers as Susan Collins and Joe Manchin and a lame vote by John Roberts not to over-turn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Divide and denigrate are the watchwords of the Trumplicans and the Mitch-McDuckheads … meanwhile Roger Stone and Steve Bannon and many minor facilitators and shadow boxers it is easy but not best to forget are tearing down the weak walls of our constitution… the facilitators of the decline and fall of the American Republic are numerous and unfortunately surprisingly successful.

Well, it should not be a surprise and the regrets will only accumulate after the lost of a shining city upon a hill. America was not meant as a citadel for Christians … it was not meant as a citadel for gun-owners … it was not meant as a citadel for billionaires and bigots, as they require so much more than a citadel. America is not a shining light for other nations or societies. New Zealand may be that shining light … or perhaps Norway where there are so many immigrants wanting to come to American according to #45. How stupid can some people be???

And there is Lady Liberty with these words welcoming visitors to our shores:

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Those who are destroying this fragile democracy might propose the following words to replace those sacred words:

“Give us your rich, your privileged, your massive egomaniacs yearning for more wealth and power. Send then to our polluted shores. We lift a lamp beside this golden goose-egg Republic!”

I know … too much sarcasm and too little action on my part to help preserve our fragile democracy. I have donated what I can to a few worthy politicians … mostly democrats but I will will support Cheney and Kinzinger if they run again. I cannot walk far due to back pain and no one reads my blog so small donations are about all I can muster at present. I wish I could do more to repay the education I received as an Air Force Academy distinguished graduate.

Mike Spector

June 2022

 

 

I admit it ...

 

I have been told that I am spending too much time watching or reading the news, and that is causing me stress and detracting from my professional and personal responsibilities. That advice has come from multiple persons including family members. I admit it. They are right. However, all the things that have been happening occupy my thoughts much of the time, and I simply cannot purge those thoughts.

The long-time agony of Trump’s presidency and the deplorable … despicable … behavior of so many Trumplicans has been with me for years already. Then came the insurrection and the deniers of what we all saw. And the continuing sad saga of those unable to speak out publicly about the ongoing attacks on our democracy. So damned deplorable.

What could be worse? The insane Putin the Pretender invading Ukraine … but then there is at least the bravery and persistence of freedom lovers resisting that maniacal invasion. A glimmer of hope by some people with integrity and internal strength. How different would the world be if the Polish people had been able to muster the courage and persistence exhibited by Zelensky and so many brave Ukrainians? Now there is a new Hitler menacing the world – Putin, who will eventually receive his just desserts … hard to be just when so many have been killed due to his egomaniacal rule. We had a former President who was heading down the same dark tunnel.

And a teenager purchased two AR-15s and several boxes of ammunition and walked into an elementary school in Uvalde and murdered 19 children and two teachers. And that deadly massacre is now almost forgotten due to other senseless murders and violent acts. And the leaders of Texas and the gun lobby see nothing wrong with allowing any 18 year-old kid to buy a weapon of war that most police officers have to be trained to use and only allowed to carry when needed in special circumstances. Arm the maniacs and send them to Ukraine … or, better yet, send them to Russia.

We are losing the war with civility … and it appears we have already lost the war with the climate. Stick your head in the sand … hold your nose … collect your obscene profits … let others struggle and starve … no need to change your minds or hearts … the times are not changing after all of that … so damned depressing …

I admit it ... I am so depressed I often find it hard to concentrate and work ... 

 

Mike Spector

June 2022

Some original quotations:

 

Adults are just big kids with wrinkles.

If you can hear your own heartbeat, you may  be paranoid.

I used to be younger but now I'm not.

If you can laugh, you may be human.

If you can still laugh, you may still be alive.

A third of me is a writer; another third of me is a teacher; the other half is a logician.

I used to be a genius ... then I woke up.

Smile if you have teeth; otherwise, suck on a lemon.

Keep your money in your pockets and keep your hands out of there.

My father, the rabbi, told me once that for every tear you caused, you would lose one year of life ... by my own calculations, I should never have been born.

If bartenders ruled the country, there would be more bloody marys.

If there were more bloody marys, there would be fewer bloody martyrs.

If every adult was required to vote and every vote counted equally, we would be living in another country.

Once I ran away from home and got lost and ended up back at home. That was an example of circular reasoning.

Dead reckoning is a form of navigation that involves knowing where you want to go, the shortest way to get there, and running out of gas before you arrive. 

if you failed to smile at any of these one or two liners, then go suck a lemon. 

Mike Spector

June 2022

Thoughts about the Turing test

 

Random thought of the day:

I was thinking about the Turing test while driving back to Round Rock from Denton today … perhaps due to the mind numbing news about the massacre in Uvalde. The Turing test was devised by Alan Turing in 1950 as a way to determine if a computer program could be deemed to  be intelligent – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test. Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT created a program called Eliza in 1964 that was designed to imitate a Rogerian psychologist. Weizenbaum claimed that if an observer could not distinguish Eliza from an actual human psychologist then one would have to say that Eliza exhibited intelligent behavior. Weizenbaum’s ulterior motive might have been to show that communications between a human and a machine were somewhat superficial – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA/ .

In any case, while many argued that Eliza was not sufficient to pass Turing’s test, being an arrogant young researcher at the Air Force Research Laboratory in San Antonio, I thought I could do better. I was responsible for a group led by Dave Merrill in the latter part of the 1980s that had created a program that could generate an effective aircraft maintenance lesson using existing databases in a matter of minutes and I had a lesson created by a human for a similar task. Could folks identify the one created by the program when shown both? Unfortunately, our example failed the Turing test because our program used line art available in the available databases whereas the human designed lesson used much more appealing graphic art to support the lesson which involved removing the radar from an F-16 as best I can recall. The fact that our program took only minutes to generate and was based on the latest model of the F-16 was irrelevant in that failed attempt to pass the Turing test.

Now I am thinking that there should be an alternative to the Turing test. Rather than try to compare a human-generated example from a machine-generated example for a representative task, it makes more sense to me some 36 years later to identify things a typical human can do that the best machine program cannot do. Granted, computers can beat me at chess every time, and some computer programs can even beat chess grand masters, so I do not feel so bad.

However, there are probably things a person can do that a machine cannot come close to match. What are some of those things? In my case, because I am so insecure, I think I can wonder whether I was right about X and revisit my reasoning and alternative evidence and possibly reach a different conclusion. Can a computer program do something like that? Can a computer program doubt its own output, reflect, reconsider, and re-examine things? Perhaps not yet … and then, when that becomes possible, I will wonder whether a computer can laugh at its former response and say how stupid or naïve I was.

My conclusion now is that my insecurity has finally proven worthwhile.

Mike Spector

May 26, 2022

 

Rights and Wrongs

 

There is an apparent debate between those advocating for more states rights and those seeking protection of individual rights by the federal government. The lines are not clearly drawn and there is some hypocrisy on both sides. However, there is a great deal of difference in how advocates on each side behave. One side seems to think that lies and innuendo can be used freely and loosely while another side seems to think that this is a battle of minds being conducted by gentle folk. Both sides are mistaken. There is misinformation on both sides although one side is drowning in misinformation. There is feigned respect on both sides although one side has better actors.

T. S. Eliot has a line in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” to the effect that in a minute there is time for a hundred revisions. No such time exists. The democracy is in peril. People in this country and other countries are under siege. The planet is threatened. Meanwhile, people “come and go talking of Michelango.” Getting and spending the wealthy have laid waste our powers. Will the American eagle ever stand up and fly right? Quoth the raven, nevermore.

Vague references to poetry aside, we are living through extremely challenging times when what is clearly right and what is clearly wrong are up for grabs, winner take all and leave nothing behind. What rights do individuals in this country have regardless of where they live and how much they earn? Name three. This is not a pop quiz. It is a test of your humanity. Name three. Which ones come to mind first? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Or was it life, liberty and property? Property and wealth may not ensure happiness, so those two responses have always confused me. Shall I accept the challenge I offered? Name three. What comes to my weak mind are (a) the right to a free public education at least through high school, (b) the right to practice openly whatever religion or lack of religion I choose, and (c) the right to say whatever I believe to whomever I choose, including marriage vows, oaths of office, prayers, and much more but excluding threats, lies, and rumors designed to engender hate and violence. What are your three responses? Who are you and who do you want to become?

 Mike Spector

May 2022

Bullies

 We seem to have low tolerance for bullies in elementary and secondary school environments. There is even a federal government site to support action against bullies in school settings (see https://www.stopbullying.gov/). A great deal of attention is paid to reducing or preventing bullying in schools. There is somewhat less attention paid to adult bullying, although some institutions do have policies and training in an attempt to minimize adult bullying. 

However, there is virtually no action against politicians who repeatedly engage in bullying others. The worst adult bullying offenders may well be the politicians responsible for preserving this fragile democracy. We have recently experienced four years of bullying at the highest level of the government. This so-called democracy has barely survived and may yet succumb to authoritarian rule by bullies and by the self-proclaimed righteous right who are convinced they know what is best for everyone. 

What has happened to that golden rule found in the Book of Leviticus? It was not to rule your neighbor but to love your neighbor. The current environment in this country is to rule over others even if bullying and hateful actions are necessary. We are losing the sense of justice, domestic tranquility, common defence, general welfare, and blessings of liberty on which this country was founded. We are lost. And others around the world are also losing. 

The new mantra of the offending parties is bullies of the world unite. Perhaps the worst one has invaded Ukraine.

I just realized I am a patriot after all ... what a surprise ... 

Mike Spector

3 May 2022

I am

 I am an aging white American who graduated with honors from a military academy in the USA in 1967. I served as an intelligence office and came to believe the war there was inadequately justified. Back then I was very disenchanted with the American military and American politics. Albert Gore, Sr. had helped me gain an honorable discharge from the Air Force and later sent me a personal note to not lose faith in America. I listened and went on to serve as a senior scientist at an Air Force research laboratory. More recently, I have seen a number of honorable acts by military leaders but am seeing continuing self-serving politicians distort truth, justice and the American way. With regard to the previous occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue leading the AGC – American Gullibility Campaign – I came to believe that at least a third of Americans were simply stupid. How could they believe the lies and distortions and praise of enemies of truth, justice and the American way? How? Even members of my own family who no longer speak to me! I began to understand Socrates’ disdain for the hoi polloi … the crowd … the common people who seem so uncommonly stupid … how can they live with themselves and the lies? How? But then that false leader was not re-elected and my faith in the American people began to return … slowly and only slightly. There are still too many dissemblers and dividers in American society. What can one do?

Now there is an unjustified war in Ukraine, based on lies and distortions; and so many in Russia seem to believe the lies and distortions. How can people be so stupid, ignorant, self-serving, greedy, and inhumane? How is that possible? What can be done to end the suffering? End the invasion. Stand up to terrorists wherever they appear … Is it not time to act to preserve the life and liberty of Ukrainians? What I have come to believe is that Putin is far more evil than #45 but then things can easily go awry here in the land of the frequent flyers and the home of the brazen. It can happen here, yet we are not doing enough to save Ukraine. And I wonder what can I do?

Mike Spector

April 2022

Truth crushed to earth

 

William Cullen Bryant once wrote that “truth crushed to earth shall rise again” … but when?

Why doesn’t Lawrence Ferlinghetti tell us when the “American eagle will really spread its wings and straighten up and fly right?”

Why doesn’t Edgar Allan Poe tell us if there is balm in Gilead? The raven says “nevermore” which might just prove to be correct.

I wonder, along with T. S. Eliot, “Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

The answer, my friend, is that they have been lost in misinformation.

The desert is not remote in Southern tropics … it is in the hearts of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters in Ukraine and in other remote places away from our fast food places and familiar faces.

We hear the words … those that ring true and the many lies and distortions … we know the truth … that life is essentially nasty, brutish and short … even for the super wealthy and those whose bank accounts have been frozen and had their yachts repossessed …

The moral is so simple as Bob Dylan said in a ballad … “when you see your neighbor carryin’ something, help him with his load” … our neighbors in far-away places are carrying more than their fare share and suffering from the arms and guns of those who wish to wreak havoc and cause them harm …

Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote that what was mysterious (beyond understanding) was not how things are in the world (currently quite messed up) but that there was anything at all … what I find mysterious is why some people believe they should dominate, denigrate and cause the demise of so many others … my father aught me that for every tear drop I caused I would lose a year of life … I should be long dead by now so I modified that advice to be that for every loss of life I caused, I would lose a decade of life … still breathing with one hand waving free …

Mike Spector

March 2022

What are Russians thinking?

Can Russians really be so simple-minded or stupid enough not to see the unjustified horror that Putin is unleashing on the people of Ukraine?

Do international laws have no meaning ...no teeth?  Bombing civilians ... lying about what is happening ... okay ... America is not fault free on the world stage but we are innocent babes in the woods compared with Putin and his henchmen. 

How long will the world let itself be held hostage by a nuclear maniac?

It is so discouraging to be living through these times ... with a person we tolerated at the head of our government for four years who did a lot of damage to American society and now see a Russian leader wreak havoc on the world ... so discouraging ... I thought things could not get worse after the 1960s and 1970s but they have gotten much much worse ... I am feeling hopeless.

When will truth crushed to earth rise up again? Is there balm in Gilead? Quoth the raven ... nevermore.

I was just thinking ...

Yes ... thinking .. it occasionally occurs during waking hours ... more occasionally as I grow older ... too bad one cannot grow younger ... I tried growing corn once but just did not have the ears for it (my apologies to the huskers)... anyway, I was thinking that laughter is really the best medicine ... although I am not sure what the ailment is ... perhaps it is being too full of oneself ... laughing at oneself is a particular talent not capable in those who made it past the third grade ... my mother did not make it past the third grade ... she had a great sense of humor ... you either laughed at her jokes or had to repeat the third grade ... a sense of humor may be a sign of intelligence ... the ability to laugh at oneself is a sign of a possible brain tumor ... not really ... I know people who are simply not able to make fun of themselves ... they often seek elective office so that others can do the laughing ... the wisest and most intelligent people I have known were able to laugh at themselves ... so I laugh at them hoping some of their intelligence will rub off on me ... In actuality I was really just thinking about the few people I detest, and without exception they do not exhibit the ability to laugh at themselves ... I suppose I am biased (can you hear the silent internal laughter) ... they often laugh at and belittle others, however ... I am wondering whom you would put on that short list ...See Abou Ben Adhem for directions ... https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44433/abou-ben-adhem

Regression to the Mean

Regression to the Mean Something must be wrong with me as I went from thinking about regression to the mean to something else ... I seem to recall that regression to the mean is a statistical phenomenon about how data measurements taken once that are extremely higher or lower than the mean will likely be found closer to the mean on a second measurement. Sir Francis Galton, a British scholar who studied a wide variety of things including human differences with regard to a variety of characteristics, documented this phenomenon. The idea was published in Galton’s Natural Inheritance published in 1889 (see https://galton.org/books/natural-inheritance/pdf/galton-nat-inh-1up-clean.pdf and look at Appendix E). In the 1880s, Galton was noticing that some researchers attributed causes to events that were just as easily explained by the highly common regression to the mean with regard to extreme cases. It is now 2021 and researchers still make the same mistake that Galton saw so many years ago. Failure to understand regression to the mean is still all too common. Such failures are all too common, especially for a commoner like me. Another regression comes to mind today, however. Namely, regression to the meanness. This too is all too common. Witness how quite reasonable statements such as “I will nominate a black woman” are treated as a form of creating a ridiculous criterion that amounts to favoring someone who cannot distinguish a law book from a J. Crew Catalog. Since I have no clue what a J. Crew Catalog is, I suppose I would also have trouble distinguishing a law book from a J. Crew Catalog. The meanness of the criticism is apparent. From the statement to the criticism involves a regression to meanness. Another criticism was that the statement implies that the majority of people are not qualified to be considered nominess for such a prestigious position. After all, most people are not black women. The meanness is again apparent overlooking two hundred years of racist mistreatment and abusive treatment. Perhaps the white person making that criticism is only three fifths human … or perhaps that is overly generous to someone exhibiting this form of regression to meanness. But it is a reminder of the dark history of racism that many would like to ignore and prevent children from learning. Oh, what a tangled web they weave when first they practice to deceive (my apologies to Sir Walter Scott). By some counts, DJT lied more than 30,000 times during his time as the official resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It is not about just one big lie. It is about 30,000 lies and official government paper documents torn up to get rid of damning evidence. We had eight years, more or less, prior to number 45 but then there was the regression to meanness … not just in the white house but in the dark hearts of so many people I once considered friends and even family. I want to think about things that are central to learning and education but then my mind takes me down that path paved by the regression to meanness … such a dark path shrouded in that tangled web of hate and venom … and it causes me much anger and anguish … anguish because I do not see a movement back to normalcy … the tipping point has passed and the demons are out of the closet … burn the books … lie to our children … don’t let those three fifths people vote … Birmingham Sunday has become the American Mourningday … lest we forget … forget the six million who died … there were good people on both sides … forget all those hangings that were all too common … and forget those children who died that Sunday in Birmingham … this is the land of the free and the home of the brave … at least those who are carrying their AR-15s … oh yes … the “truth” they are telling is just the “truth” that is selling … sold American … sold down the dark drain of hate and bias and the wrongheaded confidence in one’s own infallibility … while the choir keeps singing of freedom. Okay. I will go away and hide … along with all those buried truths … truth crushed to earth will rise again. mike ... cowering in the state of denial called Texas ...

What are we telling our students? (AKA, leaking gray matter)

The standard message we deliver to our doctoral students in Learning Technologies is to identify a gap in the research in an area of interest to them, and then to propose a first step study to address that research gap. Find the gap and do something about it. We are sinking in the gaps and not just gaps in the area of educational research. What other gaps might be addressed, not just in our professional academic lives but in our personal and social lives? As J. Alfred Prufrock says, “I grow old… I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” As someone older than dirt, I am starting to recall the lessons of my youth … lessons so few seem to have learned. For example, there is a passage I recall from Vayikra (Leviticus) in chapter 19 that many repeat: “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself … ” But there seems to be a huge gap between the people a typical person loves so dearly and so clearly (namely, members of one’s immediate family) and one’s neighbors along with those who live in neighboring or distant countries as well as those who seem different from one in terms of color, class, religion, and so many other differentiating factors that allow so many to hate so many others. Love thy neighbor … so often repeated buy so seldom realized. And what captivated my interest for years was the Book of Job … Job … a man from the land of Uz … a man challenged with many adversities who admits that G-d is great but admits that we cannot know Him as Job expresses his despair and lack of understanding for such punishment in return for having been so devoted. And then there is the answer from the Whirlwind asking Job where he was when the foundations of the earth were laid. Indeed, that is the one book in Jewish liturgy that I embrace. The lesson I have taken away is that it is precisely the limitations of our knowledge that makes religious belief possible. The irony is that so many religious people claim to know G-d’s mind. And then the notion of origins of the universe comes to mind … namely, the big bang theory … a notion about how the universe began. And it is so in line with opening of Berasheet (the Book of Genesis) … in the beginning there was chaos and the void … things beyond our understanding … and it is also in line with Aristotle’s reasoning that there had to be a first cause because it was impossible for humans to understand an infinite regress of causes … a couple thousand years later came the big bang theory where our reasoning and understanding comes to a halt, as noted in the opening of the first book of those five books of Moses. There are limits to our understanding and our knowledge. As O. K. Bouwsma noted in an unpublished journal, it would be a remarkable coincidence if the limits of his imagination happened to coincide with the limits of reality. Or, as Wittgenstein noted in the Tractatus that it is not mysterious how things are in the world (our experience and science informs us about how things are, at least when we are willing to listen and learn) but what is mysterious is that there is anything at all … it is beyond our understanding. And yet so few people seem to admit the limits of their knowledge and understanding and have wrongheaded confidence in so many of their beliefs, as Bouwsma so often reminded us. And I stumbled into classical scepticism in my studies and Sextus Empiricus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism with one of the basic principles being that different impressions come from different sources which is a cause of withholding judgment … but so few are so often reluctant to withhold judgment … and then Edgar Allan Poe asks the raven if there is balm in Gilead … and the raven answers with the one word it can utter – nevermore. What can we change. The poet laureate says it “was never my intention to remake the world at large” and he reminds us of our duty when we see a neighbor carrying something to help him with his load. And T. S. Eliot has the Rock remind us that “The desert is not remote in southern tropics, The desert is not only around the corner, The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you, The desert is in the heart of your brother.” Hello neighbor … what gaps do you see … gaps between the have lots and those who have a lot less … gaps between love and hate … between disdain and respect … between ignoring and searching … between I and thou … so many gaps … so little time … having taken a bite of that apple,what I really want to understand is why we must imagine Sisyphus happy. I close with Wittgenstein’s Tractatus 7 – “what we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.” These remarks leaked out of aging gray matter … hush my mouth and bite my fingers.