Category Archives: The Contrarian

We Don’t Need No Education

Schneverdingen  

Imagine you’re a parent of two toddlers and have foolishly bought a toy from the devil (Who knows? Maybe the kids were your first sucker’s bet with Beelzebub).  After the transaction, you learn the details of the Faustian bargain: The toy will forever please them, but it cannot be withheld from them. They must be allowed to play with it.

You’re driving home with it, and the toddlers in the backseat begin to bawl over who gets to play with it first. What do you do?Image result for crying kids in backseat

I’ve asked several parents, including my mother, that question. Every one have said they would break the devil’s deal and smash the toy. But I suggest this as a counter if you had to abide by the terms: You decide which child is the more reasonable, and explain that the immature one gets it first, and the more mature one will get an equal amount of playtime afterward. A bitter pill for the mature child, to be sure. But the only way  to not veer off the road and through the bridge, killing you all.

That’s where we are now. Donald Trump is the devil. The border wall is the toy. And the parties are the bawling kids. Unfortunately, there is no parent in the car. So it’s up to the more mature child to swallow the bitter pill.

Yet neither kid is opting to take on the role. Trump would no sooner cave on the wall than he would read a book. And Nancy Pelosi said in an interview this weekend she would not concede “one dollar” to the $5.7 billion dollar wall bill — or 1/8 of 1% of America’s $4 trillion budget. That means the toy could be bought at a 99 cent store — with change.Image result for 99 cent store toy

Meanwhile, 800,000 American federal employees received a paycheck Friday that read $0.00 — along with news that neither side is willing to give an inch.

How dare we treat nearly a million Americans this way? The media likes to call these workers pawns in the showdown, but that’s bullshit. At least pawns stay sheltered in a box.

Not so for many Americans. After Trump’s bullshit address calling the southern border a “humanitarian crisis,” Bernie Sanders issued an online rebuttal. During it, he said he personally heard from a federal worker who had $100 left in her checking account; not enough to feed her kids for a week, let alone make a car or rental payment.

Yet not one Democrat has suggested just giving baby his binky, even though they could avoid a political loss of face by allowing Trump to declare a national emergency. They’ve even promised to fight the declaration in court if he were to do so. All the way to the Supreme Court, they vow.

Gosh, I wonder how a GOP-run Supreme Court would rule after months of a shutdown.

Pride apparently forbids giving an inch, even if that inch leaves 800,000 unpaid. That’s larger than the population of five states and the District of Columbia. Would they think that way if an entire state was left out of work?

Maybe they would. Chuck Schumer said last week that Dems would not allow Trump to hold Americans hostage.

Let’s play this out. Say a Mideast country kidnapped 800,000 Americans. And they demanded $10 billion, or they would behead each and every one of the hostages. Would a politician dare say “we do not acquiesce to terrorists demands” and tell the country to go ahead, chop away?Image result for mideast beheadings

Of course not. We’d pay the ransom, get the people back, then bomb the offending country back into the stone age.

The Dems have been offered that metaphorical bomb with Trump’s threat. The emergency declaration puts the border fiasco squarely on his plate — and the plate of Republicans. And Americans get to work. Our government gets to run. Our national parks get to shake their current curse of becoming national toilets.

What more ammunition could Dems ask for in a 2020 election, when a tyrannical president and key GOP Senatorial seats are in jeopardy?

Republicans know this, which is why they’re cautioning President Dullard not to do it. Yet Lisa Murkowski, a GOP senator from Alaska, actually said this on the record:Image result for lisa murkowski with trump

“The real concern that I have is the precedent that this then sets because this border security is Donald Trump’s priority, (and) we don’t know who the next president may be. But it may be a president where their number one priority is dealing with climate change who says ‘I don’t care whether I have support of the Congress, I’m going to direct these funds to address this because I feel like this is a crisis,'”

Why wouldn’t Dems want this precedent set? Why not dare Trump to call one, just to goad him into a boondoggle? If global warming isn’t the true definition of a national emergency, what is? And Murkowski publicly marked her party as the one that doubts science, questions global warming. Trump and his lackeys have offered a gift neatly wrapped and bowed. Yet somehow, Dems are looking that political gift horse straight in the gullet.Image result for gift horse

I get the discomfort of swallowing a bitter pill. I take 16 pills a day for my transplants. Eight of them are bitter as hell. Over 19 years, that’s 55,480 bitter pills. If one doesn’t go down smoothly with water, it’s like sucking on rusted metal, and leaves an aftertaste for  about a minute.

But the greater gain is worth the bitterness. Dems should try swallowing just one.

In addition, they could try this simple exercise, since a brain scan is complicated: Take both hands, and put them on your hips. Then slowly move your hands along your body behind you at the same pace, until your fingers touch.

If you do it right, you’ll find a spine.

 

 

 

 

Pride Goeth

 

Ask any parent of a newborn: There’s no reasoning with a fussy infant. You can either feed him, change him, or swaddle him in his comforting blanket. What you can’t do is cry louder than him to shut him up (though that would make for a great YouTube video).

Perhaps that’s the approach the House of Representatives should take when claiming their newly-won seats next month: Be the responsible parents in a nursery of crabby newborns.

Starting with the border wall. Give it to president petulant.

As much as it would pain Democrats — and delight Republicans and Trumpanzees — it’s time for the House to become the adults in the room. And loudly announce that approach.

The reason is simple math. The shutdown is not only winnowing our already-depleted confidence is public servants; it’s literally harming the people who simply want to do their jobs.

As of tomorrow, we will be one week into the shutdown. And look what it’s cost us: 380,000 “non essential” federal workers received an unwelcome vacation over Christmas in the form of unpaid furloughs. Another 420,000 had to work through the holidays, also unpaid, on a Trump promise they would get a retroactive paycheck when government reopens. Is there any promise he’s ever kept? Particularly involving free labor?

That’s 800,000 Americans held hostage by pride.

And the math gets more grim from there. In late 2017, Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings U.S. economics team calculated that the country loses $6.5 billion a week in lost productivity. We have already eclipsed the cost of Trump’s ransom note of $5 billion for his wall.

The House has an opportunity to hold a mantle it hasn’t grasped in decades: working for people, regardless of party. And considering the ransom amounts to one-half of one percent of the U.S. debt, it’s clear what this stalemate has become — an incessant backseat bickering amounting to  “Mom, he’s touching my side of the seat!” on a road trip both parents are already regretting.

So become the parents. And scolding ones, at that.

As the televised “negotiation” between Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and a mannequin of Mike Pence underscored, restrained debate does not work, either politically or practically.Image result for trump pelosi schumer pence

What the Democrats need is an unofficial spokesperson who can firebrand with the Pumpkin-in-Chief. Perhaps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kamela Harris, Corey Booker, or any of the party’s young turks. Image result for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kamela Harris, Corey Booker

And make it plain that the $5 billion is not for the wall, but to pacify a petulant child. In fact, officially give it a title that says just that. Perhaps the Baby Binket Bill. And in introducing it on the floor, be as cutting as Trump in its introduction. “We know the president will likely spend much of it to silence porn stars and playmates, and that the wall will be as successful as his ‘university’ and ‘charity’ — in Chapter 11. But Americans who believe in working should not be punished by a pathological scam artist.”

Sean Hannity and his colleagues at Pravda News will collectively lose their minds. The Senate would surely change the name of the bill. The president might veto it on the insult alone. Image result for angry hannity

But the statement would have already been made official — and would stick. Trump has always been canny with insults that stick (“Lyin’ Ted, Lil’ Marco). Beat him to the punch. More importantly, become the party that reclaims the high ground. God knows it’s low hanging fruit for the taking.

Swallow your pride, throw the punch, employ the people.

This is the time for resolutions, none of which we keep. Mine, for instance, will be the same I had last year: Take up smoking; try meth; and get even with that hobo.

Dems can go a step further by making (and keeping) just one:

Do your fucking job.

The Argument for Gene Editing

 

From the reaction he solicited, you’d think He Jiankui had genetically modified that giant steer Knickers — then stepped in its 40-pound droppings.

Instead, he “genetically edited” the embryonic genes of twins born to Chinese parents, one stricken with the HIV virus. Image result for He Jiankui

The outrage was swift and gasoline soaked. Jiankui faced a scientific backlash that ranged from accusations of playing God to opening the door to boutique babies.

My question: why?

I suppose its natural for humans to fear science. Look at our historical reaction to it: We executed scientists who dared suggest we weren’t the center of the universe, or that epilepsy wasn’t a demon curse. From Y2K to Artificial Intelligence to Genetically Modified Organisms to our president’s rejection of his scientists’ findings on global warming, our instinct appears to be shoot first and learn later.

Bioethicists, in particular, are enjoying their rare day in the media sun. More than 700 incensed scientists packed the 2nd International Summit On Human Genome Editing last week to give Jiankiui the what for.

And, to his credit, Jiankui accepted the heat, apologizing that his work was not peer reviewed beforehand, and acknowledging that details of his (government approved) work should have never been leaked on  YouTube.

But the reaction on both sides, while vitriolic, demonstrates the beauty of science. Imagine similar outrage within the same cult of Catholicism or Jehovah’s Witnesses, where pedophilia runs rampant and poses a far graver threat to humanity. Their solution is not to solve the epidemic, but to secretively move  priests and elders to a fresh set of victims.

That’s not the scientific way, though the perverted logic tracks similarly. Let’s look at a few criticisms of gene editing.

University of Wisconsin bioethicist Alta Charo, who helped organize the summit, issued the harshest critique of He’s work, calling it “misguided, premature, unnecessary and largely useless.”

“The children were already at virtually no risk of contracting HIV, because it was the father and not the mother who was infected,” she said.

According to a recent UNICEF study, globally, it is estimated that more than 1,000 babies are born with HIV every day.  Try comforting those parents with gender-based probabilities.

Next comes the “playing God” argument. Marcy Darnovsky, Ph.D.,  executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society recently wrote an op-ed piece for National Geographic. This was her summary conclusion paragraph:

“Permitting human germline gene editing for any reason would likely lead to its escape from regulatory limits, to its adoption for enhancement purposes, and to the emergence of a market-based eugenics that would exacerbate already existing discrimination, inequality, and conflict. We need not and should not risk these outcomes.”

The “could” argument is perhaps the most specious defense in human dialectics. The argument that a venture could go wrong negates any risk of venture. Had it held sway years before, would we have eradicated smallpox, malaria, polio and dozens of other diseases I don’t know shit about, but were apparently significant human threats (Rinderpest, Dracunculiasis, Hookworm, Yaws, Lymphatic filariasis, etc.). And the notion that we “should not” allow research is, at best, Orwellian. Image result for orwellian

Next, boutique babies. What the hell that does that even mean? That we’d  scientifically engineer our babies to be taller, stronger, have blue eyes? Who gives a shit? We want ’em shorter and weaker? We socially try to create boutique babies everyday, from elite educations to space camps to “faith-based” initiatives to de-program our kids from being gay. Don’t believe in our love of boutique babies? Walk into a Baby Gap store.

We’re already fully immersed in genetic alterations. More than 40% of the sugar the U.S. consumes has GMOs to battle pesticides — a genetic modification we embrace so bugs don’t eat our food before we do. The E. coli outbreak of romaine lettuce was caused by tainted irrigation water, not test tube tomfoolery.

Finally, and most importantly, the arguments against genetic tinkering are founded on a precariously flimsy assumption: that natural is good. Tsunamis are natural. So are earthquakes. We surely exacerbate natural threats, but we don’t predate them. Nature created AIDS (in 1959, scientists agree, when an HIV-infected chimp bit a man from Léopoldville in the Belgian Congo). Damn you, monkey scientists!Image result for monkey scientist

The legitimate criticisms of Jiankui’s discovery are based in practice, not principle. And even he agrees the practice should be more transparent, more peer-reviewed. But there’s no jamming Pandora back in her box.

Oh, and Knickers? He wasn’t genetically modified. Just a big-ass neutered male cow. Let’s try not stepping in his pies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FIMvSp01C8