Gadfly

For the common good?

August 3rd, 2016

The era of cutthroat hyper-capitalism

We have been down this rock-strewn pathway before. It happens about every three generations because humans have short attention spans, and those who forget history usually repeat it.

Capitalism works for everybody only with the condition that we have social mobility--which can only be achieved through education. Everybody has to have a shot at the “good life” by having access to a good education. We now have had about three decades of crony,…

Of black and white elephants

July 27th, 2016

Old and new normals

In the old normal, until the 1980s, we had lynchings by the Klu Klux Klan and others marked by racial hatred and economic inequality. In the last 30 years we have added conceal and open-carry laws and an absolute tsunami of guns on the streets to the volatile mix of race and economics. This is the new normal now—and it will not change until we erase income inequality—or the guns.

Some thought the election of Barack Obama in 2008 to the presidency would herald a new…

Patriotism and an uncivil race war

July 20th, 2016

Do not pass go, go directly to jail, and never earn any money

Since the light for the philosophy “Greed is Good” was turned to green by Ronald Reagan 35 years ago, local and state governments have increased spending on putting people in jail three times more than they spend on educating the young—and old.

Data from 1980 to 2013, according to the Department of Education, increased spending on putting people in the slammer by 324% while spending on education increased only 107%. In…

All about sex

July 13th, 2016

Warning: this sex column may endanger medieval thinking

This column is all about sex. Isaiah (44:2) in the Bible reminds us of its importance in the overall scheme of things promoted by The Almighty: “Thus says the Lord who made you, and formed you in the womb, who will help you, do not fear.”

The Bible does talk about how all-powerful God is. He created the vast galaxies, hundreds of billions of stars, the majesty of mountains, and the man and his spirit.

It reminds us that God not…

Dog bowls made of silver and instant diamonds

July 6th, 2016

When robots do most of the work...

We have reached the point with artificial intelligence and robotic machines that thousands of products are purchased each day that have never been touched by human hands until placed in a shopping cart.

So who is getting most of the wealth produced by computers and electronically-controlled machines? Those who have made the computers and the machines--and those who have invested in the factors of production.

According to an article in Alternet, seven…

Guns, drugs, and car crashes shorten American life spans

June 29th, 2016

A homicidal suicide bomber-shooter

Because of deaths by firearms, drugs, and car crashes, Americans live two years less than our fellow humans in Western Europe or Japan, the two areas that lead the world in lifespan.

There are several factors, but the main one is early death by firearms. Each year 11,000 Americans are murdered by firearms, 20,000 commit suicide with firearms, and 80,000 have their lives shattered and shortened by wounds caused by bullets.

And guns and bullets are very…

Homeless and sleepless in Seattle—and everywhere else

June 22nd, 2016

A $3,456,789 lunch for the homeless

In a country when on any given night we have over 600,000 people homeless, including 64,000 families with about 123,000 children, we have basketball fans paying $49,500 for courtside seats at the 2016 final game of the National Basketball Association playoffs. Lesser seats on the floor are a billionaire’s bargain at $8,500. In the richest city in the world one can see “Hamilton,” the leading musical of the year so far, for $849 a seat.

Some of…

Building Brains

June 15th, 2016

Smarts, sex, and sensibilities

Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton wants the state to spend $175 million to make public school pre-school programs available to all four-year-olds. The purpose is to close the large educational gap between poor and minority students and their more fortunate Minnesota classmates.

He’s starting out small, requesting $25 million out of the present $900 million state surplus to help only 3,700 very needy kids. He would like to spend $100 million on pre-school for…

Building walls of ignorance

June 8th, 2016

American culture: contradictory, bizarre, hypocritical, and narcissistic

Remember that infamous pair of ne’er-do-well TV kids named Beavis and Butthead? Their creator, Mike Judge, produced a 2006 cult comedy called “Idiocracy.” The film hardly made a dime because many considered it to be too over the top about the future. As Paula Young Lee writes, it was probably too much like Beavis and Butthead.

But in these days of Donald Trump, it accurately predicts what has happened to the…

Can machines dominate mankind?

June 1st, 2016

Are robots becoming the scabs of the labor market?

The signs are getting more ominous that the human may lose his dominion over the earth to machines utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI), manufactured by humans.

Perhaps the first sign was when a computer program called BKG 98 beat the world’s best backgammon player 7-1 in 1979. Humans don’t play championship backgammon anymore. A program called Chinook won the world championship of checkers in 1994 when the human had to withdraw…

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