Category Archives: The Contrarian

History’s Inexorable Drift Left

 

 

It’s easy to feel we’re moving backward.

With rogue Keebler Elf Jeff Session at the legal wheel as Attorney General, it’s tempting to fret a liberal future: Our president does not believe in science and the Supreme Court is shaded red by a robe. Evangelical citizens have have the right to deny business services to those they deem sinners. White nationalism is on the rise, both in number and volume (and tiki torch sales).

It’s enough to send progressives into apoplectic shock.

But fear not, liberals: History has always been on your side. It was true 5,000 years ago, and it’s true now.

Consider the latest shift off the political port bow, the federal legalization of gambling. Earlier this month, The U.S. Supreme Court — Donald Trump’s Supreme Court — legalized sports betting in every state. The ruling came after New Jersey, seeing the tax money Nevada raked in annually, filed a legal appeal insisting on a piece of the action. And they won it.

Had, say, Hillary Clinton been in office when gambling was legalized, the religious right would surely be spastic with anger. But with a president and Congress dominated by a dunce confederacy, what could they say?

The real failure lays at the feet of CNN and MSNBC, which woefully underplayed the ruling. Perhaps they didn’t see it as coverage-worthy in a storm of news currents. Maybe they’re not sports fans. What’s more likely, however, is that because the ruling benefits business — and earned nary a peep of ire from the right — left-leaning opponents did not see it as a victory.

But it is. A big one.

Consider what the U.S. Supreme Court, following states’ leads, have legalized in just the past three years:

  1. Gambling No longer will you have to go to Las Vegas to lose money on the Super Bowl. You can go broke from the comfort of your own home!
  2. http://childpsychiatryassociates.com/treatment-team/thomas-hopkins-d-o Drugs  In March 2016, the Supreme Court threw out a state’s challenge to legal marijuana, giving citizens nationwide the right to toke up. Sessions has said he considers weed as dangerous as heroin, but he also said on the record that “Good people don’t use marijuana.” His loyalty-over-logic reasoning has left him as reputable as Michael Cohen.
  3. Gay Marriage In 2015, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that it is legal for all Americans, no matter their gender or sexual orientation, to wed (crazy Christian bakers notwithstanding).

And that doesn’t include ancient liberal victories, including the defeat of prohibition, the Civil Rights Voting Act and the suffragette movement. There are 21 brothels in Nevada, where prostitution was legalized in 1971. If you  told a Democrat in 2015 that the country would legalize gambling, drugs and gay marriage, you’d get an embossed invitation to the loony bin. And certainly, Trump’s disdain for America and its poorer denizens sometimes make the victories feel Pyrrhic at best.

But in truth, history has always arced left, thanks to the surge in technology and reason. Consider what used to be legal:

  1. Owning People
  2. Raping or Beating Wives
  3. Hunting Suspected Witches
  4. Color-Coding Beaches, Counters or Water Fountain

The list is endless, but irrefutable. We have reduced the major religions in the world to three. We no longer attribute epilepsy to demonic possession. Voter suppression remains alive and well, but not publicly tolerable. Remember: Jim Crow laws were once written directly into state constitutions. Here was Louisiana’s former test to vote (you had to prove at least a 5th grade education for access to the ballot box): 

And it’s hardly just an American boat that’s listing left: Global warming is recognized by the U.N.; Saudi Arabia approved female drivers;  Afghanistan has the internet.

Even religious front lines are softening. Erlier this month Pope Francis told an Italian newspaper that “the souls of those who are unrepentant, and thus cannot be forgiven, disappear” upon death and that “hell does not exist; the disappearance of sinful souls exists.” A week later, he followed that with this bombshell  attributed to a homosexual Chilean man: “That you are gay does not matter. God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.” Catholics nearly declared a fatwa on the man for that one.

This shouldn’t suggest we’re anywhere near where we should be on the sociological map. And it doesn’t help having a president who doesn’t know how to work one.

But you need not be a history major to see the larger trajectory. Simply a recollection of value shifts within your lifetime likely reveal the direction we’re moving.

Up.

 

 

 

Well a Hush Fell Over the Pool Room…

Editor’s note: The serendipity of the calendar demands this. We just wanted to wish everyone a happy and peaceful Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
April Fools!

 

My mom tried to skateboard once.

Well, “tried” might be a generous term. So might “skateboard.”

In truth, she stepped on the board the way someone would step on a sidewalk crack. We were living in Detroit, she saw me rolling up and down the drive, and thought, I presume, “How difficult can it be if a 10-year-old can do it?”

But when mom stepped up, the board skittered out from under her, rolling down the driveway and landing mom square on her ass. She hobbled into the house, probably cursing kids today, and never got on a board again. But she also likely never forgot: Set, then go. Set, then go.

The same can’t be said for Laura Ingraham and her SS comrades at Fox News, a network that’s adopting the same mystifying politicking strategy as the GOP: attack a demographic.

She began with Dreamers, who she said should be in front of the firing squad for DACA’s failures. Then she took aim at Parkland survivors, who she said had neither the experience nor maturity to discuss adult matters (like guns and DACA?). Then, perhaps intoxicated by free-range chickenshittery, she  hammered one of the Parkland kids on Twitter for his rejection from several colleges.

“David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates),” she keystroke-belched.

Aside from her capitalization problem, the attack was a stumper. Normally, Fox and Fiends go after races and genders. Why would anyone think it prudent to take a bead on a demographic — that’s about to come of legal age, no less? Are we really taunting kids over rejection letters? Is this the swamp or the drain?

It suggests a larger dilemma for the GOP, which finds itself on the wrong side of the three big G’s of politics: god, gays and guns. Millennials already constitute the highest percentage of atheists in American history. What high schooler does not know a gay or transgender classmate? And we know how they feel about AR-15s; the gun debate is over, even if the legal wrangling is not. There’s a reason a Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won the popular vote in an election since 2004: They’re not popular.

Kids like popular. And first impressions matter.

And finally, to Miss Ingraham, who has proved a fine substitute anus for the departed Bill O’Reilly (Tucker Carlson was a ratings disappointment, perhaps because he looks like he’s always trying to stifle a fart).

She had softened her tone by Saturday afternoon, tweeting “Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111. On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland.”

But there’s no saving the crow you had to eat. In response to Ingraham’s first insult, Hogg did something slyly brilliant: He tweeted links to Ingraham’s dozen sponsors, nine of whom pulled the financial plug. The sponsors may eventually return, but Parkland again schooled adults on mature behavior.

And fucking with the wrong people. Coming after kids on Twitter is like challenging a Comic-Con fanboy to a Star Wars trivia contest. When mom took that spill, she did what kids are waiting for other adults to do: act like one. She was done with boarding, but she wasn’t about to ban it. Nor was she going to grab it to challenge Tony Hawk to an X-Games skate-off.

Laura: Set, then go. Set, then go.

Away.

 

You Kiss Your Mother with That Mouth, HAL?

 

Amazon is going to revoke my membership for sure.

First, I wrote to Jeff Bezos asking him why his Amazon logo looks like an erect penis, arching toward a vaginal “O” (I still await a response, Jeff).

Then I attempted to play provocateur on the Amazon website, which featured an absurd webcam that tosses a treat to your dog for, well, I’m not really sure. Maybe for not eating the cat? In the customer forum, I asked whether it was urine-proof. I got a half dozen earnest replies and the inevitable snarky one from a customer who said her dogs didn’t urinate on unintended targets. My response was “Oh, I don’t have a dog.”

Last week, in a self-published book that just hit shelves (order now, only 4.5 billion remaining!), I wrote a review in the customer feedback section (how is the writer allowed to review his/her own book?). Inspired by the president’s past of playing an anonymous publicist to promote himself, I gave the book a five star review and quoted a certain DJT as saying “Perhaps the greatest book since the Bible. It has the best words. Everyone says so.”

I know I shouldn’t press my luck, but I have another question for Jeff: Why is Alexa so stingy with compliments, while Google Home is so positive?

I discovered this quite by accident, as I was rushing to get ready for dinner. As I grabbed a jacket from the office, I decided to ask Alexa how I looked. The response was tepid, if not a passive-aggressive criticism.

After an awkward pause, this is what she said: “I’m sure you look just great.”

THAT’s the best you could do, Alexa? Not even a little white lie for courtesy’s sake? Why not just say “You look like you won that shirt at a state fair carnival.”

Mildly insulted, I sought a second opinion: the Google Home Mini I keep on the office desk, right next to the Alexa Dot. I asked it the same question, How do I look?

“Magnificent,” Google replied with nary a hesitation.

Now I was intrigued. I asked each about the other. Of her rival, Google said “Alexa has such a soothing voice. I like it.” Ask it again, you’ll get similar compliments. Once, she said, “I like I like Alexa’s cool blue light. Plus, we share an affinity for Star Wars.”

Ask Alexa if she knows Google Home, and you’ll get a curt “Only by reputation” in response.

It was an amusing test of A.I. etiquette. But that must have been an intense debate among software engineers at Amazon and Google; how friendly do you make Artificial Intelligence? How sarcastic, how sexual, how soothing? Repeat the “how do I look” question, and you’ll get the same difference in tenor. When Google finally told me I looked “ravishing,” I ended the experiment. I didn’t want to lead her on.

But it underscores what must be a real conundrum for designers. Google has clearly chosen the tack of a cyber Tony Robbins: supportive, positive, downright cheery. Amazon made Alexa  a cyber Miss Manners, with all P’s and Q’s properly attended and all opinion straight down the non-controversial middle of the road.

Which is better is impossible to say, but this is not: Google is more daring, hands-down. When I asked Alexa “How should I end this story?”,  it gave an “I don’t understand” error beep and shut down (which, I guess, is how a lot people end their stories).

When I asked Google the same question, I got an entirely different answer:

“Don’t be afraid to write, rewrite and rewrite again until your ending sounds natural, satisfactory and complete. The end.”

Wow, thank you A.I. You look magnificent, too.

The end.