Some More "Inconvienient Truths"

 We have a number of inconvieneient truths for you today.  That’s kind of our theme of the day and our first inconvienient theme is that we are doing this Word file in pink.  Today is Wednesday November 20, 2013.   Let’s talk about race.  Mario made a lot of very good points today.  People say statements like “Blacks are the most racist people” or “Latinos are the most racist people” or combining the two, “Blacks and Latinos have a natural hostility tword each other”.  Mario asks “Compared to who?  It’s a natural fact of nature that everyone, no matter what group them are a part of, racial or otherwise, has a natural fear of “the other”.   It was pointed out that both Blacks and Latinos are far more inclined to marry outside their race than are white.  Mario says that in 1958 only four percent of the marriages nation-wide, were mixed-race marriages.  But apparently this figure has risen to only 17% or something in 2010.  It makes you wonder where all these light skinned Black people came from if there haven’t been any mixed marriages since the days of slavery.  Those white slave owners must have been awfully busy.   It’s also an inconvienient truth that the United States was the last major nation to end slavery, and in fact people took to calling Slavery, “The peculiar institution”.   Mexico abandoned slavery- - made it illegal - - 38 years before it was legally ended in this nation, so that would put it at some point in the 1820’s.    Then the charge is made that Blacks and minorities were more bigoted about accepting people with AIDS than was the white race, because for a while at least it was just a white, urban gay problem, like those bath houses in San Francisco.  I can’t imagine being in a place like that.   Magic Johnson (and it’s no secret he’s a cosmic Taccoman, if you read out stuff) contracted the HIV virus in the fall of 1991 right in the middle of basketball season.  I remember that clearly.  Mario was talking about how back then people will used calling cards with pay phones.  Actually at that time my brother and his wife had a computer and of course Billy had a computer, back when he was still living in that one story apartment over on Lemon Street.  And the people that bought parent’s house (and you’ll remember I attended a Bible study there with Jack the day of the partial eclipse of the sun) and they claimed to have the Internet.  But I imagine it was dial up.  Back then Windows 3.1 still had what they called the “Terminal” application, and it’s interesting looking at that manuel now.  But Mario went on to talk about Hospisses for people with terminal AIDS since back then AIDS was a death sentence.   Gay people living now may not remember what that was like, to see all of your friends die one by one.  (It was as bad as the draft in my generation)  Magic Johnson has a lot of money and could have retired and lived his life in leisure, but made it a point to ask what he could do and to step up to the plate and be public about it.  I admire him for that.

And now we come to inconvenient economic truths about far right politics.  People pride themselves on being such doctrinaire pure economic capitalist and free market people, with “no need of government giving people all that Free Stuff, as Sarah Palin says)  I told you these people appeal to an America that never was.  But let’s see if what they WANT is really what is best?  Mind you, I don’t accept all of these “inconvenient truths” myself.  I have a problem with some of them, but they are things we have to face.  Let's look at the crime rates where there is income equity such as states such as Vermont or Utah, as opposed to states such as Texas and Florida where there is income inequity.  We see a much higher crime rate and mental illness of all sorts, alcoholism, drug addiction, in states where there is the greatest income inequity.  Shouldn't we for the interest of the country strive for greater income equity between the very rich and the very poor.  They say gasoline and petroleum are better than other forms of energy such as wind or solar or hydroelectric.  And yet clearly there is this untold "true cost" of that gallon of gasoline you fill up with, when you figure in all the pollution and cancer deaths caused by things like fracking.  This is why the cap and trade tax makes moral sense in the long run even if in the short term it would appear to hurt the economy.  Let’s look at the whole insurance thing with uninsured motorists getting flagged for a tort- - and they can’t pay.  This is a problem, we have recently fixed here in California.  Mario reminds me that up till 1988 for a while in California that drivers HAD to carry insurance by law, but the insurance companies picked up on this lode of new customers and began jacking up prices sky high.  So in 1988 where was this raft of propositions on the ballot.  I backed proposition 100 myself, but as I search my memory this was the year I didn’t vote- - because my registration was of an unclear status.  You had all of this insurance stuff on the same ballot with Michael Dukakis.  There was a proposition 103 that ended up passing.  And today driver’s insurance prices are reined in in California.  Then we have the problem of uninsured motorcyclists or any teenager or indigent- - getting emergency services from a hospital- - who are unable to pay, and are what liberals call “free riders”.   I've told you my ethical problems about criminalizing the behavior of the uninsured.  But it’s a problem we had to think about.  There is the inconvienient truth that- - if we do nothing about Health Care we will all go bankrupt, and the Obama Administration perports go get a handle on this crisis with the Affordable Care Act.  We’ve got a lot more.  Are companies such as Wall Mart and Mac Donalds actually “freeloaders” on the federal government?  I’ve never looked at it that way but it’s interesting.  People working for Mac Donald’s get $8.25, which is not enough to live on, and these workers have families to support.  So they go on food stamps.  Also there is a new “food stamp” scandal of sorts with Wall Mart.  Because their sales figures for this fall are cut way back and they have had to fire grocery employees who were used to a payroll check.  It seems that people used food stamps to buy food at Wall Mart, and so much of Wall Mart’s sales profit comes from a federal food stamp subsidy!   Wall Mart thought that “people will naturally just tighten their belts and stop shopping at all those expensive stores and come here”.  But alas, they don’t know how much the poor have already found a dozen ways to economize and make that dollar go just as far as people.   Rich people routinely underestimate the frugality of the poor.

Then we have this whole Liz and Mary Chaney family feud of the sisters over the gay marriage issue.  I’ll be back to type the rest of this after lunch.   OK we had corn dogs and potato chips and coleslaw and “bean sprout” soup, and mixed fruit.  And then Hilda came by with another half dog.  There was a spirited debate among Stephanie Miller and Chris Le Boy about whether this whole family feud by the Chaney sisters was staged or something to drum up attention in the media to sister Liz running for Senator in Wyoming.  For one thing Wyoming used to be known as the women’s equality state, because since 1892 from its inception, women have always had the equal right to vote there.  Given family loyalty in the West, it seems unlikely that a family feud would increase voter turn out for Liz.  Stephanie Miller points out that all of the evidence points to this twitter and facebook feud being genuine, and I agree.

Some people may ask me if I believe in the Big Bang creation theory of the Universe or not?   The theory makes a lot of assumptions.  It assumes that there WAS indeed “a beginning to it all” hence the need for a god to have created it.  It also suggests by the word “expanding” that somehow some sort of “space” is being expanded into.   This presents a whole host of logical problems that have really messed over my thought processes in the past.  Before we go any further I have a question for you.  How do they determine whether elections in other countries like in Africa or South America or something were honest or rigged?  They use Exit Polls.  So how do they determine how far away distant stars are?   They use the red shift which is a manifestation of the Doppler Effect.  So then how can you say that “Well, expansion is growing faster than we expected- - at a given distance.  Because for whatever figure we measure that figure becomes the figure we use to assign the star's distance.  (Selah)   How then can we say "the star has receded too far for the distance we "know" the star to be?  The answer is that we can’t - - because one measurement is used to define the other.  (Selah)  If you can believe in a God who can create infinite distance, why not in a God who can create infinite time?  (Selah)   Some people have this logical problem with “bridging the infinity barrier” of their own thinking.  I have learned to outgrow it.   Issac Newton would be the first to come out against the Big Bang theory because it presupposes some “starting point” both in space and his time, and yet his own LOGIC precludes such thinking.  (Selah)  So how then do we deal with this so called “measurable” expansion of the Universe due to universally receding stars?  First of all we are speaking of enormous distances here.  If a star a billion light years away- - moves as fast as shall we say - - one third the speed of light- - - then since the time of Roman Emperor Constantine - - - said star has moved a whopping six hundred light years.  Do you know what an infinatessible distance this is in the cosmic sweep of things.  That’s the distance from here to that star Beetelguese or however you pronounce it.  This is still a very bright star when seen from earth.  That’s because in the overall sweep of things, it isn’t very far away.  But people are worried about the Universe exploding tomorrow like a popped bubble gum bubble.  It won’t be happening.  There is also stuff called “dark matter” in our Universe.  I don’t know the nature of that or its properties.  But I assume it has gravity.  And what do we know about gravity.  If this dark matter were “way out there” - - - we know from Einstein’s own writing that gravity simulates acceleration - - and conversely acceleration simulates gravity.  If you have gravity, then true acceleration, hence distance, need not be present.  Capish?  Good.