How Much Is 2+2? How Much Do You Want It To Be?

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Some days I wake up grumpy . . . and some days, I let him sleep. No, no. Seriously, some days I wake up grumpy, and it usually has something to do with what's on the radio news as I am coming to in the wee hours. This morning, I am beyond grumpy. I am positively curmudgeonly.

NPR's "Weekend Edition Sunday" aired an interview this morning with Fank Newport of Gallup Polls, discussing public reaction to the passage of the health care reform bill. The general tenor of the discussion was that once the bill passed, a plurality of the public indicated support for the bill according to Gallup's own poll from last Monday. Mr. Newport added that even other polls which showed more people didn't like the bill than did like it constituted not "a vast majority of the American people," contrary to GOP talking points, but only a bare plurality of about 3 points [which, I note, statistically is within the margin of error--Ed.].

I have no quarrel with that. I do have a quarrel with the way all the polls discussed seem to have been formatted. If I understand the recap correctly, the polling was to learn the level of support for the bill. But it seems that what was asked was along the lines of "do you support the legislation, yes or no." That is no way to determine support for the bill. The only thing it indicates with any reliability is whether someone supports what s/he thinks the bill entails, and due to the months and months and months of negative spin spewed out by right-wing talking heads, what people think the bill entails and what the bill actually does are two very, very different things.

The only legitimate way to measure public support for the bill is to ask a series of questions about each key provision of the bill, to wit: do you support or oppose ending the ability of health insurers to deny coverage for "pre-existing conditions"? Do you support or oppose ending the ability of health insurers to drop your coverage if you get sick? Do you support or oppose allowing families to carry their adult children on their parents' policies until those children reach the age of 26? Do you support or oppose eliminating the so-called "doughnut hole" in Medicare's Part D prescription drug coverage? Do you support or oppose reducing the federal budget deficit by billions of dollars over the course of the next 10 years, as the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has determined this bill will do?

I could go on, but I'll spare you. I will say that I am aware that the way I've phrased some of the questions I listed may not be "value-neutral." But I do not claim to be a pollster. I do think a pollster worth his or her salt could frame the questions in a valid value-neutral way. My point is not about the framing of specific questions in any event. My point is about the way to get the most accurate snapshot possible of the public's true opinions about the legislation, by asking questions about each of its provisions as opposed to asking a meaningless question about the bill as a whole.

Heck, even the overly broad question about the bill as a whole would be instructive IF there had been follow-up questions to determine what people actually think is in the bill in the first place. Without those follow-ups, the poll as it stands is meaningless. Anyone can take its results and twist them into whatever shape suits one's purposes, just as the CPA in the classic joke said "What do you want it to be?" when he was asked "What's two plus two?"

Mark Twain was right: there are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

I Don't Care If It's the First Act of Henry V

Yes, that's the punch line to the old joke about recognizing "the last act of a desperate man." I hope that will be history's take on the continued uproar by the self-styled Tea Partiers and the entire spectrum of far-right nut jobs. I haven't seen such a spate of juvenile name-calling and bullying since junior high school . . . only this is even scarier, because this time the bullies have guns.

The behavior and tactics of these people [and I use the term both loosely and advisedly--Ed] consist of willful denial of facts, delivered loudly, and now not just overt threats of violence [anyone remember the Tea Party rally sign "We came unarmed--this time"?--Ed], but actual incidents of brick-throwing and other acts of violence against their perceived opponents, including increasingly overt threats involving guns.

To its great shame, the "mainstream" wing of the GOP has been encouraging this increasingly apocalyptic reaction. Sarah Palin has tweeted her followers that it's "time to reload" and has posted a map online targeting selected Democratic-Party-held House seats through gun sight cross hairs. This must stop before we wind up with a totally Balkanized nation. Palin and her ilk can disavow overt acts of violence all they want, but whether they admit it or not, they are morally responsible for encouraging the hyper-extremists in their increasingly unstable behavior.

I try to comfort myself with the knowledge, based on history, that this is what always happens when the forces of reaction realize they are losing 100% control of any given situation. It's akin to the notion that the darkest hour is just before the dawn. But the race to the bottom seems to be not just on, but in full swing. I am afraid that this time there will be even darker hours before that new dawn breaks.

Happy Belated Grammar Day, Everyone!

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I have it on good authority that yesterday was officially Grammar Day. In honor of the day, at least one web site hosted a limerick contest. The winning entry naturally referred to the web site's owner [suck up!--Ed.], which didn't occur to me, but for the sake of posterity, I'd like to enshrine my own, non-winning entry here:

A woman accused of apostasy
Told grammar geeks to stop accosting me
Possessives ending in "s"
Can be plural; don't guess--
I'll tell you where to put your apostrophe.

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week.

Cough, Choke, Wheeze, HACK!

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The US Representative for the 2nd District of Nebraska, Lee Terry (R), announced last week that he's running for re-election--again. This will be his seventh campaign, so he's held the seat for 12 years and wants to keep it for at least two more. I make special note of the length of time he's been in Congress for two reasons:

(1) When he ran the first time, and in his first two (or so) re-election bids, he flat-out promised that he would "serve" no longer than he'd be able to under a term-limits law, which he said at the time was a maximum of three or four terms at the most. He said he'd not keep running even if no term-limits law were ever actually passed. No term-limits law ever was passed . . . but he's still there. You do the math.

(2) The article in the Omaha World-Herald announcing the opening of Terry's most recent re-election bid headlined the puff piece by saying Terry was going to continue to work to accomplish "core issues." Well, if he hasn't gotten anything accomplished toward implementing his core issues in the last 12 years, why in the world should he be given another two?

My problem with him is that he's a total party hack. He spouts the GOP line chapter and verse, and just ignores facts that contradict the lies he's spreading. I can live with "my" Representative in the House being of a different political party--hell, I have lived with it, for far too long, frankly. But whomever "my" Representative is, I wish fervently that he or she would have a brain and USE it instead of being a corporate ventriloquist's dummy.

Lawyers, Guns, and Bu . . . uh, Mon . . .uh, Snakes?

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It has been argued that even a government on a war footing can satisfy the needs of its citizens at home, the classic economics expression being "guns and butter." FDR had some success in that regard, despite rationing of certain products and raw materials during World War II. LBJ's efforts to make the same argument got less and less credible with every escalation in Vietnam, despite the fact that rationing was never imposed within the US during the 1960s. Warren Zevon brought an entirely new layer of meaning to the phrase by changing "butter" to "money" and throwing lawyers into the mix, to boot.

And today the US Supreme Court hears another Second Amendment case, one with potentially drastic consequences for the entire nation. In the case at hand, a Chicago citizen is challenging Chicago's ban on possession of handguns, even in one's own home. The citizen concedes that under Chicago's law, he could legally have a shotgun, but he wants a handgun because a shotgun is "inconvenient."

The Second Amendment case (a 5-4 decision) from two years ago determined that gun ownership is a fundamental individual right, but since that case arose out of the District of Columbia's handgun ban, it applied only to federal enclaves such as DC itself and the national parks. [See the post "Strict Constructionist--NOT" for my take on the previous case.--Ed.] This case seeks to expand the judicially-defined meaning of the Second Amendment to all state and local government entities, as well.

Set aside for a moment the delicious irony of so-called conservative "strict constructionists" like Antonin Scalia imposing a massive expansion of federal control over the states. The ramifications of the case at hand could literally mean anarchy--for extended to its logical conclusion, the 100% unfettered right of individual Americans to own guns would result in the eventual overturning of even the paltry gun-control measures we have now, such as licensing and registration of handguns.

There is a workable solution, however, based on long-standing (and thus settled) First Amendment precedent. One's right to the religion of one's choice is unfettered--except where it is regulated. You have an absolute right to believe whatever the heck you want. You do not have an absolute right to act on those beliefs. The classic example is the handling of poisonous snakes. Certain churches have held that God will protect the faithful, and that they will suffer no harm from passing rattlesnakes around amongst themselves, even to their children. Well, the Supreme Court put the kibosh on that a long, long time ago. There's a larger concern: the protection of children and the general public safety and welfare. So the church members are not forbidden to believe that they can handle poisonous snakes with impunity. They just cannot demonstrate their beliefs by actually handling such snakes as part of their religious observances.

It will be instructive to see how the Supremes decide this case, and by what sort of a margin. I'm predicting--and dreading--a 5-to-4 split, with Antonin Scalia again writing for the majority, and dictating that guns rule. Scalia has already shown, by his majority opinion in the DC handgun ban case, that he's willing to throw away all his other cherished philosophical beliefs about strict construction and avoiding judicial activism for the sake of being able to shoot 'em up.

I wonder whether anyone who's considered the looting problems in Haiti and Chile after their recent earthquakes has stopped to think about how much harder it would be for the Haitian and Chilean police and military to restore order if the looters had the unfettered right--and ability--to shoot back.

Still More Things That Make You Go "Hmmm . . ."

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I heard a report on NPR this morning about how the human brain changes during its lifespan. The latest research indicates that while middle-aged brains aren't very good at multi-tasking and are also not as fast as they once were in processing information, they are at their life's peak of being able to perform complex reasoning tasks, and are also at maximum capacity for seeing issues from someone else's point of view, a/k/a empathy. Teenaged brains, on the other hand, while being able to cope with levels of information input that would disorient the rest of us, have very little, if any, capacity to empathize and even less to recognize and anticipate the consequences of the actions they prompt.

The common element affecting both ages of brain is the presence and thickness of myelin, the fatty sheath around nerve endings that improves nerves' ability to process information. Middle-aged brains have a lot of myelin. The quantity and thickness of the myelin enhances complex reasoning functions. Teenaged brains have less myelin, especially around the nerves connecting to the brain's frontal lobes, which are the home of these same higher reasoning functions.

I've bemoaned for years our society's seeming race to the bottom in terms of public behavior, expression of opinions, and general attitude towards civic discourse and political and philosophical differences. Almost nobody cares anymore to be polite, to speak with a civil tongue, and to argue based on the issues and the facts. It seems as if whomever shouts the loudest and longest is declared "the winner," correct on the merits or not. Usually not, too, or else there'd be no need to scream and shout. I always used to think of it in terms of my generation's [yes, I'm talking to and about you, fellow Baby Boomers.--Ed] tendency to raise its children to be its friends instead of raising its children to be good citizens, which in turn those children replicated when raising their own, resulting in at least 3 generations now of selfish brats being at the forefront of society.

But now I wonder. Is there a genetic difference that makes certain people more likely to have less myelin in their brains all their lives? And if so, does this explain the schoolyard bullying and high-school-cliquish behavior of people like Rush Limbaugh and the anchors on Fox "News"?

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Texans are to Americans the way Ugly Americans are to the rest of the world. This could also mean, based on the previous observation, that Texans, too, tend to be permanent teenagers. It's as good an explanation as any for what is largely boorish behavior. Please don't get me wrong. I have lived in Texas. I have friends and family members who have lived in Texas--indeed, some of them are still there. There are a lot of things to love about Texas and Texans. But that does not include the Texans making all the noise about how Texas is better at everything than everybody else, ever, period.

And that constant crowing gets real old, real quick. [Maybe at its deepest heart, it's a sign of fundamental insecurity--the most frightened act the bravest?--Ed.] And it's even worse when listening to Texans turn on one another, as they have during the current campaign among GOP candidates for governor. I will not repeat the accusations, lies, and mud that has been slung. I will say only this: when candidates who've openly claimed to support Texas' secession from the Union are accused by their fellow candidates of not being conservative enough, well, let's just say the train has derailed. [Thank God the primary is this-coming Tuesday, so we'll soon have an at least brief respite.--Ed.]

I always shake my head in rueful wonder when I hear talk of secession as though it were a viable option. The Civil War ended 145 years ago, people. Secessionists lost. Get over it. Besides, as a purely practical matter, would those pro-secessionists really be so keen to leave the Union when doing so would cost them incalculably? I'd like to see Texas try to survive without all the money the federal government dumps into its economy through military bases, NASA, local jobs with everything from the National Park Service to the IRS, and contracts for everything from oil and gas leases to research and weapons development.

Still, Texas and Texans can be as grating as fingernails running down a blackboard. And just because they can't secede doesn't mean we can't throw them out, does it?

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I see from this morning's news that all the financial pundits have their collective knickers in a twist about the fact that Americans' spending levels have gone up again, even though incomes have not. One consequence is that what we're saving has declined again, down to approximately 4 percent of income, though that figure is still twice as high as it has been for most of the past few decades. The pundits are wailing about Americans' bad habits and predicting the end of the world as we know it [hey--a little hyperbole is never out of order when being sarcastic.--Ed.].

I don't think it's any particular cause for alarm, and I want to know what world these pundits inhabit, because it certainly isn't the real one in which I and my fellow normal Americans live. It's simple, really. When times are hard, purchases are put off. I don't buy a new car just because my current car is 15 years old. I wait. But there comes a time when, no matter how bad my economic circumstances are, I can wait no longer. My car is no longer repairable, for any amount of money. So I go and buy another car (even if it's not brand new, it's new for me). So I'm putting myself back into a financial hole, but that hole would be twice as deep if I lacked dependable and reasonably safe transportation to and from my job (if I'm one of the ones lucky enough to still have one) or to and from job interviews (if I'm one of the too many who doesn't).

Frankly, it's no different from how people without health insurance are forced to live. Minor injuries and illnesses are ignored or given band-aids, and only when circumstances have gotten so bad that there's no other option will people go to the emergency room. This is not a good way to live. It's more costly to everyone in society in the long run than stopping problems while they are still minor and treatable would be. But when wages are stagnant, costs are rising, and those with the money and power are more concerned with maximizing their own comfort than in making society better for every one of its members, there really aren't other options.

Such are the consequences of letting those with the mentality of teenagers run the world.