Shades of self

This message,from Elon James White, threw some light on a core ignorance of the Doser. The thesis of White's article is that black people do not have common black-people thoughts and feelings. He ended his revelation with the following statement:

"I hope that my message is clear. After reading this, the next time you talk to a Black person you can feel comfortable in now knowing with every fiber of your being that you have no clue what they think or feel based on their skin color."

The Doser is reading Blackmon Slavery by Another Name - which, The Doser mused, seemed to give a believable explanation to why "black people seem, mysteriously,to be unable to succeed in the American system like other peoples (Asiatics in particular),newcomers who take to our system and succeed quickly in it." (The Doser confesses he actually said such a thing.) Well, that means the Doser just flat-out flunked the awareness test. That means the Doser rates high on the bigotry scale. There isn't, according to White's article, any group of black people. Just like the Doser is not a member of a white people group just so no black person is a member of a black group. With blacks, just as it is absolutely so as it is to whites, there is no way to say, "Every white person seems to........." No, just NO!

So, does this realization further the "cause of the black people?" Well, no, since there are no "black people," so they don't have a "black peoples' cause." How can they even be thought of to have a "cause." It does further the Doser's climb from bigotry, however.

President O'Bama has signed into law the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. He has taken come flack from those who note the inconsistency of being a smoker and signing such a bill. No flack from the Doser on that one: it demonstrates, even more persuasively, the horrendous power of tobacco.
This legislation (not to mention the suet that stuck itself to this popular bill) has several effects. Among those that seem the most valuable to the Doser are noted as follows.:Gives FDA power to regulate tobacco; requires manufacturers to reveal the contents of tobacco products; provides for a biennial Health Department inspection; protects nicotine from the zeal of the FDA.The Doser gives this one a hearty Μπραβω! Tobacco products cause the death of 400,000 Americans annually and the killing process is both expensive and painful. It is the number one preventable cause of death in America. "Preventable" because it can be prevented by one or two straightforward actions: 1. Don't start. 2. Just quit. Number one is so easy - number two can be desperately difficult.

Rubbing money on it helps.

A Portland family will become almost millionaires with the settlement, as yet tentative, for the death of their mentally-ill adult son. It is unlikely that any of the settlement relates to the cost of support for people who were reliant upon the deceased. Thus, Portland people will be paying a very large part of that amount for what are expected as punitive damages and costs of litigation if the case goes to court. As one of the commissioners remarks: "... we live in a litigious society." The Doser says that our legal system, in that it allows only money damages for torts, is archaic and dumb. Even dumber in the case of torts against public offices and officers. It is tolerated only because nobody has come up with a more sensible procedure. We exacerbate the problem by believing that somehow blame for every disliked event must be assigned. (For example, people are already lining up a drug-prescribing doctor to take the fall for the death of our talented twit.)

Reason can, actually, prevail.

In Portland, perennially ailing baseball is jettisoned in favor of possibly viable soccer. No expense is needed to build a stadium. The next nit-wit scheme the City of Portland can let go of is the idea that 39th Avenue needs to be re-named. Nobody is saying that Cesar Chavez should not be honored - what many are saying is: "Name a new project after the honoree rather than disrupt a passel of people to do it." The Doser is encouraged.

Fasoli, fasoli yematei sakouli.

The Doser got a cordial note from Michelle O'bama asking him to put some action where his inaugural day resolves were. As a result of technical advances recently made, and as a result of the O'Bama administration facility in using them, one is enabled to respond with action to the Kennedy rhetorical question "ask what you can do for your country" The Doser was pleased to be provided with a well-organized presentation of possible "doings." The Doser's letter from the O'bamas is being sent under separate cover.

God not at fault.

A religious couple are going to trial for manslaughter and criminal mistreatment relating to the death of their 15 month old baby. The doctors say that the child could have been saved with antibiotics. The couple refused medical aid and held to the idea that God would intervene. Most parents would do "anything" to save the life of their child. Few of them would let the child die for an opinion. The Worthingtons did.

From a religious point of view, what was going on there? Were the couple testing the power of God to heal their child? Or were they testing their opinion that God could be prevailed upon by their beliefs and actions to heal their child? Anybody who believes in God posits God's power to do anything. So, presumably, these parents were not testing the ability of God to heal their child. The test they were making was of their religious opinions - and whether they were sufficiently strong to persuade God to heal the baby. To believe that is not standard religion but belief in magic.

So,then, from a parental,legal point of view, what was going on there? How does depriving their child of needed medicine compare with other parental neglects? Let us say that it comes into the parents' heads that, though they have food, it would be a test of their opinions to leave the provision of food for their baby to God. Or, let's say their child tears out the seat of his trousers at school and comes to his parents to have them mended. Or, if they see their child suspended over an abyss with only a weakening thread preventing his death. Or if the child takes up a dangerous habit like smoking. Or, as a toddler, their child is trying to run out into traffic. Would they also leave these ordinary necessary parental actions to God?

The Doser considers them to be, at least, guilty of manslaughter and criminal mistreatment.

Ball-park to burgeon burb.

The Doser has difficulty fathoming the rationale for the idea, held by at least part of the Portland City Council, that building an expensive baseball park for, perhaps as many as 3000, idlers to view ball games will bring vitality to the depressed Lents area.

Marijuana, the Demon Cause of Crime.

The O. this morning, June 17,2009, provided an example of the common sort of drug war propaganda which tries to get us to believe that marijuana use explains a lot of criminal conduct. The story was of two teen-agers that went on a spree vandalizing property with fascist symbols. The article gratuitously points out that they had recently used marijuana. (The implication being that one should immediately realize that the cause of such deviant conduct could only be marijuana.)

We'll protect you, little brother.

A de-militarized Palestinian state is not to be considered a valid, sovereign state under the world rules that now prevail. The Doser wonders if a different process may not be used: Could a fang-less Palestine be provided a military assurance, subsidized by the rest of the world, that it could call defense into play in the event Israeli hard-liners do what they like to do?

The fickle finger of blame.

It seems to The Doser that we're more often, these days, trying to fix blame rather than trying to fix the problem. Even "fixing blame" seems to have become a watered-down process: If a scapegoat is designated, the selection of that fall-guy depends on how highly-placed the "actual wrong-doer" was (the farther down the patsy pecking order the scapegoat is depends on how well-empowered the faulty one is.) May one hope that the scrutiny of the possible VA Aids installation will not prove to be another Congressional lime-light grab followed by another janitor's head falling?

Better little than nothing.

Perhaps it is better to have a subsidized medically-operated health care system than none at all. Dem. willingness for "a speedy compromise" health plan means that the Dems. can't marshall a full-plan medical parade.

Hate - Anti-abortion variety

Hatred of other people can be based on many issues. It exists in America in most of its historical brands - and we are an armed populace with protection to encourage action and freedom to act. Bill O'Reilly is an example of a Constitutionally-protected provocateur. He is, by no means, the only one. He is, however, the most highly-paid and most notorious. One of his biases relates to abortion. To air that bias he has, essentially, been saying: "Tiller, the abortionist, is a murderer of children, and he is protected by the government, but you (any one of three and one half million listeners) will be justified in killing him." O'Reilly has no connection (except through his rhetoric) with the crazed hater that went over and shot Tiller. It would be difficult to prove that Scott Roeder ever even listened to the O'Reilly Factor. In a recent Rachel Maddox interview, the dangers of the solitary McVeigh-like actor and the excesses permitted a broad-caster like O'Reilly are discussed. The conclusion is that O'Reilly is protected for saying those inflammatory things and that the ordinary laws (not anti-terrorism approaches) are the only protection from the results of his conduct.
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Outre outrage.

The Reps have initiated a big so-called "ethics" flap by making "violation of the public trust" accusations against two ingenuous Dems. It seemed the Dems put in writing an "I'll-scratch-your-back-if-you'll-scratch-mine" deal they'd made with a wily Rep. Essentially, the deal was that the Dems would support some measures important to the Rep, if the Rep would support a tax measure the Dems wanted. At last count, The Doser knows of only three naive Oregonians that believe that legislative measures are passed solely on the basis of persuasive oratory. Everybody else believes that they are passed,usually, on the basis of tit-for-tat agreements. Deals like: I will support measures that you are interested in if you will support a measure that I favor.

Change is not always good.

Those of us that remember our joy when "Shah" was over-thrown in Iran would do well to temper our hopefulness regarding the "overthrow" process that may be going on there now.

Recusal refusal.

Every single honest judge in the US, without exception, recuses himself or herself when there exists a possibility of the "appearance of a personal involvement" with a contestant before the court. Justice Scalia did not do that in an appeal relating to a matter in which the Sierra Club was involved. The Supreme Court is now expounding a rule that judges should step out of cases that involve big money contributors to their election. The Supreme Court does not need to make a ruling that judges should avoid the appearance of personal involvement. It is already a hard-and-fast rule that all honest judges follow. By definition, dishonest judges don't follow the rules and can't be expected to follow this one.

No silk purse out of this sow's ear.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., The Doser's second choice for candidate for President in 2008, remarks about the interminable Republican effort to characterize Supreme Court Appointee Sonia Sotomayor as a "racist." The title of the column is to the point: "When lacking facts, try for confusion." The whole frantic effort - largely carried by Tom Tancredo and Rush Limbaugh - was based on a 2001 statement of the appointee. Eight years stale and and certainly of a sort that reasonable minds could say - "....she could say that in my presence and I wouldn't even cut her off my Christmas card list, let alone say I don't want her on the Supreme Court." As Leonard Pitts, Jr. (!Pitts for President in 2016!) concluded: "Based on one foolish quote, we have spent a week asking if Sonia Sotomayor is a racist. I'd call that mission accomplished. And I wish Kutcher would come out already."

The cost of illegal abortions.

This article describes what the anti-abortionists want for our sisters, daughters and wives - and theirs.

Just a pat-on-the-back to the Oregon Department of Standards and Training. It demanded that Multnomah County Sheriff Bob Skipper meet the fitness training rules for Sheriff's employees. Correct! That was the rule that the legislature had provided for the Department's function. When Sheriff Skipper asked for a reasonable, fully warranted, waiver, the Department refused it. Correct! There was no legislative direction to grant a waiver under those circumstances. Correct! When The Oregonian pressed that the Department should rightly grant a waiver, the Department did not act to grant a waiver. Correct! The legislature had not directed the Department to respond to journalistic advices. The legislature changed the law to allow the waiver. The Department granted it. Correct! And, when The Doser thinks about it, he is enormously pleased. The Oregon Department of Standards and Training responds to the legislature that created it and not to other pressures, albeit rational ones.

Plane Crash

The Doser thinks that, since the storm over the Central Atlantic was severe enough to tear the Flight 447 plane apart, it would seem to have been a storm that would have warranted turning a bit easterly across Africa, and then north to France. rather than proceeding directly on the great circle route.

Mistake

The Doser discovers O'Bama mistakes only very reluctantly. The President made a mistake in Saudi Arabia. Setting the stage a bit: President O'Bama is the leader of a country that supports the Arab anathema, Israel. He is the leader of the country that has armies in two Muslim countries. He received the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit and, here's his mistake, he took it off in the presence of the Saudi officials! It is reported that they demurred and he explained that he wanted to put it away for safe-keeping. Mistake! He should be wearing the medal even with his pajamas these days.