On Wisconsin (and a few other things): Impolitic Impoliteness and Impotent Impatience

Thursday, October 16

Impolitic Impoliteness and Impotent Impatience

And another thing about the rudeness of Republicans in this campaign: Interrupting!

As both my children have told me many times over, people who interrupt are not really interested in listening; they are interested in telling. I've been working hard on being a better listener, which is a lot easier now that I live alone, I must confess.

But if either candidate is really to manifest the change they both profess to represent, they are going to need to listen, and after watching all the debates, I have to say that it's painfully clear that John McCain listens only long enough to find an opening for repudiation.

Interrupting another speaker is not a sign of importance, but impatience. Impatience is not a quality we seek in our leaders. On the website www.changingminds.org, "the largest site in the world on all aspects of how we change what others think, believe, feel and do," the experts on how to listen in order to influence others list the following two conditions atop their list of when NOT to interrupt: 1) When you think of something to say and 2) When they haven't finished.

Poor John McCain. He used to command respect. Now, he can't even hold on to his self-respect for the two minutes granted his opponent to reply, and his premature ejaculations from across the burnished table render him increasingly pitiful and certainly less presidential.

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Glenn Silber on the war at home, today

"We're at this crisis in this country, and I think on the one-year anniversary of Barack Obama's historic election, people better take a really deep breath," he says. "Maybe people thought it would be easy, and he'd wave his magic Obama wand and we'd have health care and then we'd have immigration reform. No. The forces that ruined this country are out there, and they're not going to give an inch. As Rush Limbaugh has said repeatedly, they're very happy to see Barack Obama fail."

Interviewed by David Medearis in Isthmus newspaper, October 23, 2009

Get Out of Afghanistan Now

"America's odds of winning this war are slim. The Karzai government is corrupt, incompetent and resistant to reform. The Taliban have sanctuaries in Pakistan and can hide among the local populace, making it possible for them simply to outlast us. Pakistan has backed the Afghan Taliban in the past and is not a reliable partner now. Our European allies are war-weary and looking for the exits. The more troops we send and the more we interfere in Afghan affairs, the more we look like foreign occupiers and the more resistance we will face. There is therefore little reason to expect a US victory."

Stephen Walt in the October 21, 2009 "The Nation"

Amazing Facts I Found While Writing This!

From an article titled "Foods to Increase Your Breast Size"

"Hormonal imbalance is one of the reasons why women have small breasts. If the female body produces too much of the male hormone, testosterone, it hinders the growth of breasts. So keep your testosterone production within the normal level by reducing your carb intake and getting more of whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables. Meanwhile, the female hormone, estrogen, causes breast enlargement and is responsible for the distinguishing appearance of a mature female breast. That’s why flat-chested girls in China are served with chicken soup with chicken head, which is believed to contain a high percentage of estrogen."

http://yournaturalwellness.com/2009/08/08/foods-to-increase-your-breast-size/

Lennon on "I Am the Walrus"

"The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko... I'd seen Allen Ginsberg and some other people who liked Dylan and Jesus going on about Hare Krishna. It was Ginsburg, in particular, I was referring to. The words "Element'ry penguin" meant that it's naïve to just go around chanting Hare Krishna or putting all your faith in one idol. In those days I was writing obscurely, a la Dylan."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_the_Walrus

"Autumn Day" by Rainer Maria Rilke

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your long shadows on the sundials,
and on the meadows let the winds go free.

Command the last fruits to be full;
give them just two more southern days,
urge them on to completion and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Who has no house now, will never build one.
Who is alone now, will long remain so,
will stay awake, read, write long letters
and will wander restlessly up and down
the tree-lined streets,
when the leaves are drifting.

English translation: Edward Snow

The Song Sung

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child ... long way from my home.

Sometimes I wish I could fly, like a bird up in the sky. Oh, sometimes I wish I could fly... Fly like a bird up in the sky. Sometimes I wish I could fly, like a bird up in the sky... Closer to my home.

Motherless children have a hard time. Motherless children have such a hard time. Motherless children have such a really hard time -- A long way from home.

Sometimes I feel like freedom is near. Sometimes I feel like freedom is here. Sometimes I feel like freedom is so near, but we're so far from home.

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child ... Long way from my home.

Fistula

From Wikipedia:
Vesicovaginal and rectovaginal fistulas may also be caused by rape, in particular gang rape, and rape with foreign objects, as evidenced by the abnormally high number of women in conflict areas who have suffered fistulae.[1][2] In 2003, thousands of women in eastern Congo presented themselves for treatment of traumatic fistula caused by systematic, violent gang rape that occurred during the country's five years of war. So many cases have been reported that the destruction of the vagina is considered a war injury and recorded by doctors as a crime of combat.[3]

And McDonald's at Its Best

In a bid to tap into growing consumer interest in the provenance of food, the fast-food chain recently switched its supplier of both coffee beans and milk..McDonald's coffee is now brewed from beans taken from stocks that have been certified by the Rainforest Alliance, a conservation group. Similarly, milk supplies used for its hot drinks and milkshakes have been switched to organic sources...When McDonald’s received criticism for its environmental policies in the 1970s, it began to make substantial progress towards source reductions efforts. For instance, an “average meal” in the 1970s—a Big Mac, fries, and a drink—required 46 grams of packaging; today, it requires only 25 grams, allowing a 46% reduction. In addition, McDonald’s eliminated the need for intermediate containers for cola by having a delivery system that pumps syrup directly from the delivery truck into storage containers, saving two million pounds of packaging annually. Overall, weight reductions in packaging and products, as well as the increased usage of bulk packaging ultimately decreased packaging by 24 million pounds annually.

PROXEMICS

Economics of Declining Happiness

"From 1972 to 2006, women’s happiness relative to men’s fell by (β2-β1)Δt = (-0.294-0.082)*(2006-1972)/100 ≈ 0.13 points.... To compare this change with other well-known shifters of the happiness distribution, we can consider how large an increase in unemployment would be needed to generate a similar shift in subjective well-being. In a related context, Wolfers (2003) regressed individual happiness against a state’s unemployment rate, controlling for state and year fixed effects, finding that a one percentage point rise in a state’s unemployment rate leads to a decline in happiness 0.015 points. The ratio between these two estimates suggests that the relative decline in the subjective well-being of U.S. women over the past 35 years is roughly comparable to the effects of an 8. percentage point rise in unemployment rates, that is, a rise from, say, 4% unemployment to 12.%)."

From “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness” by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, The Wharton School, Univ. of PA

About This Girl Effect:

This is from: http://www.girleffect.org

• When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2
fewer children. (UN Population Fund, State of World Population 1990.)

• An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent. (Psacharopoulos and Patrinos, “Returns to Investment in Education: A Further Update,” Policy Research Working Paper 2881 [Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002])

• Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship between better infant and child health and higher levels of schooling among mothers. (Bicego & Boerma, “Maternal Education and Child Survival: A Comparative Study of Survey Data from 17 Countries,” Social Science & Medicine 36 (9) [May 1993]: 1207–27)

• When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man. (Borges, with foreword by Albright, Women Empowered: Inspiring Change in the Emerging World [New York: Rizzoli, 2007], 13.)

• Today, more than 600 million girls live in the developing world. (http://www.prb.org/datafinder.aspx ).

from "A Gate at the Stairs"

"I wanted to go back in time. Just to send an e-mail--was that too much to ask? When Superman went back in time...it still seemed as if he might manage a passenger, like those dolphins who give rides to kids. I wanted Superman to take me whooshing with him backwards around the globe. Just to send an e-mail. That was all. Not so much. But what would I say? What grammar, what syntax would hold together sentences in this whizzing flight back? Both my kids seemed always to love the feeling of flying. What punctuation as strong as aeronautic stitchery would I know to bring with me? The apostrophe in don't held together by our chewing gum and seeds? It would do. For a moment or two."