Letter to Leonard

This is Leonard Pitts, Jr.'s latest piece:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/02/21/1492484/facts-no-longer-mean-what-they.html

I decided to write him an e-mail! ("Letter" was better alliteration for the title, albeit slightly inaccurate) :)

Hello Mr. Pitts,

I am a big fan of your column -- some days it's the only thing worth reading in the paper. One of your latest pieces inspired me to write to you, even though I don't really have anything to say except to offer some solidarity in your opinions about the new role facts have been given.

As a college student, I have been newly introduced to the world of debate. It seems I spend half my life pointing out or countering logical fallacies, and the other half trying to find "legitimate" sources from which to pull facts -- in order just to have my argument heard. This is all great fun, of course, (why else would I put myself through it?) but it is exceedingly frustrating to waste so much time simply searching for a worthy enough source of facts for my opponent's worldview.
A mini-documentary interview was taken at a recent Sarah Palin book signing in Columbus, Ohio by a few guys who call themselves New Left Media. It was an entertaining and depressingly enlightening look into the minds of some very ignorant people. In addition to receiving the traditional YouTube bashing, New Left Media soon had to write a lengthy disclaimer to go along with the video, refuting claims of cherry-picking the interviews and asking skewed questions. Instead of directing their scrutiny at the (lack of) fact content of the interviewees' claims of Palin's qualifications, the "skeptics" directed it at the motive of the documentary. It's a strange world, to be sure.

So, as depressing as it was, your article was a good read, and much appreciated by those of us who still hold out for facts. Thanks

Ella Minnow Pea

Request to Portland

Hello Portland. Today I got on a bus, intending to go to PSU and do some job hunting. While I will not blame you for the rate of unemployment (today, anyway), I will suggest that you renovate your transit system.

Though it is relatively reliable, travels at a decent speed, and has generally comfortable seats, it seems to lack a certain feature. This feature, of course, is the one that would alert the driver, by way of panicked brainwaves, that a certain passenger has just realized that she has gotten on the wrong bus. Or the right bus, headed the wrong way, in my case. Anyway, the idea is, the bus would then jerk to a stop and, by way of GPS, immediately summon another bus (the correct one, preferably) to pick up said passenger, and get her safely on her way.

It would go over well, I think. I’m sure there are some stimulus dollars laying around that we could use to fund the research and construction of “panic brainwave sensors.” To write to your legislators about panic brainwave sensors, or something else, visit this site: http://www.leg.state.or.us/kids/ I learned a lot there. ;)

"Stupid" is not a virtue

Why are people like Glenn Beck and George Bush and Sarah Palin popular? After all, they are terrible politicians (and terrible comedians, in Beck’s case). Is it because they are “people people,” as it were? Good old folks. Back to basics. No “funny talk” or jargon, just gudol’ fashinned speechers. They're just as dumb as you or me. Probably dumber. Is that supposed to be comforting?

When did stupid become the new cool? People like Sarah Palin are the epitome of anti-intellectualism. Since when did having a college degree become something to hide, or something to have thrown back in your face? When did having any semblance of a vocabulary become grounds for ridicule? I know that when I was in grade school, being smart was a social death sentence (I was anyway). But somehow I hoped that would change when we all, you know, grew up. So much for “hopey changey stuff,” as Palin quipped.

Why are women still encouraged to play dumb to get people to do things for them? Why are men under such social pressure to be more interested in college football than college academics, even when they are not interested? In this day and age when college is basically a given, how did we get into such an anti-intellectual state?

“I remind people that, like when I’m with Condi I say, she’s the Ph.D. and I’m the C-student, and just look at who’s the President and who’s the advisor.” – G.W. Bush

As hilarious as this is, this man was president – the person supposedly running the country. A man who should value knowledge more than most. What a scary, scary future.


http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/bushquotes/a/dumbbushquotes.htm

Nationalism

Dear readers,

Being unemployed, I spend a lot of time doing… well, absolutely nothing. But I also spend more time than likely is humanly appropriate answering questions on Yahoo! Answers. Last time my ex called from BCT and greeted, "Hey, whatchya doing?" my answer was "researching anarchy." "Oh. Going somewhere?" he asked. "Nope. Yahoo! Answers." "Oh, you must be bored, then. Good thing I called."

Indeed. But, as generally insipid as most of the questions are, a few have educational merit, and I find I can handle not being in college better by writing ten-page replies to such questions.

This one was about nationalism. I have a special place in my heart for nationalism. It’s called the hellfire pit. I am not a big fan of nationalism at all. Yet the question called for the cons and pros.

So, firstly, there are many different types of "-nationalism." As usual, the more extreme it gets, the fewer positive aspects there are to be found.

I suppose nationalism, in itself, has some positive aspects. It allows us some introspection, to rein ourselves in when maybe we need to look to our countries' own needs and commit some acts of self-preservation, or to support each other. September 11, 2001 was an example of such a time for the citizens of the U.S. The reaction of the people (not the president; he goes in the next paragraph) to the bombing, as it were, of the WTC was that of consolation. There was a great rise of nationalism from the American people, and it was to reflect on what had happened, and mourn the loss of so many.

It’s when you start adding pre-fixes to the word that things get mincy. When nationalism oversteps its bounds, and becomes "Extra-" or "Ultra-" nationalism [1], I think it ceases to be seen as a positive thing, and becomes a source of "ethnic cleansing" and the like. Using my previous example: the nationalism stemming from the 9/11 attacks inflated to Ultra-nationalism. All of a sudden, it was not enough just to console each other. We (urged by Pres. Bush) used our nationalism to justify all sorts of things, from invading other countries, to detaining U.S. citizens on the basis of religion, skin color, choice of clothing, and even just their names. [2] [3]

Nationalism has every to do with what's going on still. Nine years later, we’re still in a war. It’s mutated into a war perpetuated for some other end, but the basis is still ultra-nationalism. It's perpetuated by millions of flag-waving, "troop-supporting" Americans who can't seem to let the death toll bother them. It’s affected how we interact with other countries (they hate us), it’s affected the way we view ourselves, how we even view our own sense of nationalism.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism
[2]http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/watch-lists
[3] http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/unlikely-suspects

Engrish as a Second Language

Dear readers,

I recently had a discussion/debate with my father and one of my cousins on Facebook (which I’m not supposed to do; the whole point of this blog is so I don’t piss my FB friends off!) about speaking English in the U.S.

It started with my dad sending me a humorous new "status" people were posting these days:

WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Press 1 for English. Press 2 to disconnect until you learn to speak English. And remember only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, JESUS CHRIST and the AMERICAN SOLIDER [editor's note: "soldier"]. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom. If you agree... copy and paste in your status.

Ignorant America strikes again! I think it's ridiculous how hypocritical some Americans can be. We invite people to this country! We outdo ourselves trying to make everything as diverse as possible. We give out special scholarships to people of different cultures in order to entice them to go to our universities, to give the universities "diversity points." We pride ourselves on being the biggest, most diverse "melting pot" on the planet. We want everyone to admire our country, yet we don't want anyone actually coming to it. So, why then, should we do all that, and then expect everyone to meld to our culture, and learn our language, and act like us, etc? We make a point to be known as "America, the greatest country ever, land of the free, the land of plenty, everyone wants to be us," and then turn around and have this ignorant, xenophobic, nationalistic attitude.

I confess I can’t identify with this viewpoint at all. I think it’s really cool that we have so many different types of people in this country. On the occasion that I am completely surrounded by people not speaking English, I can’t decide whether I want to try to figure out what languages are being spoken, and maybe listen in on ones I know, or to just close my eyes and revel in the experience.

I looked up U.S. languages, and even including immigrants, 96% of the people in America speak English "well" (which I find surprising, immigrants or no) while English is the main language of only 82% of the population. 12% speak Spanish, with only half of that number not fluent in English as well [1]. So that's less than 6% of Spanish speakers who can’t speak English at all. Which brings us to the 4% of all Americans who speak poor or no English. I personally grew up with at least 1.5% of these people in E. Oregon, and they are natural-born citizens. ;) Ok, I made that last one up. :)

So really, there aren’t that many people to complain about – it's a very small minority. I'm not even going to try to address the Jesus and "Solider" issue…

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States

Support the... nevermind!

Dear readers,

There seems to be an annoyingly common viewpoint going around these days, that seems to limit the scope of opinion even further than before. Now, not only are people who support the troops supporting all types of war and military everywhere since the beginning of time in the same breath, if you don't support all war and military everywhere since the beginning of time, you are a hard-hearted bitch who hates peoples' sons and brothers.
Throughout my life (most of it in the last nine years) I have learned to cringe at the phrase "support the troops." This is because it does not mean what it says. The only people I know of that say "support the troops" are staunch Republicans who really mean to say, "Support the Iraq war, go Bush!" and they seemingly couldn't care less who the troops were. And really, until the "Support the troops: bring them home" stickers started popping up on other peoples' cars, that was the only viewpoint about troops.

This makes it horrendously difficult for a lot of people, including me, to bring themselves to say anything positive or encouraging about the troops, lest anyone assumes their support of the war, as well. So the problem is on both sides: You can't "dis" the military without insulting the troops, and you can't support the troops as people without supporting the military, too. This is perpetuated by all manner of bumper sticker sayings that get vomited all over Facebook and Myspace and Twitter, and all manner of instant, shallow, 180-character-generated opinion spewers. "If you don't stand behind the troops, feel free to stand in front of them," "Freedom is Not Free," etc.
It would be nice if the two were not so interconnected, and one could form her own opinions about things without a tedious amount of assumption-rebuffing!

America, meet Doubting Thomas

Dear readers,

Merry Christmas! Now, let's talk about atheism.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-12-10-clergy-ethics-abuse_N.htm

I am very pleased to announce that it appears that atheism is on the rise! Or at least, non-religious affiliation is. It seems that “you can fool some people sometimes, but you can’t fool all the people all the time” is actually an observation and not just a song lyric these days.

For a while there, it seemed as if religious nuts could get away with anything and everything and still have a huge, devoted following. Children burned by their own parents in Nigeria [1]for being labeled “witches” by local priests, young boys molested by Catholic priests, mass suicide and murder by kool-aid, stem-cell research bans in effect in AMERICA, creationist textbooks in high schools, the list is already too long, and I’ve barely covered the last few decades.

I wonder what seems to have caused people to spurn religion. As they point out in the article, it doesn’t seem to be directly linked to scandals, since there are a much higher number of denouncers now than right after the Catholic pedophile scandals came to light in 2001. It could be that there aren’t actually MORE non-religious people at all, that they were there the whole time, but now are more are willing to admit to it. I think that this is caused by a knowledge-induced tolerance. Because we know more, more is accepted. There are more homosexuals than ever before, but it’s not like homosexuality is what’s contagious. The confidence and tolerance is. In the same way, increased tolerance of atheism makes people more happy to admit that they are.

Or perhaps knowledge is the culprit in another respect. Because of knowledge, there are fewer mysteries in the world. New explanations soon become household knowledge, and maybe this generation of people no longer feels the need to search out alternate explanations. If people don’t need an explanation, all that’s left of religion is the “comfort” of God and congregation, a sense of belonging. Which probably doesn’t hold much sway with people after the sex scandals.

Whatever the theories, Doubting Thomas is on the up and up!

[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/dec/09/tracymcveigh.theobserver