Monthly Archives: September 2012

Unenlightened, not Unexplained

Posted on by
Reply

Much of the world has yet to experience the Enlightenment. Continue reading →

I learned about the Enlightenment in high school, but it did not mean much to me. I knew that a bunch of guys like Locke and Rousseau wrote about men having rights, but I did not understand the context. Researching the popes gave me a new perspective.

The story really started in eighth century Italy, which was dominated by the Lombards, the last of the powerful barbarian tribes that came down from the north. The Lombards, led by King Aistulf, held territories on all sides of Rome and threatened to lay siege to the city. The Lombards were originally Arian Christians, but by this time most had been converted to orthodoxy. They had nothing against the pope; they just wanted to eliminate the gap in their holdings.

Pope Stephen II (or III if you count the guy who died after three days as pope), was desperate. He undertook the difficult journey across the Alps to meet with the King of the Franks, Pepin the Short. Pope Stephen somehow convinced the king that it was his duty to defend Rome against the Lombards. Pepin and his army descended into Italy and defeated King Aistulf’s forces. He and his son Charlemagne confirmed that the Pope was the legitimate ruler of all of western Europe because of a “Donation” that Constantine had allegedly made to the pope after he had moved his own empire to the east. In return Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as (Holy Roman) emperor, and threatened to excommunicate anyone who questioned the right of his family to rule the empire.

I think of this as the Old Deal. The emperor and by implication all of the kings, princes, barons, and other nobles in the empire gained legitimacy for their claims. The pope was ceded a considerable amount of territory in central Italy to rule, and his word in spiritual matters was enforced by the emperor. Thus, Church and State had a mutually supportive understanding. Since the pope was the Vicar of Christ, the kings could claim a divine right to rule.

The relationship had its ups and downs, of course. Over the centuries several popes attempted to depose emperors with mixed results. Likewise several emperors and kings tried to depose popes with mixed results. However, for centuries no king or emperor ever challenged the legitimacy of the papacy. On occasion a powerful monarch lost patience with a pope and install an antipope. Never, however, did an emperor claim that there should be no pope. Similarly no pope ever challenged the feudal system with the emperor at the top. Each institution supported the other.

IMHO the most crucial time for this relationship was the reign of Emperor Frederick II. Although the emperor had violent disagreements with the pontiffs, he never tried to undermine the institution of the papacy. In fact, he ordered that heresy, which essentially was tantamount to disagreement with papal rulings, was a capital crime throughout the empire. When the Inquisition found people guilty of heresy, the civil governments implemented the sentences.

The first memorable challenge to this arrangement came from Jan Hus. At the Council of Constance he was found guilty of heresy in 1415 and put to death by Emperor Sigismund, who had previously granted him safe conduct to the council. A little over a century later Martin Luther had a similar experience at the Diet of Worms, but for some reason Emperor Charles V allowed him to return home. Charles later said that he should have executed Luther as a heretic.

Luther was the first prominent person to claim publicly that the pope might be wrong about a few things and lived to talk and, more importantly, write about it. He never claimed that he was always right, and so he was never a direct challenge to the pope. He just said that the pope could be wrong.

This simple idea threatened to undermine the entire basis of the Old Deal. If a pope can make a mistake, then he could not be the true Vicar of Christ. If he was not the Vicar of Christ, of what importance was his sanctioning of the feudal arrangement? The Church made a vigorous effort to eliminate everyone who promulgated this notion, but effective suppression of the ideas of the Enlightenment was made impossible by the advent of the printing press at just this time.

Eventually philosophers worked out a different justification for government that was based on human rights. The pope’s role in this new world (or rather western European) order was not clear until Pope Pius VII was brought to Paris to crown Napoleon as emperor. While the pope was sitting there in his papal regalia waiting for the big moment, however, Napoleon grabbed the crown and placed it on his own head. Soon thereafter the pope was actually taken as prisoner and held against his will for years in France. So much for the Old Deal.

Eventually in the west the entire feudal system collapsed, but not until a lot of blood had been shed. The pope today is probably as well respected as ever, but very few people are calling for the pontiff to play a more active role in politics, and the people of central Italy much prefer their current political system, even if no one else can understand it.

The process of replacing the Old Deal with a new way of doing things is called the Enlightenment. As far as I know, it is a distinctly western phenomenon. The “founding fathers” of the United States were definitely inspired by the principles of the Enlightenment, but other nations were founded on different principles. For example, Israel was founded as a refugee state. The nations that replaced the European colonies were sometimes designed to resemble western states, but the citizens never went through the process of dismantling a religion-based government.

So, in much of the world religion still plays a much different role. Religious authority figures are treated with more deference in political matters than in western cultures. Religious traditions such as the Islamic imprecation against portraying the prophet are considered as inviolable.

So, it should not surprise anyone that some Arab countries seem to be having trouble with the transition to governments that respect human rights. After all, it took the West more than a millennium to become enlightened.

Likewise it should surprise no one that some people have not learned how to take criticism about their beliefs or to tolerate actions by nonbelievers that are considered ineffable by their religions. For many centuries the western Church and State tolerated no criticism, and the penalty was usually death. Somehow Enlightenment will probably come to all corners of the earth, but it will take a long time, and the transition will be painful.

Beats Me

Posted on by
Reply

Some things that make no sense to me. Continue reading →

I am already old. I fear that I will never understand some things. Or maybe I do.

Why can virtually any American buy a handgun and why do so many people want to? A handgun is good for one thing and one thing only — killing someone or something at close range. It might be useful for putting a horse with a broken leg out of its misery. Otherwise, the only reasonable use is to kill another person (or oneself).

Handguns are worthless for hunting for the simple reason that almost no one can hit anything at any distance with a handgun. When I was in the army I could hit a man-sized target with an M-16 rifle at distances up to 300 meters. With a .45 caliber handgun I could not hit the same type of target at ten meters when I shot “from the hip” — with the gun at waist level. I was only little more accurate when I was allowed to take careful aim. The rest of the people trying to qualify with the .45 were only a little more accurate.

The officers responding to the shooting at the Empire State Building got off sixteen shots. One of them hit the perpetrator. Here is what CNN reported about the remaining shots:

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the (eleven) bystanders were not hit directly by police, but rather the officers’ struck “flowerpots and other objects around, so … their bullets fragmented and, in essence, that’s what caused the wounds.”

I have personal familiarity with this phenomenon. After I had finished firing my rounds when trying to qualify with the .45, I could see that about half of my bullets had hit the target. Of those, about half were ricochets, which make rectangular holes, rather than direct hits, which make round holes. The sergeant who gave me a passing grade said that I had achieved the required 75 percent mark because “some of those holes look like they have several bullets in them.”

Many people claim that they need their handguns for self-defense. Nonsense. I can understand wanting body armor or Wonder Woman’s bracelets to defend oneself against someone with a gun, but of what use is a gun? Are people planning on shooting the other guy’s bullets in mid-air before they reach them? Or maybe they expect to be able shoot the gun out of the other person’s hand as the Lone Ranger often did on TV in “those thrilling days of yesteryear.” I don’t think so. They either hope to kill the “bad guy” — or maybe deter him.

Some studies have indeed shown that handguns can have a small deterrent effect on crime, but those studies refer to the crime rate, not murder, and they generally refer to gun ownership, not handgun possession. I suppose that a potential victim might conceivably deter a thief, especially an unarmed thief, if the latter knows that the subject has a gun (within reach). No one can convince me that it would deter a murderer with a gun, especially not a psychopath like the guy who shot up the theater showing the Batman movie or the white supremacist who mistook Sikhs for Arabs. All that the gunman needs to do is wait until the subject is within range and then shoot first. I suppose that one could use the “Bungalow Bill” approach — “if looks could kill, it would have been us instead of him” — but shooting first while deferring questions until later is frowned on in many circles. In some states you might even get some prison time.

It is a well established fact that in industrialized countries the murder rate is closely connected to the rate of handgun ownership. The strength of the correlation is so great that it approaches causation.

One other point: Handguns are long and hard, they heat up in your hand, and they ejaculate bullets. Would Freud find it strange that most people who murder with them are frustrated males?

Why are cigarettes legal? I remember reading the Surgeon General’s report on smoking when I was in high school, from which I graduated over forty-six years ago. Why in the world do we still allow anyone to sell products that cause cancer, emphysema, and all kinds of other horrible things and are smelly, useless, and highly addictive to boot? How is it possible that one can still buy these noxious objects almost anywhere?

Not long ago the obvious answer was the tobacco lobby. Now, however, I think that the state governments have become addicted to tobacco sales. In the Land of Steady Habits the cigarette tax is now $3.40 per pack. In the 2010 fiscal year the state took in over $500 million because of cigarette smokers in a time of severe fiscal crisis. If this source of revenue dried up, the crisis would have been much worse.

I don’t care. Tax me. I don’t want my friends and relatives dying from lung cancer.

Why is television so awful? Don’t get me wrong; I do not long for the golden years of TV. American television has always been awful. Temple Houston was no better than American Hoggers. The Monkees won an Emmy in 1967. In the old days, however, there were only three networks. Now there are hundreds. One might suspect that the law of large numbers should now be working for us, but that does not seem to be the case.

I can only remember one program in the last thirty years that excited me, Terry Jones’ four-part series on the Crusades. As I recall it was used to promote the launch of the History Channel, which now is dominated by shows about ghost-hunting and UFO’s. O tempora, o mores!

What is the justification for the Electoral College? Let us pass over without mentioning that it is obviously ridiculous that the three electors from Wyoming represent about 190,000 people each while the ones from California represent over 677,000 people. The biggest problem, to my way of thinking, is that the candidates now concentrate all of their pandering on the so-called swing states. The candidates think that the only state in New England is New Hampshire, and even those who wish to “Live Free or Die” are forgotten after the primary is over.

If there were no Electoral College, everyone’s vote would count the same. Neither candidate could write off a state just because it looked hopeless. The candidates would have to advertise just as heavily in Connecticut as they do in Ohio.

Wait a minute. Forget that I mentioned this one.

Why do we declare war on concepts? First there was the war on poverty, then the war on drugs, and then the war on terror. Use of the word “war” provides cover for politicians because it is considered unpatriotic to question a war no matter how idiotic the justification or how great the cost.

Here is the essence of the problem: When you declare war on a country, the war is over when the country’s government or military leaders surrender. Unfortunately, concepts cannot surrender. A secondary result is that the nation’s leaders tend to employ military tactics and personnel to solve the problem whether they are appropriate or not. The synergy of these two issues is devastating: since a military leader never admits defeat unless there is literally a gun at his head, the “war” can never end!

When the concept is a tactic, the use of the military can obviously be counterproductive. When we bombed Tokyo and Dresden, there was not much resentment outside of Japan and Germany, and the native people were already our enemies. The Chinese, for example, did not wish to join up with the Japanese out of sympathy. In contrast, when we bomb places that hold terrorists in the middle of neutral or allied countries, the families and friends of the dead can easily become angry and resentful enough to join the cause of the terrorists. When the dead people are “collateral damage,” the likelihood is even greater.

Finally, by changing the meaning of words the government opens the door to abuses by other institutions. Putin used the “war on terror” and the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war to justify his crackdown in Chechnya. Funding for the war on terror has apparently become a lucrative profit center for the government of Yemen. The funds will only stop flowing if the government’s anti-terrorism effort succeeds. Can anyone see a potential problem here?

Why are Americans not outraged about preventive detention? I always thought that perhaps the most important principle on which our republic is based was the right to a trial. Surely, this is an inalienable right that is not linked to where we or our parents were born. Indefinite detention of individuals is therefore the most abusive use of governmental power, but its use in Guantanamo (for eleven years!) has generated almost no public outcry whatever. President Obama promised that he would put an end to the practice, but that statement is no longer operative. In plain English it was a lie.

Do people in the United States not know that there are still 197 human beings who, although they have never been charged with a crime, are still being held in Cuba? Or do Americans just not care? I think that it is probably a case of “out of sight, out of mind,” but this might be a result of the high regard that I hold for the moral fiber of my fellow citizens.

It is worth noting that the Obama administration has designated forty-six individuals for “indefinite detention.” I presume this means that they will be held until we win the war on terror or they die, whichever comes first.

Fun with Flannery

Posted on by
Reply

A good result for once. Continue reading →

The Flannery convention (bidding 2♦ to show a hand with five hearts, four spades, and 11-15 HCP) has caused me quite a few problems. In fairness I must admit that it really came through for us last Saturday. North dealt with neither side vulnerable. I was West.

North
♠ 9 4 2
♥ A Q 8 5
♦ J 7 6 2
♣ 7 5
West East
♠ 5 ♠ A K 6 3
♥ J 9 ♥ 10 7 4 3 2
♦ K Q 5 4 3 ♦ A 9 8
♣ A Q J 6 2 ♣ 4 3
South
♠ Q J 10 8 7
♥ K 6
♦ 10
♣ K 10 9 8 3

My partner opened 2♦. I thought for a moment and then bid 3NT. North was understandably reluctant to underlead the ♥ A Q. Her choice of a diamond set up my best suit, which had never been bid. I won ten tricks in a row and then scored the ♥10 on the last trick after I surrendered the lead. No other east-west pair came close to matching this result. The next best was a partial score.

If we had not used Flannery, my partner would have opened 1♥. I would have responded 1NT. His only conceivable bid would be 2♦, which I would raise to 3. Since he did not know about my clubs, and I did not know about his diamonds, we would have probably played it at 3♦.

Athletic Prowess

Posted on by
Reply

Highlights of my career in competitive sports. Continue reading →

A good deal of light-hearted attention has recently been paid to Paul Ryan’s claim of having run a marathon in less than three hours when in fact his actual time was over four hours. His claimed time would have forced him to average 6:51 miles, an impressive feat. His actual time only required an average of 9:09, which, although not bad, is slower than Sarah Palin’s best, and I do not remember her bragging about it. No one would call a four hour marathon “fast,” as he did.

Did he just forget? Nonsense. I am twenty-two years older than Paul Ryan, and I can still remember the high points of my participation in every sport.

Football: My tackle football career consisted of two years of playing for the Queen of the Holy Rosary Rockets. Our team of seventh and eighth graders played six or seven games against other Catholic grade schools in the archdiocese.

The league had a rule that no one who weighed over 125 pounds could carry the ball. I easily qualified. Our team ran out of a single wing, and I was the wingback. On most plays I just pretended to block someone, but we also did have a few plays in which I was an eligible receiver.

There were no highlights the first year. We lost every game, and we were shut out every time. It was not until I was an eighth grader that I achieved star status. You see, I had one outstanding quality: near invisibility. When I went out for a pass, no one covered me. It was a mixed blessing, as the passer could not see me either. Once, however, the coach noticed how open I was and called time-out. He told the quarterback (whom we called the tailback) to run the same play and look for me. He did, threw me the ball, and I caught it and ran for a touchdown. It happened in one other game, too. So, in two years my school only managed two touchdowns, and I scored both of them.

Neither touchdown, however, was my my highlight, for the simple reason that we lost both games. My moment of greatness came in our final game against St. Joseph of Shawnee, and I was playing defense (our team only had twelve student-athletes). Only a minute or two remained in a scoreless tie, but St. Joe was inside our ten yard line. On fourth down they ran a crossing route. Two huge ends (well, they could not have actually been too huge since they had to be less than 125 pounds, but they were a lot bigger than I was) both headed toward the middle of the field. The ball arrived, and one of them caught it just before he crashed into the other. I jumped on the guy with the ball just before he hit the turf at the two-yard line. On the next play I secured our victory (all right, tie) by gaining about thirty yards on a pass play.

Basketball: This is easy. I once actually dunked a basketball on an official hoop at Yost Field House in Ann Arbor. I dunked a volleyball many times, but on every other occasion the basketball always slipped out of my hand. Several of my friends witnessed this feat.

Baseball: My team, which was sponsored by the Prairie Village Optimist Club, was playing the first-place team, Bill Cook’s Standard. I played “vacation,” which meant that I filled in for whoever in the starting lineup was on vacation. In that game I played, for the first and last time, shortstop. In the fourth or fifth inning of a scoreless game I hit a triple. After two pitiful outs, I purposely got myself in a rundown and managed to score to give us the lead.

In the last inning we were up 3-1, but with two outs Cook’s had the bases loaded. The batter hit a short fly into left field. I turned around and raced as fast as I could. I caught the ball in the tip of the webbing of my glove. It looked like an ice cream cone, but I did not drop it. My dad told me that my teammates carried me off of the field, but I don’t remember that part.

Softball: The summer of 1974 (when Paul Ryan was not yet in kindergarten) was the peak of my athletic prowess. My partner and I were in first place in the Hartford Insurance Group golf league, and I had a phenomenal batting average in the softball league. Although I am right-handed, all of my hits were to right field, which is where the opponents often located their worst fielder.

One at-bat stands out. As I came up I noticed that the right fielder was shaded toward right-center field. I did my best slugger impression, pointing my bat to left field. To my immense glee, I determined that the right fielder was now almost in center field. I promptly sliced a looping fly over the head of the first baseman. The ball took a right turn when it hit the ground and actually rolled into the street. The right fielder ran as fast as he could, but I scored easily before he could get the ball back into the infield.

Golf: I had broken my kneecap, and I had not played much golf. I filled in as a substitute in the golf league. On the first hole, I was playing against someone of approximately my ability, but I was rusty. On the first hole put his second shot on the green. I was all over the course, and after four shots I had only found the fringe. Incredibly, I chipped in and he three-putted. We both carded bogeys. It made a difference, too, as we ended up halving the match.

Tennis: I almost won a tennis match once. It was August 18, 1973, the day after my 25th birth day. I had imbibed quite a few beers on the previous evening, and I did not feel much like playing (or doing anything else that required being awake). I had, however, made a date to play tennis with another actuary who was as bad at tennis as I was. I was actually slightly ahead midway through the second set when he sprained his ankle. He wanted to quit playing, but I insisted that he continue. I explained that he did not have to try to run around. He could just sit somewhere on the court, and I would keep playing until the set was over. He called me a bad name and went home.

Soccer: My high school offered a version of intramural soccer. The field and net were smaller, each team had only five players, and there were no goalies. I once scored five goals in a game. The fact that the other team only fielded four guys diminished the achievement only slightly in the estimation of myself and my teammates.

Running: My best (unofficial) time in the marathon is a little over twenty-five hours. I ran eighteen miles on one day and nine the next.

Don’t try to tell me that a type A like Paul Ryan forgot his time in the only marathon that he ever entered. He is nothing more than a liar and a braggart.

* * *
Mr. Ryan’s handlers have issued an explanation of the discrepancy between the real time and his claim. They blame the twenty-one years that have elapsed and a back injury (?). For the record, all of my highlights were much more than twenty-one years ago. I am pretty sure of all of the details except one. It is possible that the opponent in the baseball game might have been K.C. the Rug Doctor rather than Bill Cook’s Standard.