August 23, 2017 London: A Magical Mystery Tour

2017 European River Cruise, ,

 

Today we went on a city tour of London.  I won’t try to describe everything we saw; just a few highlights.  Our guide was Carlotta a fiery English commentator with a sharp tongue and liberal with her opinions. We enjoyed that. We did not get many stops to take photographs.

London is a fascinating city. All museums in the city can be entered without charge. Now we have found civilization! Sadly, we visited none of them. Next time for sure! On the other hand, London contains more billionaires living in it than any other city in the world. So it cannot possibly be the home of civilization. I will have to look elsewhere.

 

This was the Tower Bridge.  The American who bought London Bridge and moved it to Arizona, mistakenly thought he was buying this bridge, which is a lot more interesting than the one he bought. Caveat Emptor.

There is of course a lot of history here. German bombing in World War II destroyed 60% of London. In particular 80% of the old part was destroyed.

 

The Parliament Buildings and Big Ben are seen on every city tour. The Victoria Tower on the left end (when facing from the river side as in my photo) contains 1.5 million acts of Parliament enacted since 1497. Maybe the neoliberals have a point about big government. That is an awful lot of laws. At least they have provided employment for armies of barristers and solicitors. There is only one part of the old building (the original Palace of Westminster) that was built in 1097. This is Westminster Hall. So it is nearly 1,000 years old. Its roof is much younger. It was built in the 14th century.

 

Big Ben is the most famous site of London together with the Parliament Buildings. The day before we got here Big Ben’s clock was shut down and the structure was already being covered for renovations.

We also drove by Westminster Abbey where Prince William and Kate were married. It is a grand church that took 500 years to be constructed. This is the final resting place (or as some believe the second last resting place) of the monarchs of England. It has been the setting for coronations and other pageants. Again we did not go inside. Again I am disappointed in myself. We should have gone inside.

We also drove by Buckingham Palace. This is both the office and home to the British monarch. Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip and Princess Anne, and the Duke of York live in the building with 50 staff residing there. It is also used for some ceremonial functions such as banquets for heads of state. No one invited us  to dine.

Next we passed Pall Mall (pronounced pal mall) a dignified street filled with men’s clubs that were created to give men refuge from the scurrilous attacks of women. Apparently the interiors are well appointed but peasants like us need not apply. Of course only members and their guest are permitted to dine. Some of these clubs have a 25-year waiting list. Many rich people want to line up to become  card-carrying snobs. It is sad that they have nothing better to do with their time and money. Like everywhere else, standards though have been slipping. Some of the clubs even accept women now.

Next we saw Piccadilly Circus. This is a circle (hence the name). It is actually quite small. According to Carlotta, “Where? There. Gone.”  Nowadays it consists mainly of commercial shops, so really is nothing special. The circus has London’s gaudiest displays of neon. Trump would probably like it.

We finally stopped at the grand St. Paul’s Cathedral. After the Great Fire of London in 1666 the old wooden church that had been built in 604 was left in ruins. John Donne’s memorial, built in 1631, was the only sculpture that survived that fire. The church was rebuilt on the same site.

One of the most spectacular features of the Cathedral is the dome that weighs 64,000 tons yet is held high and secure by the genius of architecture. It is actually 3 domes on top of each other. The domes are supported by enormous flying buttresses. The dome is the second largest in the world after St. Peters in Rome.     We stood underneath the Dome and were stunned it was so beautiful.          The church does not contain pews or chairs. Parishioners are expected to stand for the services. This is worse than Roman Catholic churches with their constant up and downs. The church still has 4 services a day.

There are crypts of many famous people and even some commoners in the basement. Sir Christopher Wren, the architect o the Cathedral, has a very simple crypt i the basement . He said, “if you want to see a memorial to me, look around you.” This is a people’s church. It is a home to commoners and not just nobility.

The church was bombed 78 times in World War II. 27 bombs in one night alone. Some of the bombs failed to explode. So much for German competence! 4 bombs did destroy the high altar and none of the walls were damaged and most importantly, the Dome did not collapse. Pretty good English engineering! The men and women of Saint Paul’s–all volunteers–heroically saved the church from fires.

Like all magnificent cathedrals St. Paul’s is difficult to clean. The cleaning job takes 11 years. That is about as long as my basement man cave. They can’t use sand blasting or detergent either. Only steam will clean and protect the building. If you want to keep a church for a thousand years you have to be careful. Our visit to the Cathedral alone was worth the city tour. At least we got to see one of London’s magnificent cathedrals from the inside.

After we left the wonderful Cathedral we drove by the Bank of England and Lloyds of London. The other religion of London is money.

We drove across the Millennium Bridge. Carlotta informed us that the bridge used to wobble because engineers should design bridges not architects. It cost £8 million to repair. Ouch. That is worse than the Bethesda Hospital debacle. At least I think it is worse. The architect apparently is now known as Lord Wobbly.

One thing we noticed on our drive through town is that London has a lot of pubs. Not that this is a bad thing. Carlotta told us London has 7,000 pubs. Some of them really looked interesting too. I wish I had had time to try more of them. There just was not enough time to see all the pubs or cathedrals.

We drove by a ritzy area where Putin had bought some property for $14 million. Apparently he never uses it, just his friends and family. Putin was a career military man before he became a politician. I guess that work pays well in Russia.

 

After the Cathedral we got back on the bus and continued our magical mystery tour of London. We drove by Trafalgar Square London’s most important site for public meetings. It was here that the crowds entered cheering wildly when World War I was declared. Can you imagine wild cheering for the start of a war?   Many thought the soldiers would be home by Christmas. In fact the soldiers had a motto, ‘Home or homo’ by Christmas.

We drove by the famous Ritz Hotel that was named after the Swiss hotelier César Ritz who was the inspiration for that wonderful expression ritzy. I never knew where it came from. The chateau style building was designed to be fake news. In other words the owners wanted to give people the false feeling that they were in one of the grand hotels of Paris where world fashion leaders would ensconce themselves. Even the rich like to pretend they are grander than they really are. Don’t come here to dine unless you are properly attired. No straw hats and fading cords for the men.  Apparently it takes 3-6 months to get a reservation for afternoon high tea with scones.

 

We drove rapidly by Hyde Park for fear we might hear one of the radical opining. Of course they are only allowed there one day per week and this was not it. So they have to bang away incessantly and annoyingly on their blogs instead. Bloggers don’t have to listen to hecklers but they do have to read.

We got a passing look (that was enough) of Harrods founded in 1849. Apparently Prince Charles buys cat food there. Some cats insist on the best. Harrods, it was said, could supply darn near anything from a packet of pins to an elephant.

The last rich area we got a glimpse of was Chelsea. This used to be a bohemian area filled with writers, artists, and other rebels. As so often happens with such areas, eventually the rich realize this is a cool area. Then they become an invasive species driving out the poor locals who can no longer afford to live there. Then it becomes a dead zone with no life, only shopping. That is what has happened here.

After our tour we had dinner at Luccina restaurant near our hotel. Again our Monogram guide recommended it. Eating Italian in London that makes sense right? As soon as we walked in we thought we had made a disastrous mistake. It was too warm inside and it was too cool outside. Unlike Goldilocks we did not find a place that was just right. The red wine was not room temperature; it was soup warm. An ice bucket helped to cool it, but other patrons looked down their long noses at us. A small price to pay we thought. Chris’s meal of penne conpollo came without the promised garlic sauce. There might have been a dribble of sauce. What self-respecting Italian waiter would serve this? Chris asked for “extra” sauce and it was delivered without fuss so after that the meal improved. We really believed it was the only sauce. How can a chef forget the sauce? I enjoyed spaghetti Bolognese. After enough wine we cheered up dramatically. We finished our meal with tiramisus and coffee.

 

 

I left Chris at the hotel and ventured out with my camera gear and a tripod to photograph the Parliament buildings and city skyline across the river Thames. I wanted to photograph the city at night As Joni Mitchell sang, “Night in the city looks pretty to me.”  I had a great time and it made me feel that dragging the tripod along was worth it. My travelling companion was not so convinced.

I crossed Westminster Bridge with its massive barriers against truck terrorists. Later that night we watched the television news about truck terrorism in Spain. That is what modern life is all about. We could stay home. It is fairly safe in Steinbach, provided you avoid the radicals at Main Street Bread & Butter, but it is not quite as interesting. Sometimes we have to take some chances or life can get pretty insular and dull.

The people of London, like the people of Paris, are certainly resilient. I remember watching a television comedy news show, John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight where he showed a Brit fleeing his bar during the terrorist bombing on Westminster bridge, but he was not scared enough to leave his pint of beer behind. He was shown running down the street carrying his glass. The bridge tonight was jammed with people. No one was scared. People taking photos; enjoying life. The terrorists can’t scare us. Only Trump can scare us.

It was a fine day in London.

When it comes to guns the Brits are smarter than Americans (and Canadians)       

Philosophy/Ideas,

 

We Canadians always brag about our low murder rate by guns compared to our neighbors to the south. There is nothing wrong with that; it is worth bragging about. Yet England makes even our death by gun rate seem high. England has always been more civilized than us when it comes to gun violence. Most of their policemen still don’t carry guns. Americans could learn a lot from The Brits. Come to think of it, Canadians could learn a lot from the Brits.

In England the gun homicide rate is about 1 for every million people. England has a population of about 56 million so that adds up to about 50 to 60 gun homicides per year. Compare that to the U.S. where with a population of about 320,000,000 there are about 8,124 murders by gunshot. That amounts to about 25 gun homicides per million. That is 25 times higher than Britain.

Or look at it another way–in the United States where there are 160 times as many gun homicides than Britain in a country that is only 6 times larger in population than Britain.

According to Statistics Canada, in our country in 2015, the rate of handgun related homicides was 0.28 per 100,000 population. That amounts to about 2.8 per million. Almost 3 times higher than Britain but still a heck of a lot lower than the U.S. The American rate is about 8 times higher than Canada’s rate.

After a mass shooting at a school in Britain in 1996 their government pursued a legislative ban on assault rifles and handguns and tightened background checks. From then to 2013, a total of 200,000 guns were taken off the streets. Military style guns were banned completely. Given that the US has a population about 6 times as large, they would have to take 1,200,000 guns off the street to create a proportionate response. Wouldn’t that be a good thing? Britain has 6.5 guns per 100 people. The U.S. has 101 guns per 100 people. Who is getting it right?

No matter what Donald Trump or the NRA says, it does not appear that more guns mean more safety.

Religious nuts are coming out of the woodwork: Obama blamed for Eclipse

Philosophy/Ideas

 

 

I read about an American televangelist and survivalist Jim Bakker who blamed Obama for the eclipse of 2017. He said that God had been angered by 8 years of Obama’s presidency. That is an astonishing claim, since the sun went down during the Trump presidency. Why is that proof that God hated Obama instead of Trump? Some American religious nuts are just plain whacky.

Bakker claimed on his online radio show, “God came to me in a dream and said I should tell the world that I am plunging the world into darkness to remind people I’m still mad at the Obama years.” What did Obama do that was so bad (besides being black of course)? According to Bakker, “Obama legalized witchcraft, sexual deviants getting married and schools started teaching transgenderism.” He added that it would take 8 years of a Trump presidency to “get right with God.”

Billy Graham’s daughter Anne Graham Loetz saw the eclipse as a sure sign of rapidly approaching doom. Her brother Franklin Graham, remember, was one of the many Americans who accused Obama of being a Muslim. The crazies in America are really coming out of the woodwork.

Of course it is not entirely unreasonable to predict doom with Trump in the presidency. But to blame it all on Obama seems wildly irrational. Only in America.

 

Are Powerful White guys the most vulnerable group in America?

Fat Opinions, Philosophy/Ideas

We have been in he middle of what could be called the Dog Days. Or rather, the Bad Dog Days. Every day it seems that one more rich and powerful white guy is accused of sexual assault or harassment. We have to remember that these men have not yet been convicted and have to be presumed to be innocent. Yet this troubling fact raises some interesting questions.

A good friend of mine recently told me that he felt sorry for NHL hockey players. He said, “Imagine how difficult it must be for them to go on a date? They are completely vulnerable.” “Can they even date?” he asked.

I admit there are some men who have been maliciously and falsely accused of sexual assaults. It happens, but I believe it is rare. Very rare. On the other hand, many women have been sexually assaulted and few of them have successfully reported the crime and then even fewer see the assaulters charged and then fewer again see their tormentors actually convicted. To get to that stage the woman has to go through a legal wood chipper. Often her life is reduced to a black hole of pain. I call it a black hole, because it is a place from which even light cannot escape. Only the bravest of women can survive the challenge reasonably intact.

It is a fact of modern society that most sexual assaults go unreported. According to Statistics Canada (2014) a “large majority of sexual assault [is] not reported to the police…Research has widely documented that sexual assault is an underreported crime…According to the 2014 GSS on Victimization, more than eight in 10 (83%) of sexual assault incidents were not reported to the police.”[1]

As if that is not bad enough, only a small percentage of those cases reported to the police lead to charges being laid against the perpetrator.

According to Statistics Canada again,

 

  • Over a six‑year period between 2009 and 2014, sexual assault cases experienced attrition at all levels of the criminal justice system: an accused was identified in three in five (59%) sexual assault incidents reported by police; less than half (43%) of sexual assault incidents resulted in a charge being laid; of these, half (49%) proceeded to court; of which just over half (55%) led to a conviction; of which just over half (56%) were sentenced to custody…
  • About 1 in 10 (12%) sexual assaults reported by police led to a criminal conviction, and 7% resulted in a custody sentence. This is compared with 23% and 8%, respectively, for physical assaults. [2]

 

The reasons for this are complex. Some history may help to explain it. The fact is that for centuries rape was not even treated as a serious offence. Let that sink in. Is that not astonishing? Today we think of it as one of the most serious offences yet for centuries it was more or less tolerated. Today we understand that rape combines pain, degradation, terror, trauma, an unjustified seizure of a woman’s means of propagating life, and a disturbing intrusion into her progeny, that often leads to long-lasting if not permanent damage to her body and psyche. Today we realize sexual assault is abhorrent. That was not always the case.

In the Old Testament the brothers of a raped woman were allowed to sell her to the rapist! Soldiers of course were routinely permitted to rape their captives, and kings could do as they pleased with thousands of concubines. What ISIS does today, was routine.

The 10 Commandments do not mention rape as a serious offence. The Bible considers it much more important not to take the name of the Lord in vain, or make carved images, or remembering the Sabbath. Now the 10 Commandments are pretty lame, but it is interesting to see what horrible offences are worse than rape that they warrant being on the list of the top 10. The 10th Commandment warns us not to covet anything that belongs to our neighbour. That includes his house, his wife, his servants or his ass. Important property and in that order. Clearly the wife is part of his property. In one passage in the Bible it even says that a married woman who is raped should be stoned to death. Not the rapist; the victim! Sharia law contains a similar provision. Rape was seen as an offense against the woman’s owner—her husband or father or if she was a slave the slave owner. No mention of it being an offense against her.

This clearly shows the place of woman at least in societies governed by 3 of the world’s major religions. Men were dominant and women were subordinate. That is how it has been for centuries. We have come a long way from this, but we have not come far enough. That culture still lingers and we continue to suffer from its legacy.

In recent times that dominance of men has diminished. Some men are pained by that lack of dominance. This has led to all kinds of psychological trauma in men. Many people experience a loss of power as deeply painful. Too often men react with blind belligerence when women challenge their dominance, or heaven forbid, “the liberal state.” That too often drives the men to irrational fury.

One of the reasons so few women even report sexual assaults to the police is the historical futility of such reports. The man usually gets off. Even if he does not, the woman is tortured in court by defence counsel. Many have expressed this as “being raped a second time.”

I have no statistics to back this up, but it is my firm belief that since only 12% of sexual assaults are reported, the number of false reports is much lower. Women don’t want to go to court against men who have assaulted them; surely much fewer want to go to court against men who have not assaulted them! I am not saying it never happens, I am just saying it is rare—very rare.

Women are particularly leery to report powerful men. The judicial system is severely slanted in favor of those who can afford the best legal counsel and in favor of those who have the respect of society—like powerful men, particularly white men. Like athletes for example. It takes an incredible amount of courage or folly to take on the powerful elite.

A couple of years ago I read a fascinating article in the New York Times by Ross Douthat. He wrote about assaults by Asian men in England, but many of his remarks are applicable to many other situations. This is what he said,

 

Show me what a culture values, prizes, puts on a pedestal, and I’ll tell you who is likely to get away with rape. In Catholic Boston or Catholic Ireland, that meant men robed in the vestments of the church. In Joe Paterno’s pigskin-mad Happy Valley, it meant a beloved football coach. In status-conscious, education-obsessed Manhattan, it meant charismatic teachers at an elite private school. In Hollywood and the wider culture industry — still the great undiscovered country of sexual exploitation, I suspect — it has often meant the famous and talented, from Roman Polanski to the BBC’s Jimmy Savile, robed in the authority of their celebrity and art. And in Rotherham, it meant men whose ethnic and religious background made them seem politically untouchable, and whose victims belonged to a class that both liberal and conservative elements in British society regard with condescension or contempt.

The point is that as a society changes, as what’s held sacred and who’s empowered shifts, so do the paths through which evil enters in, the prejudices and blind spots it exploits. So don’t expect tomorrow’s predators to look like yesterday’s. Don’t expect them to look like the figures your ideology or philosophy or faith would lead you to associate with exploitation. Expect them, instead, to look like the people whom you yourself would be most likely to respect, most afraid to challenge publicly, or least eager to vilify and hate. Because your assumptions and pieties are evil’s best opportunity, and your conventional wisdom is what’s most likely to condemn victims to their fate. [3]

 

So don’t expect the modern “successful” rapist to necessarily look like that ruffian in the alley. He may look like a “successful” business man, or celebrity, or hockey player.

Hockey players, like other professional athletes are routinely worshipped. Remember Iron Mike Tyson, the former Heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Surprisingly, perhaps, he was convicted of sexual assault and sent to jail. Then when he returned to the ring after serving his sentence he received a lengthy standing ovation. Now I can see that a criminal who has served his or her time should be accepted back into society. That is only fair. But what had he done to warrant a standing ovation?

Jordan Klepper referred to “the most vulnerable group in America–powerful white guys”. But he meant it as a joke. It is no joke. But powerful white guys are hardly the group we should be most concerned about helping. There are much more vulnerable people than that who deserve our concern.

[1] Shana Conroy and Adam Cotter, “Self-reported sexual assault in Canada, 2014” Statistics Canada (July 11, 2017)

[2] Shana Conroy and Adam Cotter, “Self-reported sexual assault in Canada, 2014” Statistics Canada (July 11, 2017)

 

[3] Ross Douthat, “Rape and Rotherham,” New York Times, (Sept. 6, 2014)

August 22, 2017 Paris France to London England: Too stupid to be scared of terrorists?

2017 European River Cruise, , ,

Today we began the last leg of our journey. Again we were traveling by train. We began by hurrying up so that we could wait. Sarah Jane our Monogram rep woke us up to get our luggage down early so it could be loaded onto the car for our drive to the train station. At the station we stood and waited with our luggage for the cart to take it to the train. Meanwhile an extraordinarily loud group of workers banged their tools against anything that would make a loud noise. As they did so, a cart came by with the word “STILL” emblazoned on it in hopeless irony. There was nothing still here except our thoughts that could not be heard. It all seemed pointless, unless the point was to annoy us and disturb us from our tranquil journey.

That was soon followed by something even more disturbing. As we went to line up for our train on the 2nd floor of train station the gate was closed. In fact, the entire floor was closed and we had to leave. We had not idea why or where we should go. Thankfully, Sarah Jane was still with us. Monogram believed in accompanying its babies right to the end and we were grateful for that. She led us to another place on the main floor. Sarah talked to an official who explained that there was a bomb scare and the entire 2nd floor had been evacuated. There was no one there other than the bomb squad. There had been a terrorist threat. Someone had left an unattended bag in the station. “It could be a bomb”, we were told.

The weird thing though was that we did not leave the train station. We were immediately underneath the 2nd floor. If there was a serious explosion would the building not collapse on us? I nervously looked at the entrance/exit to the station. There I noticed the Police Car I had not noticed before. How long would it take me to dash to the outside? How long would it take Chris? Neither of us were up for an impressive 100 yard dash. Adrenalin would like improve our chances but I doubted not enough to make a significant difference. Yet no one moved. We all stood there underneath the danger. Were we too stupid to be afraid of terrorists? This was Europe. There had been recent occasions where fear was justified.             No one moved outside. None wanted to leave their place in line. We heard no announcements. Was this folly on steroids? All I know is we survived.   After about an hour of standing there waiting for doom or progress, we were allowed to move on. The brave bomb squad had neutralized the threat. I hoped they were brave, and not as stupid as us.

Our trip to London on the train was interesting. To begin with I learned an important lesson in economics and politics. That is that things are better for the rich. This time we road 2nd class. This was not as comfortable as the 1st class trip from Amsterdam to Paris. It definitely pays to be 1st class.  We did not know why we had been relegated to 2nd class. Were we again being punished as we had been last night? What bad things had we done?

As a result of our diminution we sat in a seat facing another couple our knees knocking against each other. Well, at least my knees knocked against the woman from Ohio facing me. I had no leg room at all. Chris was more fortunate. Sometimes it pays to be short. This was one of those times.  The train ride was not entirely unpleasant. It was still much more luxurious than air travel. I tried my best not to grumble.

We crossed the English Channel as the English call it through the darkness of the Chunnel. That was interesting. When we hit English soil we saw the light.            This was the land of civilization. So I thought. On this trip 2 books had guided me. One was Sir Kenneth Clark’s magisterial Civilisation. The other was Eric Hobsbawm’s magnificent The Age of Capital. These books had added immeasurably to my journey, as good books always do.

We arrived in London where once again a Monogram babysitter met us to lead us to a car that took us to our hotel the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel right beside that famous hotel. Although its location was its best feature, the hotel was extremely luxurious. How much did we pay for this? We did not know. After being second-class citizens it was nice to be elevated to 1st class. We can always dream can’t we? It was a very luxurious suite. This was no typically small European hotel room. It had a separate room with a couch and huge television set. The bedroom had a smaller set. All of the décor was modern extreme. Usually I don’t like that, but today I did. We felt like luxury to boost our flattened egos.

The lighting system was much too complicated for us to figure out how to use, so we largely acquiesced with what we got when we switched it on. We figured out how to do that only after a tedious trial and error process. There was a convenient chair with side table for reading that I appreciated. We lounged and relaxed for an hour or two before we did anything that might tax our brains or bodies.

Eventually we went out to eat. To do that, we walked cross the famous Westminster Bridge right across the street from our hotel. That bridge had very recently been the site of a terrorist attack exactly 5 months earlier on March 22, 2017. The attacker was a 22-year-old Briton Khalid Masood who moved down the pedestrians who were idly walking on the bridge injuring more than 50 people and killing 4 of those. After he left the car that had crashed into near by New Palace Yard where he fatally attacked an unarmed police officer and shot an armed police officer and died at the scene.

This was treated as a case of Islamic terrorism. Trump would be proud of this refusal to be what he considered  politically correct. It seemed that Masood had sent a final text message that he was waging jihad in revenge for western actions in the Middle East. Some claimed he had been a member of ISIS, but the British police have found no link to any terrorist organization. It really appeared that he was a home-grown British terrorist. Every country now has these in this globalized world. Every country has too many of these. There were signs of anti-terrorism everywhere. The bridge now had massive iron and steel barriers to prevent any more automobile terrorism. More construction was on-going. We felt completely safe on the bridge. When we got off no so much.

The bridge was crawling with tourists. This would have been easy pickings for a terrorist. We were surprised “only” 50 had been injured. It was even more crowded than Paris.

We really did very little sight seeing today. Our made goal was dinner. Our Monogram guide, Augustine, had recommended a nearby restaurant that we enjoyed. She said it had been Churchill’s favorite restaurant. That was good enough for us, even though it looked modest. It was called the Red Lion. Later we learned many politicians frequently the place because it was very close to Parliament. Thankfully none were in attendance today. We had the place more or less to ourselves.

When we got back I got sick. I thought it was the result of a chocolate bar I had half-eaten. Chris refused to try an experiment to determine if that was the cause. She refused to eat what was left. So the mystery remains. I was hoping I would feel better before our lengthy flight home.

 

Serial Mass Killings

Philosophy/Ideas, ,

 

2017 has been incredible year. First Donald Trump took the oath of office as the President of the United States. What could be more credulity straining than that? Well how about killing 58 people and injuring nearly 500 more people from a Hotel in Vegas followed about a month later by another mass killing this time at a church in Texas where 26 were killed and 16 injured. I wonder how many of the people from the shooting in Las Vegas were out of the hospital by the time the next major mass killing occurred in Texas?

Many pundits keep repeating that there is nothing we can do about these shootings. We can’t predict where they’ll happen many of those pundits agree. In particular, Conservatives who don’t want any actions taken, except against Muslims, keep repeating that there is nothing we can do to predict where the next violent attack will happen.  Samantha B from Comedy News, my main source of news, pointed out a day or two before the Texas shooting, that there is in fact one pretty good predictor of where mass killings will occur. Most acts of mass killings actually have a common element. Actually they have 2. That is domestic violence and guns.

An organization called ‘Every town for Gun Safety’ did a large study of mass shootings between 2009 and 2016 and found there were 156 mass shootings in the U.S. during that time. 54% of those incidents related to domestic or family violence. As Samantha B said, “Mass shootings come in all male shapes and all male sizes, but most of them rehearse for it the same way.” [1] They rehearse by beating up a family member that is weaker than them. Usually that is a spouse, partner, or child. These are not brave men! These are men who see their dominance in jeopardy and can’t stand to think about that. So they lash out. They lash out at a vulnerable family member. They seldom lash out at someone stronger than them.

James Hodgkinson of Illinois, who authorities say shot a congressman and injured others at a ball field in Virginia in June of 2017, punched one woman in the face and dragged his young and defenseless daughter to the ground by her hair. Omar Mateen’s spouse reported that he regularly beat her. Remember Mateen was the mass murderer who killed 49 people and wounded 58 others in a gay nightclub in Orlando on June 12, 2016. He briefly held the record for mass killings in America until the shootings in Vegas. In the US these records are continually broken. The latest suspect in the killing that just happened a coupe of days ago in Texas apparently was in a domestic dispute with his wife and for some reason killed his mother-in-law and 25 other Parishioners.

According to Jacquelyn Campbell, Professor at Johns Hopkins University, “there are 10 times as many women killed by a current boyfriend or husband or ex boyfriend or ex-husband as by a male stranger. The majority of this violence is perpetrated with fire arms.” Guns are of course the second predictor.

Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said “Women are 5 times more likely to die from domestic violence when there are guns in their household.” To which, Samantha B said, “An abusive husband and gun is a deadly combination, like matches and gasoline, or men and gasoline, or men and everything else.” While it may seem unfair to blame men, the facts speak for themselves. This is overwhelmingly a male thing. And why is that?

Many of these men are uncomfortable with women that argue with them, that seem to think they are superior to them, and don’t accept their traditional role of subservience to men. This is a power thing. Men who see themselves as losing their power, even when they actually have very little power, get upset, and some of them behave badly.

Opponents of gun control repeatedly say it won’t help. Yet states that require background checks have seen a 46% decline in women shot by their domestic partners. Isn’t that impressive?

Police commonly admit that domestic calls are the most dangerous calls they respond to. Guns in the hands of those men are seldom good things for their partners or the police. Should we not control that?

Samantha B summed up the problem well, “Even if you don’t give a shit about domestic violence, abused women are the canary in the coal mine for mass shootings. If you take guns away form abusers you might be able to save more important non-female lives. ”[2] That’s a crazy way to talk about it, but these are crazy times. Particularly in America. 

[1] Samantha B, “Full Frontal,” (November 3, 2017)

[2] Samantha B, “Full Frontal,” (November 3, 2017)

August 21, 2017 Paris: The Romantic Cruise from Hell

2017 European River Cruise, ,

Charles Dickens described Paris and France about as well as anyone before or after him. As he said in his novel a Tale of 2 Cities:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of credulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

That really described the city and our time in it very well.

But today was radically different from yesterday. Chris decided, and I supported her entirely in this decision, that today she should stay behind and rest her ankles. They looked awful. We hoped she could recoup. This turned out to be a very good decision. It worked!

So I ventured out on my own with absolutely no knowledge of French. I considered this a bold move, but the choice was to stay back at the hotel, which I really did not want to do on our last day in Paris, or boldly go forth.

After breakfast I pulled out my maps of Paris and set out. I love Impressionism, but on maps not so much. In maps I prefer realism. Unfortunately, the Paris maps were created by Impressionists or perhaps, even worse, by abstract impressionists who see no need for art to even resemble reality, let alone represent it.

I know that Hop on/Hop Off buses are a bit expensive but they sure are convenient for someone like me who does not speak the local language and who has no real conception of how far apart places are and is not even sure what he wants to see. So finally I hopped on and started my adventure.

I saw a large part of Paris and had a wonderful time all on my own. My first stop was near the Hôtel des Invalides where I was approached by a family from Nazareth who needed help finding their way around Paris. This seemed ridiculous since I had already demonstrated a startling capacity to get my directions wrong in this fair city, but they seemed intent on asking my advice despite my warnings. Had I been better prepared I would have got them to sign a written release of liability. So this was how I led a family from Nazareth out of the wilderness. Can you imagine? Now you know why we are all bound for hell.

 

 

 

 

Today I got seriously distracted. What else is new? I got distracted, of course, by flowers. There were a series of gardens here one right after the other. It was too much for me to resist. The distraction was more unavoidable, because the skies were gray. Photos of things like the Eiffel Tower looked drab. Flowers in such light on the other hand shone. I took a number of photographs of flowers outside Petit Palais and in the Jardin des Tuileries

 

Some of the walkways are lined with lime and chestnut trees and I took some snap shots of those as well doing my best to create an Impressionistic image. Skies were grey, so they were perfect for flowers. When the world gives you lemons, make lemonade.

 

My mind was filled of course with thoughts of Impressionism. I was infused with Impressionism. How could that have been avoided after yesterday’s afternoon at the D’Orsay? So I kept thinking of how I could show the lovely flower gardens in an Impressionistic style. To do that, I thought I would create what photographers call the “Orton effect”. This style, just like Impressionism, is not for everyone. I love it, just like I love the Impressionist paintings. So I kept planning some of my images for applying this technique later. I include some of the photographs with this effect and some more naturalistic for those who might get sick seeing too many Ortons. The technique involved combining 2 copies of exactly the same image. One image is over-exposed so it looks very light. The other image is sometimes also over-exposed but just slightly. The second image is then blurred drastically. Then the two images are combined.

 

I find the resulting image sometimes is magical. Other times it just does not work. Some think the technique never works. Why would you ever deliberately blur it some ask? I would say, for the same reason Impressionists often did not want a sharp image. A Sketchy image to them sometimes seemed preferable. The image can be more “real” than a clear representation. This is sort of like that.

 

 

 

Eventually I got back on the bus until near Notre Dame. Of course, the grounds were awash with tourists, so I did not stay long. I wanted to take a little more time for photos. I ducked down low to have a hedge hide as many of them as possible.

 

After I was done, I walked across the Petit Pont Notre Dame across the Seine to the Left Bank. I took some more photos of the famous cathedral from that angle. This was near where I found quite by accident the famous bookstore, Shakespeare and Company. James Joyce and his pals made this bookstore famous. Sylvia Beach originally owned it. During the 1920s, Beach’s shop was a gathering place for many then-aspiring writers such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Maddox Ford, and particularly James Joyce. Beach published Joyce’s controversial masterpiece Ulysses in 1922 when no one else dared touch it.

Beach moved the store from its original location to a large location at 12 rue de L’Odéon where it remained until 1941 when it was closed on account of the Nazi occupation. Some said it was closed because Beach refused to sell the last copy of Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake to a German officer. During this period of time it was the center of Anglo-American literary culture. Joyce nicknamed the store “Stratford-on-Odéon.” Joyce actually used the store as an office for a while. Hemingway mentioned the various attendees of the store in his memoir A Moveable Feast. Patrons could borrow books if they could not afford to buy. She also carried controversial books such as D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover which was banned in both the US and UK.

Beach was welcoming to a vast array of writers and artists who had no other place to stay. It was an island of civilization, particularly for struggling writers and artists. The shop’s motto, “Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers Lest They Be Angels in Disguise,” is written above the entrance to the reading library. I think this is the civilization I have been seeking.

By the time I was finished there I thought it was time to go back to the hotel to see how Chris was doing. After some running around (literally) I managed to find the bus again and hopped on for the final leg of my solo city tour back to our hotel. Chris was feeling quite a bit better. The day off from touring and walking did her a world of good. The rash was considerably reduced.

Tonight we were going to celebrate our 46th wedding anniversary. We had made reservations back in Canada for a “romantic cruise” on the Seine River at night. We were very excited about that. It turned out to the be romantic cruise from hell.

We started off right. This time we did the sensible thing; we took a cab to the pier where the ship was docked. When we finally got on the ship for our “romantic” dinner we were sorely disappointed. In fact we concluded that we were being punished for bad behaviour though we had no idea what we had done. That is not uncommon for me.

To begin with, we got absolutely the worst seat in the restaurant. We were near the front of the ship but could not see anything of the city from there. We were near the middle of the ship so could not see out the sides either. The view of the city we had been promised was almost non-existent from where we sat. We did have a clear view of a toilet and the kitchen. The sound of the promised musicians was nearly drowned out by the sound of banging of pots and pans. We were clearly in steerage.

The meal was also a disappointment. We were served Rose wine instead of champagne. The appetizer was as tasty and nutritious as last week’s laundry. Most importantly the steaks were not hot. Had they been hot we believed the sauce Bordelaise would have been excellent, but really we were guessing. We sat right next to a young Asian woman and her mother who spent most of the time looking at their phones. We wished we would have their seats with the great views that they did not need. The service was attentive, but not for us in steerage. It was a disaster of a romantic cruise.

Through sheer force of will, we managed to enjoy the evening. The music was subdued but not bad. Strong drink helped ease the pain. The company was great! I dashed to the back of the boat frequently to get photos of the city and Eiffel Tower at night. The views from outside the restaurant were sensational. In fact, they were worth the trip. Most importantly, we still love each other.

 

It was the best of times.

The Opioid Crisis: Don’t buy medicine from a snake oil salesman or a New York Real estate Developer

Philosophy/Ideas, , ,

By now it is well known that opioid drugs such as OxyContin (oxycodone) and Percocet are ravaging North American society. Opioids are now responsible in the United States for causing about 37,000 deaths per year. Since the year 2,000 opioid deaths in the U.S. have quadrupled. That is without counting deaths from overdoes of heroin or fentanyl and other drugs. Some people overdose on these drugs after getting addicted to opioids.

How did this happen? In part the problem is that for decades medical doctors have been prescribing prescription opioids for all kinds of ailments, including fairly minor ones. This included things like toothaches, back pain, and the like. Their patients asked the doctors for help and the doctors gave it, even when it was probably not wise for many of these patients to get such prescriptions. We shouldn’t always get what we want. Of course, once people were addicted, Big Pharma was happy to oblige.

In the U.S, the Drug Enforcement Administration (‘DEA’) saw some astonishing efforts to fill prescriptions. In some cases, they were sending out thousands of suspicious orders for pharmaceuticals. In one case, one pharmacy in Kermit West Virginian—in the heart of Trumpland—a town of just 396 people ordered 9 million opioid pills in 2 years!

One would think this would be an easy problem to resolve. One would think wrong. The DEA should be able to investigate and shutdown such commercial trafficking without getting indigestion. But in 2016 the American Congress unanimously passed a law that drastically curtailed the power of their DEA to go after drug distribution. And they did this in the midst of a drug epidemic. And they did it unanimously when ordinarily they cannot agree unanimously what day it is. How did that happen?

It is interesting how that happened. According to Trevor Noah on the Daily Show (Of course I get most of my news from Comedy News ) “that is because of the thing that they are addicted to—Money.” [1] Political commentators have long understood a fundamental principle of political analysis—follow the money. In 2016 the Pharmaceutical Industry (‘Big Pharma’) spent $246 million on lobbying the American Congress. In the decade from 2007 to 2017 they spent a cumulated total of $2.4 billion. That money was well spent.

Big Pharma consistently ranks at the top or near the top of big spenders on lobbying Congress. They do that because it works. That money buys them a lot. The insurance industry another big spender is cheap in comparison. Even though they were second in 2016, they spent a paltry $152.9 million. The gun lobby spent a puny $10.5 million. That is about 4% of what Big Pharma spent. Big Pharma spend money like river boat gamblers and it paid off BIGLEY. It paid off with unanimous legislation that they like. Like the law that crippled the ability of the DEA to investigate commercial drug traffickers.

As a result of such big spending Big Pharma has big influence with Congress. Big spending and big influence go together like love and marriage. Big Pharma wanted to get rid of regulations they did not like. These are more of those regulations that Trump keeps saying hobble American industry. In fact it bought them the right to basically write the laws that emasculated the DEA in the middle of a drug crisis that they helped to create and from which they were the primary financial beneficiaries. As the Washington Post said,

“In April 2016, at the height of the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, Congress effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against large drug companies suspected of spilling prescription narcotics onto the nation’s streets.

By then, the opioid war had claimed 200,000 lives, more than three times the number of U.S. military deaths in the Vietnam War. Overdose deaths continue to rise. There is no end in sight.

A handful of members of Congress, allied with the nation’s major drug distributors, prevailed upon the DEA and the Justice Department to agree to a more industry-friendly law, undermining efforts to stanch the flow of pain pills, according to an investigation by The i and “60 Minutes.” The DEA had opposed the effort for years.” [2]

 

Bob Dylan was right again—“money doesn’t talk it swears.” It is not surprising either that the chief designer of the of the law that hobbled the DEA was Rep. Tom Marino, who is now reputed to be Donald Trump’s next drug czar. Funny how that happens. In fact according to the Washington Post, Drug Industry executive Linden Barber played a key role in crafting an earlier version of the legislation that eventually curtailed the DEA’s power.” As Trevor Noah said, “for $250 million you can write your own laws.” [3]

Of course Donald Trump understood how serious the drug crisis was. In August of 2017 he declared the opioid crisis an “official national emergency.” That was very significant because it made available many millions of dollars to tackle the crisis. He said specifically, this means the country is committed to spending a lot of time, effort and a lot of money on this crisis. This was a big deal. No doubt about it. Trump should have been applauded for that declaration. Yet there was a hitch. Like there usually is with Trump’s dealings.

The problem is that Trump is a snake oil salesman. They know that in New York. They are used to him there. That is why they did not vote for Trump in the election of 2016. When Trump made the formal announcement on October 26, 2017 he did not do exactly what he had promised. It sounded the same. It looked the same. But it was not the same. Sometimes it can look like a duck, quack like a duck, yet not be duck. He said instead, “my administration is officially declaring the opioid crisis a “national public health emergency under federal law.” That is not quite the same. As a recovering lawyer, I know it is important, very important when dealing with charlatans to read the contract over very slowly and very carefully word for word. Nothing else will do. This is not the time and place for shortcuts. Politics is the time for short cuts. When listening to Trump extreme care is needed.

As a result of this “slight” change in wording, instead of many millions of dollars being available to deal with the “official national emergency” for a “national public health emergency under federal law” there was only $57,000 available. Of course he did not tell us this. He kept mum. Trump had played the old shell game. The American public were the suckers. They bought snake oil.

 

[1] Trevor Noah, The Daily Show, Comedy News Network, (Oct. 26, 2017)

[2] Scott Higham and Lenny Bernstein, “The Drug Industry’s Triumph over the Dea,” Washington Post, October 15, 2017

[3] Trevor Noah, The Daily Show, Comedy News Network, (Oct. 26, 2017)