Human rights.
They are not something up for popular vote. They are
something everyone that is born human has at birth. How was that ever
in doubt.
I thought I was equal to everyone else as a small child. I never, ever thought that there were things I couldn't do because of the circumstances of my birth.
Some would refer to that as naivete. Others might think it more a sign of wishful thinking or delusional thought disorder or even just plain "putting on airs"
I prefer to think of it as proof that we all know we are human from the minute we are born.
Recently, there has been a lot of political movement surrounding rights--and they are all human rights--there are no other kind. We have the recent right to marry the person you love whether or not they are of a different sex, the right to be another race without being treated inferior, the right to be female without being treated inferior, the right to be born in another country or speak a different language without being treated inferior and even the right to commit a crime, pay the price society demands and then return to society without being treated inferior.
Most confusing, though, seems to be religious rights. beliefs, and free speech.
Do I have the right to believe whatever I want? Of course, try stopping that right, mind control is not even policeable. Do I have a right to talk about those rights? Free speech, sure," sticks and stones my break my bones but words will never hurt me". Co-dependence aside, that is ultimately true. Now when the words only purpose is to invoke violence, that is not speech, or at least not JUST speech. It is as illegal to pay someone to commit a crime as it is to commit a crime yourself. If your speech purposely motivates--pays for-- a criminal act, it is criminal, if not in the eyes of the court, at least in the eyes of those that can recognize ethical and moral deficiency. And let's not forget that a thing can be criminal without being morally wrong. The people making up the laws are not perfect. The people writing the holy books are also not perfect, and last I checked, no holy book even claims to be without human touch.
Most of us know right from wrong long before someone has told us what to hate and despise. I'm not talking about the shame and humiliation of a fashion faux pas. But when a child sees something that disturbs them, like a person kicking in the face of another person, they no that is wrong and they don't forget. If the person doing the kicking is someone they love, they may go to great lengths to justify that thing, but they were disturbed.
Right now, we hear a lot about the rights of religions.
Religions are belief systems. The people that believe them are protected by their own inability to have their thoughts policed.
A church, mosque, temple, sanctuary, whatever, has the freedom to follow its own beliefs, but only so far as those rights do not take the rights of anyone else. So, you can refuse to provide services for people that do not meet whatever qualifications you have for your religion. Think of it was club membership. But you can not tell someone that is not in your "club" what to do. You also should not let them be in your club as long as they pay their dues, but refuse to let them fully participate.
For those of you that are poor at metaphor--you can refuse to let to people of the same sex marry in your church, but you can not tell them they can not be married. Marriage is a legal construct as well as a religious one, and has legal rights that come with it. It is not alright to deny people the privilege of right of survival, inheritance, tax status, etc, unless the religion is NOT separate from the government.
I do think that, like every single business that has to meet federal requirements to benefit from federal privileges such as tax exemption as a nonprofit; churches should also have to follow those laws. Most churches should be paying taxes anyhow, as the are making serious profits. But if your holy place wants to deny the rights of groups of individuals that the government says are protected as having human rights (weren't they born with them), they get to pay their taxes for their right to discriminate (churches, like corporations, are not really people, therefore are not born with human rights)
For a good portion of us, the offerings of a church or mosque or temple or other religious gathering place, is for our spiritual growth, and is aimed at improving the individuall. When a religious group decides they want to force their beliefs on everyone for "the greater good" they are trying to eliminate that very necessary part of spiritual growth--personal choice.
I do no grow spiritually because someone told me I had to, or because someone told me the only steps that would take me where I need to go. I can only grown, spiritually, when I make the choice to do what is right for my spirit.
Truly wise spiritual leaders are not control freaks.
And for all of you now in need of a wedding ceremony--be creative. You don't have the right to make people perform a ceremony. Make a better ceremony. Make a better holy place. Your rights do no include changing others anymore than their do.
I have known a lot of very creative, artistic, loving people with no desire to deny anyone else their right to a beautiful Wedding to begin their beautiful marriage. Leave out those hateful people and make it all about love.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Thursday, June 18, 2015
The Secession of Texas
If I were a prophet, I'd predict that Texas will secede.
Soon.
When it does, we need to do 5 things immediately:
But there are things I know.
Make a choice.
today.
(tomorrow, you get to decide again)
Soon.
When it does, we need to do 5 things immediately:
- Go down and take all their nuclear weapon capability--they are a much more hawkish place than Iran.
- Agree to it--no fighting, no arguing, the only stipulation being that those individuals that are afraid to stay get to leave without harm during the first six months and those individuals that think they might just be a Texan, get to enter for the first 6 months.
- Make a law that no person with ties to Texas can run for office in the USA and that they will be watched due to their possible ties to an enemy nation. ( i like this one, even if they don't secede)
- After the initial 6 months, seal the borders. We don't want a bunch of illegal immigrants coming up here for our jobs and bringing contraband in--like guns and bolo ties.
- Prepare another flag pole at all those 6-flags amusement parks, which will now be known as 7 flags--or will they just use one of the previous 6? I don't know how that will work.
But there are things I know.
- Everybody, no matter what race, religion, sex, socioeconomic group, or other divisive and man-made label you can place on another person, was born at the beginning of their life. They start their lives as babies then children and eventually adults, if they are fortunate enough to make it that far.
- Everyone one gets one day at a time. Their memories may be pleasant or horrific, many or few, vivid or viewed through a veil of chemicals and/or disease. Their future, which is never promised, only expected or hoped for or dreamed of, is always a mystery. On this point, we are equal, although many of us don't get that.
- We will all, each and everyone, get an opportunity to grow on each of those days. We might balk some days, or fight change or embrace paths we have been warned against, or try to find a person to follow or a person to follow us. We might refuse to make a single choice one day. We might decide (another word for making a choice) to do nothing all that day that we were not warned to avoid. We might struggle with internal demons. We might fight actual monsters. We might meet our own end. In this way, we are all equal.
- Each of our days, most of us get up, knowing that there is a sameness expected, much as we have faith the sun will rise. We also know, that something could change. We usually expect to have another chance tomorrow if today we fail.
- One day, each of us will die. What happens after that is not one of the things I know.
Make a choice.
today.
(tomorrow, you get to decide again)
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Teaching Critical Thinking!
I know, at my work, every improvement project comes down to improved problem solving and critical thinking. I've heard that same thing discussed in regards to both public education of our children and from other people that are trying to manage a workforce. I've also heard it recently in reference to 9 year old children.
We talking about teaching that skill set, but what we really want to do is learn em, durn em.
The one thing that teachers, parents, managers have in common is a desire to control other people. We want to make them do the things they should do, stop them from doing the things they shouldn't do and have them wake up with the ability to "think their way our of a wet paperbag".
How do you teach critical thinking?
My mother would tell you that "practice makes perfect." My father would say, "do it, just start, how are you going to make that work". My mother was an amazingly capable control freak but my father was the problem solver. He could fix things, and make things that had never existed before and find out what the problem was and then come up with a working solution. It was never perfect, and seldom the first time, but he was inevitably the victor over the issue.
Amazingly, very educated people want to turn critical thinking into a class--hopefully less than 1 hour long, and make everyone critical thinkers and problem solvers that can pass a valid and reliable test after that class. Unfortunately, most of us have had our ability to hunt for new solutions, find a problem's source and come up with ideas squelched by age 8.
By eight, we have been taught what to say, how to follow very specific directions, how to answer any question by finding a line in the book that the question is from that is almost the same as the question. Parents discourage their children from doing things that are messy or dangerous (danger: a thing that lurks everywhere so no child shall ever run a microwave, grill a sandwich, light a match or lighter, or even have bubble solution without the "appropriate" bubble blowing equipment. No parent would ever tell a child that has broken something, "now, how are you going to fix that" and actually expect a response and action.
TVs, computers, electronic devices, are everywhere and most 2 year olds can figure them out. They watch tv programs that give them the problem and solution, completely, without effort, with no possibility of failure. They play electronic games in which every problem can be solved using 1 or 2 fingers because the person who built the program included solutions for every problem. Their solutions--no other solutions are possible. They can even get books that read themselves. It isn't learning, it is entertainment. Real learning needs the struggle. If everything is easy, then no improvement in thinking ability occurs.
So what do we need to do to improve critical thinking? Most of us need to start with ourselves. Most of us have become very lazy in our thinking.
We have to learn to think, to problem solve, and the way to do that is practice. Let your kids solve their own problems. Not the truly dangerous ones for their age, but when they tell you they can't find something, don't go find it, ask them when they had it last. Ask them where they usually use it. Ask them when they last saw it--play Socrates and help them learn to ask the type of questions that can be used to narrow down possibilities. Don't teach them a set of "right" questions. There are no right or wrong questions. And there are no right or wrong answers. Critical thinking will not lead to a single yes or no response. It is an inquiry. It may take multiple inquiries to find a way to do a thing that works at all. It may take many more questions and searches to find the way to solve a problem that is both do-able and effective, economical and efficient. The old --"more than one way to skin a cat", while a disturbing image to we cat-lovers is the quintessential essence of critical thinking.
Of course, while thinking critically requires some creativity, it also requires discernment. It is not enough to someone to brainstorm how to get to the planet Mars on a bus for an hour. Imagination is a great, wonderful, and productively happy thing, but critical thinking also involves making choices about function, about availability, about the whole reality of a thing. The only way getting to Mars on a bus becomes viable is if you change the name of a space craft to a bus, then there is time, speed, managing fuel needs, is it coming back or a one way trip, life support, for how many, do you need to consider more than the optimum needs or consider the possibility of some or all crew having an increase in metabolism for whatever reason. I can imagine myself traipsing around the world on a purple unicorn, but while I can dream it, but I can not create a living, breathing unicorn, forget getting it to then submit to purple hair coloring solution.
So what am I saying? How do we teach critical thinking skills?
We teach them every day--or we stomp on them--everyday. We help our children, our family, our coworkers by letting them think while assisting them in their thinking in an open, no right or wrong answer, you can succeed but maybe not the first time--way. You model critical thinking. And that means talking outloud as you think through a problem. Lettimg them see your process, letting them make suggestions and then explaining in a nonderogatory, noncondescending way, why you can't use all of their suggestion.
And maybe, if you start young, and have patience, one day while you are sharing your process, they will solve your problem in a different but better way than you would. Be ok with that. Be proud.
You have now successfully taught someone critical thinking.
We talking about teaching that skill set, but what we really want to do is learn em, durn em.
The one thing that teachers, parents, managers have in common is a desire to control other people. We want to make them do the things they should do, stop them from doing the things they shouldn't do and have them wake up with the ability to "think their way our of a wet paperbag".
How do you teach critical thinking?
My mother would tell you that "practice makes perfect." My father would say, "do it, just start, how are you going to make that work". My mother was an amazingly capable control freak but my father was the problem solver. He could fix things, and make things that had never existed before and find out what the problem was and then come up with a working solution. It was never perfect, and seldom the first time, but he was inevitably the victor over the issue.
Amazingly, very educated people want to turn critical thinking into a class--hopefully less than 1 hour long, and make everyone critical thinkers and problem solvers that can pass a valid and reliable test after that class. Unfortunately, most of us have had our ability to hunt for new solutions, find a problem's source and come up with ideas squelched by age 8.
By eight, we have been taught what to say, how to follow very specific directions, how to answer any question by finding a line in the book that the question is from that is almost the same as the question. Parents discourage their children from doing things that are messy or dangerous (danger: a thing that lurks everywhere so no child shall ever run a microwave, grill a sandwich, light a match or lighter, or even have bubble solution without the "appropriate" bubble blowing equipment. No parent would ever tell a child that has broken something, "now, how are you going to fix that" and actually expect a response and action.
TVs, computers, electronic devices, are everywhere and most 2 year olds can figure them out. They watch tv programs that give them the problem and solution, completely, without effort, with no possibility of failure. They play electronic games in which every problem can be solved using 1 or 2 fingers because the person who built the program included solutions for every problem. Their solutions--no other solutions are possible. They can even get books that read themselves. It isn't learning, it is entertainment. Real learning needs the struggle. If everything is easy, then no improvement in thinking ability occurs.
So what do we need to do to improve critical thinking? Most of us need to start with ourselves. Most of us have become very lazy in our thinking.
We have to learn to think, to problem solve, and the way to do that is practice. Let your kids solve their own problems. Not the truly dangerous ones for their age, but when they tell you they can't find something, don't go find it, ask them when they had it last. Ask them where they usually use it. Ask them when they last saw it--play Socrates and help them learn to ask the type of questions that can be used to narrow down possibilities. Don't teach them a set of "right" questions. There are no right or wrong questions. And there are no right or wrong answers. Critical thinking will not lead to a single yes or no response. It is an inquiry. It may take multiple inquiries to find a way to do a thing that works at all. It may take many more questions and searches to find the way to solve a problem that is both do-able and effective, economical and efficient. The old --"more than one way to skin a cat", while a disturbing image to we cat-lovers is the quintessential essence of critical thinking.
Of course, while thinking critically requires some creativity, it also requires discernment. It is not enough to someone to brainstorm how to get to the planet Mars on a bus for an hour. Imagination is a great, wonderful, and productively happy thing, but critical thinking also involves making choices about function, about availability, about the whole reality of a thing. The only way getting to Mars on a bus becomes viable is if you change the name of a space craft to a bus, then there is time, speed, managing fuel needs, is it coming back or a one way trip, life support, for how many, do you need to consider more than the optimum needs or consider the possibility of some or all crew having an increase in metabolism for whatever reason. I can imagine myself traipsing around the world on a purple unicorn, but while I can dream it, but I can not create a living, breathing unicorn, forget getting it to then submit to purple hair coloring solution.
So what am I saying? How do we teach critical thinking skills?
We teach them every day--or we stomp on them--everyday. We help our children, our family, our coworkers by letting them think while assisting them in their thinking in an open, no right or wrong answer, you can succeed but maybe not the first time--way. You model critical thinking. And that means talking outloud as you think through a problem. Lettimg them see your process, letting them make suggestions and then explaining in a nonderogatory, noncondescending way, why you can't use all of their suggestion.
And maybe, if you start young, and have patience, one day while you are sharing your process, they will solve your problem in a different but better way than you would. Be ok with that. Be proud.
You have now successfully taught someone critical thinking.
Thursday, June 4, 2015
TPP and creating a global market.
It's in the news, still.
"The TPP, which will include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, as well as the US, is a critical component of President Barack Obama’s so-called pivot to Asia, a strategy to counter China’s rising economic and diplomatic influence.
The US Congress resumes sessions on June 1 after a 10-day Memorial Day holiday recess."
I want a 10 day Memorial Day holiday recess!
Seriously though, it looks like this thing that "takes NAFTA even further", the thing that made it impossible to "buy American", is being shoved through.
NAFTA (effective 1994) affected U.S. workers in four principal ways.
First, it caused the loss of some 700,000 jobs as production moved to Mexico. Most of these losses came in California, Texas, Michigan, and other states where manufacturing is concentrated. (isn't that where detroit is--was---)
Second, NAFTA strengthened the ability of U.S. employers to force workers to accept lower wages and benefits.
Third, the destructive effect of NAFTA on the Mexican agricultural and small business sectors dislocated several million Mexican workers and their families, and was a major cause in the dramatic increase in undocumented workers flowing into the U.S. labor market.
Fourth, NAFTA was the template for rules of the emerging global economy, in which the benefits would flow to capital and the costs to labor. The U.S. governing class—in alliance with the financial elites of its trading partners—applied NAFTA’s principles to the World Trade Organization, to the policies of the World Bank and IMF, and to the deal under which employers of China’s huge supply of low-wage workers were allowed access to U.S. markets in exchange for allowing American multinational corporations the right to invest there.
Here is a table showing how things look before and after NAFTA.
In 1982, we had a "recession" which is apparently a lot like a depression but with inflation.In 2007, we had not had the minimum wage earners lower since a minimum wage was started. The 2 increases to the minimum wage occurred in response to the economic meltdown that occurred in 2007. Thankfully, we did not have to try the austerity method Europe used, and which has still not worked.
We did not pop back to the sixties or even the 50's or 70's after NAFTA. In fact, being at the bottom in the USA is still a lot like being at the bottom during the Great depression, and has been since the 1980's brought us Dallas on TV while we had a tent city on our river bank from homelessness. If you are making more than the average annual income, feel lucky. That number is elevated by including those billionaire outliers in the numbers. If you average 1 minimum wage earner in 2007 with one Fortune 400 CEO, then the average income is about 10 billion for those 2 people. One of those 2 is probably having a hard time with rent and getting to work without making sacrifices in the budget. The other one doesn't really understand the whole budget concept. Any new business arrangement that is only aimed at business success, and not at regular people success is not going to produce positive life changes for the majority of us.
I keep hoping the TPP doesn't happen. It offers me no personal benefit and potentially causes my descendants a lot of hardship. I have no problem with a global economy. I don't mind buying things from other countries. I hate that if everything is made somewhere else, it won't take much to cause a real problem here.
Every country that has been dependent on someone else to grow their food, make their clothes, make their shoes, produce their medications is at risk of offending the nation that is doing that and suffering an embargo.
Right now, lets start with the basics, food, water, shelter, shoes and clothing, and then head on up the to the more luxurious things, books, electronics, perfumes, coffee (one of my basics), bananas, diamonds, gold, cars and see what we would actually have here if someone decided that we could not import. Then we can look at what we would have a glut of if we could not export.
I like the idea of the global economy, but my ideal is more fair trade and less back room politics. I don't particularly like making rich people richer. I thoroughly enjoy buying local--local like the flea market and farmers market and not like another branch of wallyworld. The Walton's have so much money that if they never work again, their great great grandkids would still be rich. Putting my money in Walmart is the equivalent of trying to store my water in space--just gone; no hope of any personal return.
So, I would like more global trade agreements, but only if they are based on everyone, everywhere making a living wage. I want the money I spend on an ink pen from some other country to help the person that made that ink pen buy food and clothes, educational toys, hope for the future of their children. The thought that I am buying an ink pen that used to be made in my home town, but that the people that worked in that factory are now unemployed and the people that are now making that pen are locked in a dirty bunkhouse between shifts and not even making enough to buy one of those ink pens, that disturbs me. The thought that the makers are small children, or are owned by the factory, or are in any way being used or abused to make the money I paid for that ink pen and that goes to someone that can't decide if they wants their 5th house to be in a tropical climate or a winter wonderland, that makes me want to write with the burnt end of a stick.
And no, its not just business--its all personal.
"The TPP, which will include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, as well as the US, is a critical component of President Barack Obama’s so-called pivot to Asia, a strategy to counter China’s rising economic and diplomatic influence.
The US Congress resumes sessions on June 1 after a 10-day Memorial Day holiday recess."
I want a 10 day Memorial Day holiday recess!
Seriously though, it looks like this thing that "takes NAFTA even further", the thing that made it impossible to "buy American", is being shoved through.
NAFTA (effective 1994) affected U.S. workers in four principal ways.
First, it caused the loss of some 700,000 jobs as production moved to Mexico. Most of these losses came in California, Texas, Michigan, and other states where manufacturing is concentrated. (isn't that where detroit is--was---)
Second, NAFTA strengthened the ability of U.S. employers to force workers to accept lower wages and benefits.
Third, the destructive effect of NAFTA on the Mexican agricultural and small business sectors dislocated several million Mexican workers and their families, and was a major cause in the dramatic increase in undocumented workers flowing into the U.S. labor market.
Fourth, NAFTA was the template for rules of the emerging global economy, in which the benefits would flow to capital and the costs to labor. The U.S. governing class—in alliance with the financial elites of its trading partners—applied NAFTA’s principles to the World Trade Organization, to the policies of the World Bank and IMF, and to the deal under which employers of China’s huge supply of low-wage workers were allowed access to U.S. markets in exchange for allowing American multinational corporations the right to invest there.
Here is a table showing how things look before and after NAFTA.
| year | minimum wage/hour | average annual income | average cost of a car | average cost of a gallon of milk | minimum annual income | minimum to average | Average hourly income | hours of minimum to buy a gal of milk | ||
| 1938 | $0.25 | $1,700 | $700 | $0.50 | $520.00 | 31% | $0.81 | >3 | ||
| 1940 | ||||||||||
| 1945 | $0.40 | $2,900 | $1,250 | $0.62 | $832.00 | 29% | $1.39 | >1 | ||
| 1950 | $0.75 | $3,800 | $1,750 | $0.82 | $1,560.00 | 41% | $1.82 | >2 | ||
| 1956 | $1.00 | $5,300 | $2,100 | $0.97 | $2,080.00 | 39% | $2.54 | >2 | ||
| 1960 | ||||||||||
| 1968 | $1.60 | $6,583 | $2,822 | $1.07 | $3,328.00 | 63% | $2.55 | <2 | ||
| 1970 | ||||||||||
| 1974 | $2.00 | $9,780 | $3,750 | $1.57 | $4,160.00 | 50% | $4.70 | >2 | ||
| 1979 | $2.90 | $14,896 | $5,770 | $1.62 | $6,032.00 | 41% | $7.16 | <1 | ||
| 1980 | ||||||||||
| 1990 | $3.80 | $28,149 | $16,000 | $2.78 | $7,904.00 | 28% | $13.53 | <1 | ||
| 1997 | $5.15 | $35,788 | $16,900 | $3.22 | $10,712.00 | 30% | $17.20 | <1 | ||
| 2000 | ||||||||||
| 2007 | $5.85 | $48,729 | $27,950.00 | $3.13 | $12,168.00 | 25% | $23.42 | <1 | ||
| 2008 | $6.55 | $48,762 | $2.65 | $13,624.00 | 28% | $23.44 | <1 | |||
| 2009 | $7.25 | $48,276 | $2.69 | $15,080.00 | 31% | $23.20 | <1 |
In 1982, we had a "recession" which is apparently a lot like a depression but with inflation.In 2007, we had not had the minimum wage earners lower since a minimum wage was started. The 2 increases to the minimum wage occurred in response to the economic meltdown that occurred in 2007. Thankfully, we did not have to try the austerity method Europe used, and which has still not worked.
We did not pop back to the sixties or even the 50's or 70's after NAFTA. In fact, being at the bottom in the USA is still a lot like being at the bottom during the Great depression, and has been since the 1980's brought us Dallas on TV while we had a tent city on our river bank from homelessness. If you are making more than the average annual income, feel lucky. That number is elevated by including those billionaire outliers in the numbers. If you average 1 minimum wage earner in 2007 with one Fortune 400 CEO, then the average income is about 10 billion for those 2 people. One of those 2 is probably having a hard time with rent and getting to work without making sacrifices in the budget. The other one doesn't really understand the whole budget concept. Any new business arrangement that is only aimed at business success, and not at regular people success is not going to produce positive life changes for the majority of us.
I keep hoping the TPP doesn't happen. It offers me no personal benefit and potentially causes my descendants a lot of hardship. I have no problem with a global economy. I don't mind buying things from other countries. I hate that if everything is made somewhere else, it won't take much to cause a real problem here.
Every country that has been dependent on someone else to grow their food, make their clothes, make their shoes, produce their medications is at risk of offending the nation that is doing that and suffering an embargo.
Right now, lets start with the basics, food, water, shelter, shoes and clothing, and then head on up the to the more luxurious things, books, electronics, perfumes, coffee (one of my basics), bananas, diamonds, gold, cars and see what we would actually have here if someone decided that we could not import. Then we can look at what we would have a glut of if we could not export.
I like the idea of the global economy, but my ideal is more fair trade and less back room politics. I don't particularly like making rich people richer. I thoroughly enjoy buying local--local like the flea market and farmers market and not like another branch of wallyworld. The Walton's have so much money that if they never work again, their great great grandkids would still be rich. Putting my money in Walmart is the equivalent of trying to store my water in space--just gone; no hope of any personal return.
So, I would like more global trade agreements, but only if they are based on everyone, everywhere making a living wage. I want the money I spend on an ink pen from some other country to help the person that made that ink pen buy food and clothes, educational toys, hope for the future of their children. The thought that I am buying an ink pen that used to be made in my home town, but that the people that worked in that factory are now unemployed and the people that are now making that pen are locked in a dirty bunkhouse between shifts and not even making enough to buy one of those ink pens, that disturbs me. The thought that the makers are small children, or are owned by the factory, or are in any way being used or abused to make the money I paid for that ink pen and that goes to someone that can't decide if they wants their 5th house to be in a tropical climate or a winter wonderland, that makes me want to write with the burnt end of a stick.
And no, its not just business--its all personal.
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