Don't Panic

I worry needlessly, especially in those quiet times immediately before sleep, or in the mornings when my mind has time to run me ragged.

I've developed some tools to help with that which I think can apply to most people who are frustrated with the current political landscape.

One helpful thing to do is to visualize a "sphere of concern" which represent the things in your life you care about or otherwise take care to acknowledge.

It's not helpful to have lots of things in your sphere that you cannot control. You want to keep that sphere as small as possible, but no smaller. Making it too small would mean placing things outside the sphere which you can and must control lest there be consequences.

When you worry, try to enumerate what you're worrying about. If the same few things keep eating you, make a list.

Now, cross off that list any entry you can't do anything about. Start there.

For those who spend a lot of time worrying about politics, this should really clear your plate.

Trump is in office. The Democrats are dragging their feet, and the system overall takes time. These are things you can do nothing about, so effectively, they don't need to be in your sphere of concern.

Instead, focus on the consequences of those things - the ones that actually impact you - those will be in your sphere of concern, assuming you can do anything about them. Use that list.

You'll find your politics get far more local, if you're doing this right. You'll also find there are numerous avenues for direct action at the community level and neighborhood level.

For the things on that list you can do, focus on the most readily addressable item, and take even one small step toward resolving it that day. It will make you feel better and it's real, tangible progress.

Ultimately, that list needs to be short or you're going to get lost. It's really easy for us to let worries steer the big picture for us, but then we're navigating from a position of fear instead of from clarity.

I work near a church sometimes, and this section of downtown where I worked the other day also has a couple of homeless shelters, and so the homeless folks congregate in the area, and are very visible, and here are families in their Sunday best, going along to church walking right on by the homeless people without giving them a second look. I know some of them from around, as I used to take the time to talk to them back before my mental illness and the people paranoia that came with it. These churchgoers are worried about shaping their children and bringing them up "right" and even potentially about some stupid afterlife when they're practically stumbling over Matthew 25:31-46 in their rush to get to the pews on time! The reason I bring it up is these folks are worried about the wrong things. If you're so worried about making the service that you trip over the homeless and instill that into your kids, not to mention it makes your faith community look rather self-absorbed you're probably doing it wrong. Jesus said look after the marginalized people in society first and foremost and Paul said present your faith well. So take some time out and at least say "hi" to the people on the sidewalk.  They're people too. It's the easiest thing in the world. Some people are so worried about the big picture they don't even see God working right there in the street.

So this isn't just about the obvious goal of making you calmer, but more focused on what truly matters.

It takes time to take stock, and we'd all do well to keep control of our worries before they control us. They can lead us astray in all kinds of ways.

I'm sure people are going to take a lot of issue with me saying this, but by and large, politics is a distraction, and it's one we don't usually need.

Vote as you like, but between those times, don't let the media and the politics work you into a lather. They don't deserve much of your attention - but they need it to survive. Their survival however, is not your problem. Just don't forget who needs what from who. They want to sell you on fear to keep themselves relevant and to spin a narrative you'll pay attention to. So worry worry worry. Or walk away. That doesn't mean you can't vote.

Local action in the end, makes a bigger difference. Even treating people like people, as radical an idea as that is (see above) makes a big difference. Especially to your kids. How many votes is that worth?

Benchmarking American Businesses: They Are Not Competitive

Arguments for freer markets and more deregulation point to the efficiencies that competition inherently brings as part of the rationale. But in some areas such as non-universal health care, the US system is significantly more expensive than comparable but universal healthcare in other industrialized countries.

Economist Thomas Philippon analyzed broadband and cell phone costs and again found that the US ranks near the top in costs compared to other countries, some of which subsidize the costs. A New York Times opinion piece comments:

“The consolidation of corporate America has become severe enough to have macroeconomic effects. Profits have surged, and wages have stagnated. Investment in new factories and products has also stagnated, because many companies don’t need to innovate to keep profits high. Philippon estimates that the new era of oligopoly costs the typical American household more than $5,000 a year.”

Subsidies are probably not the whole story. Philippon argues that companies in the US have grown leading to less competition and lower wages. By contrast, growth in Europe is more constrained by antitrust regulation, leaving more competition in place. He sees Europe as more market- and competition-based than comparable industries in the US. Other research comes to similar conclusions, e.g., “a market-based, pro-competition strategy would include both increased antitrust enforcement and also a broader pro-competition agenda.”

“Oh the Humanity…”

According to Axios news, "politics are driving Democrats mad."  Yep, I’m one of them.  I’m also one of the 83% who discusses politics every day.  I’m haunted by it.  It’s unnatural to be so obsessed, and I know it.  Oh, I have bouts of sanity, where I think “Que sera sera.  Out of your hands, so don’t worry about it.  Get thee to the mall©, with everyone else.”  But like some kind of vortex, I get dragged right back in by the latest news flash popping up on my phone, as the madness creeps its way back in like some sadistic grim reaper, getting his jollies at MY mental expense.  It’s sick I tell you!  Sick!!

Case in point: I was thinking this morning about how Donald J. Trump is a lot like those troubled kids, usually teenage boys, who go into a school or a movie theater and shoot up the joint as some kind of “revenge” for perceived harm done against him.  Oh, we, the family (Democrats and Republicans) see all the warning signs: his nasty, name-calling tweets; his hate-fomenting rallies; his skewed vision of reality, and aversion to actual truth/facts; his daring to push the envelope against all odds and get away with it... yet again.  All that’s left to do is make one of those videos telling us, with crazed eyes, of his future destructive plans before he acts on them.

Still, aside from those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), we as a society seemingly stand powerless, at least for the moment, to do anything about Trump’s dysfunction.  We report it to the police (the Republicans) and they brush it off.  “Not enough evidence yet.”  Yeah, but when does the evidence, enough evidence, finally come?  When it’s too late and he’s shot up the joint?  When a nuclear war ensues?  Why do we continue to play with "Trump fire" (a deranged man)?  IReallyDGI.

Anyway, I think in my “madness,” this OP is just my way of venting today.  Venting helps.  Do you want to vent a little today too?  Go ahead.  Get it off your chest.

Tell me, how do you see the Trump legacy playing out?  Prognosticate that Trump future for us.

Thanks for recommending.

So I Married a Communist

No, I didn't marry a liberal, nor a progressive. I married a card carrying communist.


I am not a communist but I've known him since we were teenagers. In that time, he has been a missionary, a bible translator, a mixtec outreach coordinator (unpaid, he was basically drafted by the larger community), a medical interpreter, and pretty soon, a nurse. His goal is to get shipped to some godawful location via Doctors Without Borders. I'm staying as far away from that last bit as I can. I don't like mosquitos and I like malaria even less.


The upsides of marrying a communist are many. Among other things, he's a whiz with bureaucracy, he's not afraid of hard labor, and he really likes to share. It's enough to help me look past his fondness for Trotsky and his penchant for literature written by men with ridiculous beards. It's also nice not having to worry about a cloaked cultural Marxist plot to engineer society like I would if I married a progressive. Nope, his Marxism is front and center. I don't like hidden agendas. I prefer my communist infiltrations right out in the open, where I can keep an eye on them.

On the other hand, I've had to set some ground rules, like no turning the basement into a gulag, or painting over in-laws in our wedding photos with potted plants. I've also had to insist on forgoing busts and murals of Stalin. He's a brutalist architecture enthusiast but I keep telling him concrete isn't everything. For all that, at least he realizes the importance of boundaries in a relationship, but razor wire and cement aren't what i had in mind.

Our first car buying experience together was a bit trying. He's a stickler for classics, and wanted an old Soviet T-50, while I insisted on a Toyota Camry. I don't think Pemco covers infantry vehicles, or really anything without turn signals. We compromised and got the Toyota, but in true Soviet style it's held together with string and the promise of a better tomorrow.

Between the tedious intellectualizing about Bakunin and field stripping the bedside AK we still manage to share quality time, even if it's spent reminiscing about Kronstadt - I'll take what I can get. He may be a commie but he's my commie and I love him.

Down with capital! And stuff.

WHEN VOTERS CHOOSE CANDIDATES, POLITICS BEATS POLICY

Voters are more likely to vote for candidates of their own party even when they run on policies that come from the opposing party or are outright anti-democratic, according to new research.
https://www.futurity.org/politics-candidates-partisanship-1949202/

Imagine you are a fairly mainstream Republican voter and are considering Republican candidate Luis Vasquez. He says he wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and believes government should do more to prevent discrimination against racial minorities. Would you still vote for him?

What if you are a lifelong Democrat? Would you vote for Democratic candidate Hannah Phillips, who wants to lower taxes on everyone, including the wealthy? What if Phillips also espouses views that run counter to established democratic norms and rules, declaring, for instance, that “elected officials should not be bound by court decisions they regard as politicized.”

Hannah Phillips and Luis Vasquez are fictional candidates in an experiment conducted by Bright Line Watch, a group of political scientists, including Gretchen Helmke, professor of political science at the University of Rochester, and Mitchell Sanders of Meliora Research, who monitor US democratic practices and potential threats.

 

DEVOTED TO DEMOCRACY?

Bright Line Watch based its selection of policy questions for the experiment on a recent paper by Vanderbilt University’s Larry Bartels, who studies American voters and public opinion, and who found that questions about taxation policy and racial discrimination generate the biggest partisan divides among the US electorate.

The Bright Line Watch team sampled nearly 1,000 online participants, weighted to approximate a representative sample of the US population: 35 percent of respondents identified as Republicans or Republican-leaning, 43 percent as Democrats or Democratic-leaning, and 17 percent as independents who did not lean toward either party.

Researchers asked each respondent to choose between a pair of hypothetical candidates in an upcoming election. Each candidate was described using eight characteristics: name, party preference, positions on policies toward taxation and racial discrimination, and four positions on democratic values and norms. All characteristics were randomly generated, and at times at direct odds with what most voters would expect from a mainstream Democratic or Republican candidate. Some of the fictional candidates’ views and positions were undemocratic.

Why? Building on the pioneering work done by Yale University political scientists Matthew Graham and Milan Svolik, the Bright Line Watch team wanted to test how committed the American public really is to its democracy. Are there universal democratic principles that, if violated by politicians, would generate resistance from the public, and would citizens of all political stripes be equally willing to punish candidates for such violations?

The team’s finding is striking: partisanship outweighs all other factors for both Republicans and Democrats. In other words, a die-hard Democrat is still more likely to vote for the fictional Democratic candidate although she espouses policies and views that are either typically Republican (lowering taxes) or outright undemocratic (elected officials should supervise law enforcement investigations of politicians and their associates). The same holds true for Republican-leaning voters.

Bright Line Watch also found that all participants value democratic norms related to judicial independence, neutral investigations, and political compromise, but Democrats and Republicans strongly disagree when it comes to questions of voting rights and equal access. The team focused their survey on the attitudes of ordinary US voters.

PARTISAN DIVISION

Bernard Avishai, a visiting professor of government at Dartmouth (and an adjunct professor of business at Hebrew University in Israel), is a colleague of Carey and Clayton’s. He wrote about the Bright Line Watch study in depth in a recent piece for the New Yorker.

As Avishai put it: “The good news for the Republic is that voters of all party affiliations care about judicial independence. The bad news is that Democrats and Republicans diverge dramatically on the question of access to the polls.”

“Our results on voter ID laws particularly underscore the partisan divide among voters,” Helmke confirms.

“The polarized response to these policies illustrates how partisans can become deeply split over which democratic priorities are worth protecting,” the team writes.

The team’s key findings include:

• Partisanship outweighs all else for both Democrats and Republicans. Both groups are approximately 19 percentage points more likely to select a candidate from their own party than one from the other party—an effect that exceeds those observed for candidate policy positions and support or opposition to democratic principles.
• Democrats, Republicans, and independents all punish candidates who violate democratic principles related to political control over investigations, judicial independence, and cross-party compromise. These effects are consistently negative across all partisan groups and range from 4 to 13 percentage points.
• Americans diverge most dramatically along party lines on the democratic principle of equal voting rights and access. Democrats are less likely to back candidates who endorse legislation requiring voters to show ID at the polls, whereas support for these candidates increases by 8 percentage points among independents, and 17 percentage points among Republicans.

The Bright Line team also includes political scientists from Dartmouth College, the University of Michigan, and the University of Chicago.

Stephen Hawking's Final Book Says There's 'No Possibility' of God in Our Universe

From his desk at Cambridge University and beyond, Stephen Hawking sent his mind spiraling into the deepest depths of black holes, radiating across the endless cosmos and swirling back billions of years to witness time's first breath. He viewed creation as a scientist, and when he was called to discuss creation's biggest puzzles — Where do we come from? What is our purpose? Are we alone? — he answered as a scientist, often to the chagrin of religious critics.

In Stephen Hawking's final book "Brief Answers to Big Questions," published Tuesday (Oct. 16, 2018) by Bantam Books, the  professor begins a series of 10 intergalactic essays by addressing life's oldest and most religiously fraught question of all: Is there a God? [Big Bang to Civilization: 10 Amazing Origin Events]

Hawking's answer — compiled from decades of prior interviews, essays and speeches with the help of his family, colleagues and the Steven Hawking Estate — should come as no surprise to readers who have followed his work, er, religiously.

"I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science," Hawking, who died in March, wrote. "If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn't take long to ask: What role is there for God?"

In life, Hawking was a vocal champion of the Big Bang theory — the idea that the universe began by exploding suddenly out of an ultradense singularity smaller than an atom. From this speck emerged all the matter, energy and empty space that the universe would ever contain, and all that raw material evolved into the cosmos we perceive today by following a strict set of scientific laws. To Hawking and many like-minded scientists, the combined laws of gravity, relativity, quantum physics and a few other rules could explain everything that ever happened or ever will happen in our known universe.

"If you like, you can say the laws are the work of God, but that is more a definition of God than a proof of his existence," Hawking wrote.

With the universe running on a scientifically guided autopilot, the only role for an all-powerful deity might be setting the initial conditions of the universe so that those laws could take shape — a divine creator who caused the Big Bang to bang, then stepped back to behold His work.

"Did God create the quantum laws that allowed the Big Bang to occur?" Hawking wrote. "I have no desire to offend anyone of faith, but I think science has a more compelling explanation than a divine creator."

Hawking's explanation begins with quantum mechanics, which explains how subatomic particles behave. In quantum studies, it's common to see subatomic particles like protons and electrons seemingly appear out of nowhere, stick around for a while and then disappear again to a completely different location. Because the universe was once the size of a subatomic particle itself, it's plausible that it behaved similarly during the Big Bang, Hawking wrote.

"The universe itself, in all its mind-boggling vastness and complexity, could simply have popped into existence without violating the known laws of nature," he wrote.

That still doesn't explain away the possibility that God created that proton-size singularity, then flipped the quantum- mechanical switch that allowed it to pop. But Hawking says science has an explanation here, too. To illustrate, he points to the physics of black holes — collapsed stars that are so dense, nothing, including light, can escape their pull.

Black holes, like the universe before the Big Bang, condense into a singularity. In this ultra-packed point of mass, gravity is so strong that it distorts time as well as light and space. Simply put, in the depths of a black hole, time does not exist.

Because the universe also began as a singularity, time itself could not have existed before the Big Bang. Hawking's answer, then, to what happened before the Big Bang is, "there was no time before the Big Bang."

"We have finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in," Hawking wrote. "For me this means that there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in."

This argument will do little to persuade theistic believers, but that was never Hawking's intent. As a scientist with a near-religious devotion to understanding the cosmos, Hawking sought to "know the mind of God" by learning everything he could about the self-sufficient universe around us. While his view of the universe might render a divine creator and the laws of nature incompatible, it still leaves ample space for faith, hope, wonder and, especially, gratitude.

"We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe," Hawking concludes the first chapter of his final book, "and for that I am extremely grateful."

https://www.livescience.com/63854-stephen-hawking-says-no-god.html

Maybe Stephen Hawkings was wrong: