On-Line Donations

* For decades, I have contributed to almost 50 nonprofits by check every December. Last year I realized that my 77-year-old eyes and arthritic hands made this too painful, so I included a note with each check, saying that my future donations would be made on line via PayPal. Most of my favorite nonprofits ignored my note. Considering the ease of setting up PayPal on a web site, this failure is astonishing.
* To donate by PayPal, one clicks on the PayPal button, types the amount to be donated and clicks on two more buttons. That's it. The needed personal information accompanies the donation automatically.
* By contrast, giving on line by credit card is harder than giving by check in the mail. For each donation, one must fill in personal information, type the amount to be donated, type 20 hopefully private digits, select several more numbers, then click on one or two more buttons.
* The money I didn't contribute to recalcitrant nonprofits will approximately pay for my new dentures.

Pride or modesty

* In my declining years, I've been wallowing in existential angst, questioning every source of pride and suspecting that much modesty and even some shame might be appropriate.
* The greatest generation and my generation enjoyed a golden age of resources and advantages which we squandered. Consider the Fleetwood Cadillac.
* We white male American Christians dominated and exploited every other kind of people not so specified, assuming that it was the natural order. I can remember greatly admiring the British empire, over which the sun never set.
* The opportunities for justice and peace that we had within our reach and wasted are enough to make one weep. Is our society or civilization the best that a society or civilization can be? If not, what would be?

Wealth gravity

* The following MotherJones article summarizes some important policies, trends and dynamics that could be the basis for some interesting ethics discussions: http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/01/matt-yglesias * Reagan believed increasing wealth of the already rich to be good, as do contemporary Republicans. For whom? How? Why? * Unbridled imbalances in an organism are deadly. Far too many Americans lack access to legitimate jobs with apprentice potential. Far too many Americans are becoming hopeless, demoralized and disaffected. That is nothing to celebrate. Can the earth support macroeconomic solutions to such problems? * Was the transfer of wealth from middle class to rich and to other destinations inevitable regardless of policies, eg owing to production technology and international competition? Even if so, government taxing and spending should not be designed to exaggerate and accelerate the trend. * Imagine an economy in which the burdens and opportunities are more widely shared. Imagine a society in which joys and satisfactions are more scattered throughout the socioeconomic pyramid.

Rupert Murdoch punishment

* Back when Rupert Murdoch felonies were in the news, I dwelled on the question whether he could be punished for the lies and gratuitous hate heard on his property, Fox Talk Radio.
* It was just over a decade ago when the FCC stopped requiring broadcasters to balance partisan rhetoric with opposing views. They still forbid certain obscenities under some circumstances. Why not forbid lies or at least require them to be exposed during a 10-minute cleanup segment at the end of each hour?
* Note to judges: Condemn all guilty Murdoch executives to wearing a digital-radio necklace that plays Steve Gill, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin from 7 am to 7 pm relayed via a fact checker who inserts a buzzer noise at the end of every lie.
* This might be a pretty good punishment for all Republican white-collar criminals, in addition to restitution. Democratic white-collar criminals could be punished with a digital-radio collar playing NPR relayed from a buzzer-wielding fact checker, in addition to restitution.

Remembering Charlie Howell

* Our community lost a friend on Oct 27. I've known Charlie Howell most of my adult life, witnessing from a distance his involvement in public policy at the local, state and national levels. Throughout those years and beyond, Charlie held to an ethic grounded in faith, the law and examples of great leaders. He had a clearer grasp of social, economic and political issues than did most of us; and he came up with imaginative proposals.
* For the past two decades, I've been in Charlie's vortex. It began with a conference he organized titled: Loving our neighbors across time. It seemed to me compelling to extend a New Testament commandment about relations among contemporaries to the asymmetrical relation among generations. Continuing that commitment, Charlie established a foundation, Trust for the future, and created Descendants' Day, June 30, to remind us of our responsibility to leave future generations a healthy planet and decent people with whom to share it.
* During those decades, Charlie contributed many thoughtful letters to the Tennessean editor and several Nashville Eye articles addressing issues of the times. When I got the news of his passing, I looked to my right where on top of a stack of papers was a copy of a year-old letter from Charlie to Gov Haslam with detailed recommendations about state and local taxes.
* In my last conversation with Charlie, more than a month ago, we discussed what course our society might take were it possible to incentivize truth telling in the national conversation. It seems like yesterday.

Bocephus & Football

** Contrary to opinions expressed by print and broadcast media and held by ESPN, Hank Jr did not compare Obama with Hitler. He compared the incompatibility of Obama and Boehner with the incompatibility of Netanyahu and Hitler in an imaginary golf match.
** How could newscasters, newspaper commentators, letter writers and ESPN get this wrong? Perhaps because Hank Jr combined three figures of speech (simile, hyperbole, sarcasm) in a double or triple comparison/contrast (Obama contrasted with Boehner compared with Netanyahu contrasted with Hitler).
** The same figures of speech are in the statement "30-10 is like 100-1", which does not imply that 30 or 10 is like 100 or 1. Where can you find an English teacher when you need one? Bocephus was done wrong by.

Cuba

* Conventional wisdom has it that Castro and Communism have been disastrous for Cuba. Certainly, many Cuban immigrants hate the regime, most earlier ones having lost property and wealth to the revolution, most later ones feeling held down by communism. Perhaps a majority of those remaining in Cuba feel that they suffer as a result of the regime's dictatorial communistic ways. They believe that sans Castro and Communism their lot would be more like the images of America seen in various media which they can access. They probably haven't seen images of our housing projects, inner-city blight and poverty in mountain and agricultural communities.
* These opinions may deserve some examination and revision. The revolution was a response to unsatisfactory conditions for the vast majority of Cubans. Much of the commerce was in the hands of the American mafia and plantation owners. One might postulate that average Cubans would be in much worse shape today had Castro not intervened. They have received better education than they would have received sans Castro. Many services have been better distributed than they would have been sans Castro. Most of the deprivations experienced by most Cubans can be attributed to American policies including trade policies. Cuban ingenuity in coping with our policies has been down right heroic. It is very likely that the oppressive effects of Cuban government and American policy have preserved Cuba for the next generation far better than would be the case absent Castro and Communism. It would have been over developed and over exploited and dependent on outsiders as is Haiti. And the wealth gap would be huge, with the vast majority in abject poverty. By the way, over-development, over-exploitation, widening wealth gap and spreading poverty are where we are going with our free-market economy.
* So I say, let Cuba be Cuba. They may find a middle way that is better for them in the long run than would be some attempt to mimic us.