Reason, Commerce, Justice & Free Beer

CRITICAL FAILURE TO HAWK, HAGGLE AND DICKER CAUSED ECONOMIC CRASH: REPORT

2011-10-10T08:18:00.008-04:00

YOUR ECONOMY TODAY

In a groundbreaking report issued yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission conclusively revealed the reasons behind America's persistent economic woes.

"Basically, sellers are not hawking, peddling, pushing, scalping and mongering enough," explained Commissioner Jon Leibowitz.

"But sellers aren't the only ones to blame," he continued. "Buyers, too, have critically failed to haggle, bargain, dicker and lay out cash. Combined, these selling and buying behaviors led to today's catastrophic economic climate."

Economic experts expressed shock over the report. "For several years now, we thought that the Great Recession resulted from risky loans, rising debt levels and an imploding housing market. Now, however, we see the real reasons for our hard times: A colossal failure to hawk, hock and dicker," wrote eminent economist Paul Krugman. "This is really mind-blowing news."

Commissioner Leibowitz pointed out that economic recovery will not happen until people understand why the economy failed in the first place.

"People need to see that we face a multifaceted problem. We are not just talking about mongering and haggling. True, we need car salesmen to monger more and first-time homebuyers to dicker more. But just a little mongering won't cut it. We need full-scale mongering and hawking, as well as nonstop dickering to get moving in the right direction. Americans need to start driving bargains again; and that means that sellers need to start stepping up their hawking game, too."

President Obama praised the Commissioner's report. "I'm glad we have a sense about where we need to go with our economy," he said. "For all this time, we've been quarreling about stimulus, job creation and spending limits. But now we see that what we really need to do is get people dickering again. I'm confident that Americans will be able to put country before party and really start mongering, pushing, scalping and laying out cash. This is America. We have a long history of haggling, bargaining, hawking and peddling. We have been doing these things since our earliest colonial history. We know how to hawk and haggle. We even know how to hock and pawn. This is the greatest country in the world because we have the greatest peddlers and dickerers. It's time to find our stride again."

According to the Commissioner's report, economic progress depends on more than increased mongering, haggling, bargaining and hawking. Instead, other factors will play a role, namely, behaviors within the financial services industry.

In analyzing the Recession's causes, the report also noted that reduced mongering, haggling, bargaining, hawking, pushing and scalping were matched by rampantly negative bank practices, including chicanery, hoodwinking, bamboozling, hornswoggling, rooking and wheedling. The report also observed that banks repeatedly pulled contractual wool over customers' eyes between 2004 and the market collapse in 2008.

"Put simply, our financial crisis involved unprecedented hornswoggling," Mr. Leibowitz explained. "While our free market economy has always provided ample room for hoodwinking and bamboozling, banking practices between 2004 and 2008 saw a meteoric increase in hornswoggling and wheedling. Combined with lower levels of consumer dickering, haggling and mongering, this created a perfect economic storm. We just couldn't handle it."

Despite the gloomy analysis, Mr. Leibowitz expressed hope for the future. "Understanding a crisis is necessary to solving it. Since 2009, the Federal Government has taken steps to eradicate rooking in the financial industry, and data show that wheedling has fallen dramatically. The Commission has also set up a special department to decisively root out hornswoggling. Once we eliminate that, we are confident that consumers will return to robust dickering and mongering levels."

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner concurred with the Commission's findings on the financial industry. "As a former Wall Street banker, I know that hornswoggling was the straw the broke the camel's back in 2008. When we eliminate it, I am certain that the banking industry will return to customary--and acceptable--hoodwinking and bamboozling practices."

Republicans disagreed with the Commission's analysis, claiming that hornswoggling is absolutely vital to job creation.

"I come from a background in business, and I can tell you that uninhibited hornswoggling is what made us strong," said Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. "You can't run a business or make money if you tie a manager's hands behind his back. In business, you need the freedom to hoodwink, rook, bamboozle, and most of all hornswoggle in order to deliver the highest quality goods and services. And if a business doesn’t make money, it can't create jobs."

Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann objected to the report on liberty grounds. "We're a nation of liberty and laws, and you can't take away liberty from people," she explained. "People in business need more liberty than most, because they're job creators. And to be a job creator, you need all the liberty you can get. That includes the liberty to hornswoggle, hoodwink, rook and bamboozle. When government starts taking away those liberties, it's trampling our free enterprise spirit. The bottom line is that hornswoggling creates jobs and pays a lot of salaries. And it's flat-out tyranny when the Federal government says it's going to take it away."

Texas Governor Rick Perry disagreed with the Commission's findings in less abstract terms. "Look, I don't believe a word that comes from any Federal agency, least of all a Federal agency controlled by President Obama. It was President Obama who made the economy bad, and it's President Obama who has to pay for it. Simple as that."

Overall, markets responded well to the Commission's report. The DOW rose 1.9% on data indicating a modest rise in dickering, a strong rise in haggling, an encouraging rise in hawking and a remarkable rise in bamboozling.

For their part, consumers expressed hope for the future. "If all it takes for me to me to help the economy is to haggle and dicker a little more, I'm willing to do my part," said freelance handyman Willie Williams of Ozone Park, New York.

TERRORIST GHOST ATTACK IS IMMINENT : WE ARE NOT SAFE

2011-09-15T16:39:00.006-04:00

SAFETY ADVISORY

WASHINGTON, D.C.

By : David Petraeus, Director, Central Intelligence Agency

Last week, our Nation marked a significant milestone with the 10th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. We can be grateful that we escaped the event without incident. Thanks to the tireless efforts of State and Federal law enforcement, America foiled any attempt to mar the memorial ceremony with violence.

As a Nation, we have come closer this year to defeating terror than at any time since 9/11. We have killed Osama bin Laden. We have al-Qaeda on the run. And we have created a culture of security that keeps Americans safe from terror.

Despite these encouraging developments, we cannot let our guard down. While the Central Intelligence Agency understands that Americans simply want to live without fear, we cannot yet afford to quell the alarm.

In fact, we regret to inform the public that al-Qaeda has unleashed a frightening new weapon: Ghosts.

Generally, we here at the Central Intelligence Agency do not speak directly to the American people. Circumstances, however, mandate that we reveal critical new information that impacts all Americans. Public safety is acutely in danger, and we must advise appropriate measures to cope with the risk.

Today's threat is elusive. It does not involve bombs, guns or gas. It does not involve suicide attackers. It does not even involve living human beings. No, it involves something much more frightening: The vengeful spirits of slain al-Qaeda leaders returned from the grave.

This is not a hoax. Our agents have credible, reliable and confirmed reports that al-Qaeda intends to make supernatural war against New York City, especially the Ground Zero site. According to top agents, it appears that the angry ghosts of al-Qaeda leaders are currently on their way from the spirit world to wreak havoc on Lower Manhattan. Agents also inform us that these spirits have recruited ghouls, goblins, wraiths, specters, poltergeists and even zombies to spread fear in New York.

Understandably, we are taking these threats extremely seriously. Supernatural warfare cannot be taken lightly. We have already received initial reports that al-Qaeda ghosts are both extremely scary and difficult to pinpoint. And most disturbingly, intelligence indicates that conventional weaponry is useless against ghosts. Bullets, bombs and airstrikes simply cannot harm these terrifying spirits. After all, ghosts are already dead: Killing them again is no easy matter.

It is not entirely clear how al-Qaeda ghosts will operate. Some experts believe that terror ghosts can manipulate electronics. This poses a devastating threat to the national economy. Ghosts could ostensibly haunt iPads, iPhones, NASDAQ and the internet. Communication and commerce would break down, imperiling a fragile economic recovery.

Just imagine what would happen if an angry al-Qaeda spirit corrupted the Nation's computers? Web browsing, timekeeping, online bill paying, social networking and E-Harmony would collapse. Chaos would follow. It is a horrifying thought.

Worse, intelligence also indicates that ghosts can change cable channels without warning, take over flight controls, scare away workers and terrify small children. Finally, ghosts represent a very real danger to seniors and persons with cardiac difficulty: Seeing a ghost can easily cause heart failure.

In short, we face a serious crisis.

But it is essential to maintain calm. While we acknowledge that al-Qaeda ghosts are certainly scary, we are already taking action against them. In our battles with al-Qaeda, we have learned how to cope with terror. We know how to foil attacks, and supernatural attacks are no different. Put simply, we can defeat anything al-Qaeda throws at us, including ghosts.

Together with military and law enforcement authorities, the CIA is hard at work securing Lower Manhattan against the expected spectral onslaught. Thanks to improved interrogation methods, we have confirmed that the ghosts of Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Mustafa al-Yazid intend to float into the area around Ground Zero within the next 48 hours. We will be ready for them.

Authorities will lock down Lower Manhattan to quarantine the ghosts as soon as they land. Regrettably, these measures will entail some inconvenience for New Yorkers. All citizens will be subject to search and detainment to verify that they have not been haunted by al-Qaeda. And all citizens may be required to surrender their personal property--including their clothing and underwear--for inspection to determine whether a spirit has not hidden within it. After all, we are talking about ghosts. They can easily hide in backpacks, socks, panties, boxer shorts, water bottles and even cell phones.

While we appreciate citizens' concerns for their liberty, dignity and privacy in these matters, we reiterate that security against terrorist ghosts requires strong action. Comprehensive security is the only way to successfully defeat ghosts.

We recognize that New Yorkers simply want to get back to normal after 10 years of terror. But we cannot afford to give up now. We face perhaps the most frightening battle we have yet faced in the War on Terror. We are all afraid of ghosts; but al-Qaeda ghosts are especially bad. Worse, this is no ghost story. This is a specific, credible and confirmed threat.

Still, Americans do not back down. We can defeat terrorist ghosts just as well as living terrorists. We all must refuse to give in to fear. Go to work. Go on vacation. Go to a movie. Go buy a car. Go buy a home. Go about your business as you would any other day. If a ghoul accosts you, tell him you're an American and you are not afraid. Sure, he might haunt you or even steal your handbag, but that is no reason to bend to terror.

We here at the CIA will do our part to keep the public informed as we obtain new reports. Until that time, we advise full cooperation with law enforcement. If you are detained, remember that your sacrifice is absolutely necessary to prevent al-Qaeda from haunting America. You will be released as soon as competent authorities determine that an al-Qaeda ghost has not hidden somewhere in your clothing or on your body.

In this age of heightened security concerns, we all must be prepared to make the occasional sacrifice. If we do not, the ghosts win.

"PLEASE BOMB US," OBAMA PLEADS

2011-09-08T13:49:00.007-04:00

NEWS FLASH

Exasperated following months of fruitless partisan gridlock in Washington, President Barack Obama has officially requested foreign aid to reverse America's economic downturn.

"Please bomb us," the President begged world leaders during a live television broadcast.

Noting that a foreign attack or invasion is the only way to divert public attention from a stagnant economy and despicable political infighting in Washington, President Obama took his case to the world stage.

"We cannot create jobs or spur domestic development unless we get the American people to rally against a devious foreign enemy," the President remarked. "I've tried my ass off to make economic changes peacefully, but I've broken my head against the wall one too many times. We need someone to bomb us ASAP."

President Obama observed that Americans need to hate someone other than him in order to balance the budget, reduce unemployment, overhaul health care and curtail spending.

"I've tried to solve our problems by letting the American people hate me," the President explained. "But the simple fact is that the American people need to hate a foreigner in order to really get the economy rolling again. The bottom line, my friends, is that we're never going to get below 9.2% unemployment unless one of you motherfuckers steps up to the plate and bombs our ass. Please, if you care about America, attack one of our naval bases without delay. We've got tons of them all over the world. Take your pick. It's on us."

President Obama appeared confident that his plan would work. He cited historical precedent to support his position.

"Look, FDR did all he could to reduce unemployment in the 1930s with domestic spending. But he didn't really beat the Great Depression until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and people started really hating the Japs. And George W. Bush wasn't going anywhere until Osama bin Laden bombed the World Trade Center and people started really hating Muslims. Once that happened, Bush got to do whatever the hell he wanted. I am confident that if you would be so generous as to launch missiles against a military installation of your choosing, America could easily solve its economic woes."

President Obama insisted that his plan was not just another greedy American power grab. "I understand that many of you may suspect a selfish motive in my request for an attack on us. I assure you, however, that if you bomb us, you, too, will benefit. After all, by bombing us and saving our economy, global markets will strengthen. When the US economy thrives, so does the world economy. Thus, if you bomb us, your economy, too, will improve. And everyone loves good economic times."

"True, we might flatten a couple of your cities or overthrow your government. But all benefits have their price," the President concluded.

President Obama also pointed out that favoritism played no role in his decisionmaking. "America does not discriminate," he said. "While some of you might think that we only go to war with Muslims, brown people or communists, the time for stereotypes is over. We are perfectly willing to allow Caucasians to bomb us, too. We just need somebody to help us out."

Speaking directly to Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, the President pleaded: "Come on, Angie, blow up one of our air force bases. They're right on your territory. You have no idea how much that would help. Please, I'm begging you."

Despite the President's confidence in his plan, Republican leaders remained unconvinced.

"It wouldn't work," responded Tea Party candidate Michelle Bachmann. "We won't rescue our economy without completely eliminating all government spending and abolishing taxation once and for all. If an enemy attacks us, we'll have to spend money and raise taxes, so I can't support the President's plan."

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney agreed. "No way. If the President drags us into another war, that just means more job-killing regulations. It doesn't matter if we're the ones who get attacked. War means regulations, and regulations kill jobs."

Sarah Palin was more specific in her response to the President's plan. "Nope, wouldn't help," she said. "To fight a war, you need government. And we're not going to solve our problems until we get rid of all government for good."

For their part, world leaders were split on Obama's request. Fidel Castro said he would love to attack the United States, but that he wasn't willing to expose his people to retaliation that would devastate his country.

Vladimir Putin praised the President for his wisdom, but refused to commit Russia to an invasion because he knew war with a foreign enemy would strengthen America, just as Obama predicted.

"Their own economy will kill them. There's no need to hasten that by risking Russian troops," Putin concluded.

Chinese Premier Hu Jintao summarily rejected the President's request. "Absolutely not. If we attack you, we'd never collect all the money you owe us."

As of press time, President Obama still held out hope that other powers--such as Turkey, Uzbekistan or Somalia--might decide to attack the United States.

A HIATUS

2010-06-07T10:57:00.006-04:00

As I'm sure everyone has noticed, I have not posted anything in several weeks. This is partially by design and partially by necessity.

In recent weeks, my impulse to write has ebbed. I am not ashamed to say it. To the contrary, I think it is only natural for me to take a long break after writing almost 3000 pages over the past 20 months. Spring and summer traditionally tend to weaken my urge to write. They always have. I've also been coping with crippling migraine headaches lately. But my reasons for curtailing my output now are more substantial than that.

About two months ago, I literally ran out of money. So for the last two months, I have scrambled to find ways to stave off my inexorable creditors. That cut into my writing routine. It also sapped my energy, since commercial venturing took my best time from me. In the past, I had all the time I needed to write. Now, I spend my freshest hours pursuing economic stability. That denies me my most creative time.

I do not regret this in the least. I have doggedly attended this blog since before Obama became President. I think I have largely addressed my life philosophy. I have done what I set out to do. This blog encapsulates my views on so many subjects. It is a living testament. I am proud of it.

On the other hand, I am not exactly the same person I was when I began writing this blog. In some ways, I feel like I am no different than I was on September 11, 2008. But so much has changed in my life since that day. While my core thoughts on many subjects have remained consistent throughout that time, my circumstances and life expectations have changed dramatically. I see no need to continue addressing issues that I have largely addressed in the past. I don't like repeating myself.

Yet my blog will never die. I will return to it from time to time in order to mark evolutions in my thinking. I do not want to obsess about it as I once did. Rather, I want to use my blog to annotate my life when I must. I want to control my blog, not the other way around.

I say that to clear the way for a larger endeavor. If my blogging experience instilled anything in me, it was writing discipline. When I get an idea, I follow through with it. I commit it to paper. And then I've captured it for all time. Applying that discipline, I assembled a formidable array of familiar themes that will guide me in future projects. I plan on writing three large pieces in the coming few years. In large part, they will draw from thematic material I have already explored in this blog. In that sense, I have already written the large pieces: You have already seen their roots right here in this blog. I just need to fill in the blanks now.

I have no intention to ever stop writing for good. I can't. I must do it. Convention appalls me too much to merely go through life in silence. No matter the literary medium I choose, I promise to continue critiquing, observing, satirizing, reminiscing, lamenting, analyzing and philosophizing.

I apologize to all those who have grown accustomed to daily posts. I have simply reached a new phase in my life and it is time for me to modify my writing accordingly. From today on, I plan to post on recent news when I can. I also plan on jotting down the occasional satire when something really tickles me. But I will conserve my main efforts for my larger works. Even then, I will give myself a very long break to reflect on what I plan to do before I sit down to write again.

I am grateful to everyone who has taken the time to read my posts. You have gained an insight into how I think and how I perceive the world. And when my larger works appear, you will feel yourself in familiar territory. It all stems from this source. This is my testament. Thank you for sharing it with me.

Oesterhoudt

TUCK IN YOUR SHIRT APPROPRIATELY--OR FIND ANOTHER JOB

2010-05-19T16:07:00.007-04:00

A MESSAGE TO THE EMPLOYEES OF THE COCKLAND GROUP LLC

By : Mr. Ronald F. Daggett, Assistant Deputy Vice President for Human Resources, The Cockland Group LLC, an Investment House specializing in service to the mortgage industry.

Cockland Group LLC is growing at a rapid pace. Since our founding in 2003, we have secured firm accounts with the Nation's largest mortgage sellers, including HSBC, Citigroup and Coldwell Banker. Our commitment to Absolute Client Satisfaction (ACS)™ is unparalleled. Our earnings have steadily risen in every consecutive quarter since our founding, even during some of the most challenging economic times in our Nation's history. We are proud of our accomplishments and we remain focused on our overriding goal: To deliver timely, effective, reasonable mortgage reinvestment services across the entire financial industry.

We could not have achieved these results without you, our employees. Here at Cockland management, we salute your dedication, hard work and passion for mortgage reinvestment services. At Cockland, it is not just about mortgages. It is about people™. Our people are the best. We know you know that, too. And we are thankful that you share our zeal for boundless client satisfaction. Because when great people serve great clients, everyone wins™.

We owe our success to our unique corporate culture. Cockland drives hard and plays hard. When we enter a market, we aim to penetrate and win. But when we relax, we relax with the same fervor we display when servicing an account. Cockland employees know how to please clients. And that is why clients keep coming back for more. Cockland delivers solid performance: Any time, anywhere--and for the best price™.

Nonetheless, not everyone can be a Cockland employee. We expect the best and we demand a lot. Sometimes it is difficult to overcome stiff competition in the mortgage client service market. We do not tolerate droopers or flaccid account service. Only the firmest survive at Cockland. Our employees don't back down. They stay on top of accounts until they are closed. Cockland employees are not timid. When we service accounts, we never pull out. We do not stop until our clients are completely satisfied™.

We also demand complete devotion to The Cockland Mission (TCM)™ (see employee manual, Chapter 2 for details). Being part of a winning team means the ability to play your position and to cheerfully receive instructions. Knowing your job is only half the battle; the other half is knowing how you fit on the ball club.

Attire is an important part of Cockland's success. Since our founding, we have insisted that every team member in the Cockland family wear either a white or blue button-down shirt at work. Button-down shirts show good taste and respect for client expectations. Clients in the mortgage industry wear button-down shirts. Typically, those shirts are white or blue. It only makes sense that we--as dedicated client service professionals--mirror their expectations. That is why we have always required our employees to wear white or blue button-down shirts. Sometimes conventions are essential. And this is one such instance.

Button-down shirts are vital to Cockland's special place in the mortgage service market. Yet the company has never endorsed an official policy expressing unconditional support for button-down shirts. We believe we have a duty as a company to reverse that trend. It is time for Cockland to recognize button-down shirts. And it is time for Cockland to make button-down shirts mandatory for all employees at the company. It is time to formalize.

From this day forward, every Cockland employee will be required to wear only blue or white button-down shirts while on company business. We refuse to acknowledge any exceptions to this policy. Every Cockland employee must certify that he or she will comply with this policy. He or she must further certify that failure to comply will result in immediate disciplinary action, up to and including docked pay and termination. Cockland must preserve its team spirit. And it must also maintain its winning attire-related traditions. That is why we hereby officially make blue and white button-down shirts a core element of Cockland culture. If Cockland employees cannot accept this, they can find employment elsewhere.

But this does not end Cockland's determination to inculcate attire discipline. In addition to requiring all Cockland employees to wear white or blue button-down shirts, all employees must also appropriately tuck their shirts into their pants.

Without appropriate tucking, blue and white button-down shirts mean nothing. Only a tucked-in button-down shirt can accomplish the goals Cockland expects. A tucked-in button-down shirt is absolutely vital to continued employment at Cockland. Inappropriately tucked and untucked button-down shirts reveal an inattention to personal excellence that is fundamentally inconsistent with Cockland's overriding commitment to unparalleled mortgage service. Our clients tuck in their shirts. All people worth anything in the world tuck in their shirts, too.

It would contravene our most basic company values to tolerate anything less than fully tucked-in shirts among our employees. For that reason, Cockland hereby requires all employees to certify not only that they will wear a blue or white button-down shirt every day at work, but that they will also appropriately tuck in their shirts. Failure to tuck in a shirt will result in immediate disciplinary action, up to and including docked pay and termination. Additionally, inappropriately tucked-in shirts will lead to the same consequences. Cockland simply cannot risk disappointing its clients by allowing employees to appear without immaculately tucked-in blue or white button-down shirts.

We recognize that these policy changes may appear harsh. We also recognize that employees may be confused about what it means to "tuck in" a button-down shirt or to "appropriately" tuck in a button-down shirt. In fairness to our employees, we wish to clarify these matters.

First, a "tucked-in button down shirt" means any button-down shirt the shirttails of which rest against the upper thighs, yet which are concealed and circumscribed at the top by a belt and trousers. As such, if a shirttail at any time appears outside the pants, the shirt is considered "not tucked-in" and will accordingly subject the offending employee to discipline.

Second, an "inappropriately tucked-in button down shirt" means a tucked-in button down shirt the tucking of which is not appropriate. "Appropriate tucking," in turn, means a tuck that does not result in ruffles, creases or otherwise slovenly shirt characteristics above the beltline. A tuck is only appropriate when the shirttails remain at all times below the beltline without bulging out, creasing or otherwise creating an unsavory appearance. The mere fact that an employee experiences "inappropriate tucking" because he or she sat down at a desk for too long does not cure the offense. An inappropriate tuck is an inappropriate tuck. Our clients expect the best from Cockland; and they do not forgive inappropriate tucking.

Neither do we. Inappropriately tucked-in button-down shirts will immediately subject the offending employee to discipline, up to an including docked pay and termination. We realize that compliance with appropriate tucking requirements may at times prove difficult. For that reason, management has decided to allow employees to cure inappropriate tucking by expeditiously removing all inappropriateness from their tucking within 30 seconds after discovering that their button-down shirts are inappropriately tucked. We believe that this rule both fairly allows for conscientious compliance at the same time it justly punishes flagrantly inappropriate tucking.

Cockland management is determined to realize excellence in all employee endeavors. That is why it has decided to implement these new rules concerning mandatory button-down shirt wearing and appropriate tucking effective immediately. Details may be found in the employee manual, Chapter 45, subsection 7(b).

Anyone who is anyone wears a blue or white button-down shirt every day. And anyone who is anyone appropriately tucks that shirt in; or at least corrects inappropriate tucking the moment it appears. At Cockland, we are committed to bringing maximal satisfaction to everyone who is anyone. That is why we must lead by example. That is why we must tuck in our shirts--appropriately.

If you don't like the rule, you shouldn't be on this team. So tuck in your shirt and start penetrating those accounts like a real Cocklander.

NORMALIZING JUDGMENTS CAN REALLY PISS ME OFF

2010-05-18T11:51:00.008-04:00

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

It astounds me how much material I can mine from newspapers. Every story is rife with hidden biases. Every perspective is jilted. Every judgment is faulty--at least from particular angles. My writing, too, is faulty from particular angles. But newspapers "disseminate information on a large scale." They even claim to publish "the truth." I make no such claim. I am just a lonely Nietzschean in a categorical world. My facts are my perspectives, no more. To say anything else would be presumptuous at best.

Yet I am not writing to attack factual inaccuracies in news reporting. Rather, I write to illustrate the ubiquitous, subtle value judgments that underlie even the most innocuous articles.

Last week, for instance, the New York Post ran a brief article about the new "Limelight Mall" that opened in the old Episcopal church on 6th Avenue. See N.Y. Post, May 8, 2010 at p. 6. For New Yorkers, this is a seismic shift. Beginning in 1983, a notorious nightclub called "Limelight" operated in the space. It closed down a three years ago. It remained vacant. People thought the building was falling apart. They thought it was ugly. Actually, they never liked it much when it was a nightclub, either. People used to have sex, do drugs and dance there.

But now it's a high-end shopping mall. You can't hang out with lascivious nocturnal denizens in the Limelight anymore. You can't get lost in Byzantine mazes searching for chance encounters there. Nor can you dance away the night to the techno beat. No, now the Limelight has regular business hours. And rather than offering New York nightlife, now it peddles $400 dog collars, custom soaps and Petrossian caviar.

This is Bloomberg New York at its finest. Out with fun. Out with uniqueness. In with drab, revolting commercialism. In with chain stores, banks and luxury boutiques. It makes me want to vomit.

Yet the New York Post voices its values by praising the transformation at Limelight. Although the staff writer does not directly say that a boutique mall is better than a nightclub known for rollicking Epicurean license, she uses a surrogate to make the judgment for her. Specifically, she quotes a 30-year-old lawyer with a 7-month-old daughter who came down to check out the new shops. The lawyer said: "It's fabulous. It was really a dump before."

Wait a minute. What could a 30-year-old lawyer possibly know about what the Limelight was 20 years ago? She was 10 years old back then. She probably didn't even live in New York. The Limelight has been closed for three years. That means she was 27 when that happened. Kids usually graduate law school at 25, which means that for three years before that, she probably never set foot in a nightclub, let alone assessed whether the Limelight was a "dump." Even assuming she did have the time, most law students don't go to places like the Limelight; such indulgence might reflect poorly on their character applications for bar admissions.

In all likelihood, this lawyer moved to New York very recently and rented an apartment in the neighborhood at some obscenely inflated rent. She had a job waiting for her, then popped out a kid. She probably noticed that the church was unoccupied. She probably also noticed that the other buildings in the area housed nice little restaurants and shops, so the church looked "run down" by comparison. So when a boutique mall opened in her neighborhood, she probably thought to herself: "How consistent! Just what I expected for my block! Now I can get caviar!"

This is revolting value imposition. Who the hell is this little lawyer to say whether the Limelight was a dump? She could never have gone to the Limelight in its heyday. She was studying contracts and torts during its last years in operation. She merely heard about the Limelight and immediately concluded that a boutique mall is better than a nightclub. That is a value judgment. And it reflects allegiance to quiet bourgeois comfort. The Post endorsed that judgment.

Screw her. I think boutique malls are dumps. I'll take the nightclub.

Alas, she made the paper, not me.

Thus spoke Oesterhoudt.

TERROR FART SHUTS SEVENTH AVENUE : PANIC IN NEW YORK

2010-05-17T11:23:00.009-04:00

NEWS FLASH

Reason, Commerce, Justice and Free Beer has just learned that authorities in New York shut down a major city thoroughfare after a Muslim allegedly farted.

Details remain sketchy. It is not known who farted, nor whether the fart constituted "use of weapons of mass destruction" under applicable federal anti-terror laws. It is not even known whether the fart caused any appreciable damage to the surrounding area.

Nonetheless, officials are not taking any chances. Deputy NYPD Police Commissioner B. Leonard Pfurzfinder called the alleged terror fart a "serious attempt" to sow chaos in New York. He warned the public to "keep your eyes and noses open for flatulating Muslims."

Mr. Pfurzfinder gave a press conference shortly after the incident: "I wish to confirm that the Police Department--in cooperation with State and federal law enforcement--have closed Seventh Avenue following the reported emission of terrorist intestinal gas near 35th Street. At approximately 7:45 AM today, a woman named Cathleen Summers passed a man with a long black beard wearing a skull cap and a long white gown. According to Ms. Summers, 'he looked like Osama bin Laden.' As she passed the man at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and 35th Street, Ms. Summers heard a very loud noise. 'It was definitely a fart,' she said. Within a moment following the noise, Ms. Summers also smelled a rancid odor in her vicinity. 'It must have come from the fart,' she told responding officers. She also mentioned that pedestrians gasped in horror when they smelled the fart; they fled in all directions. Pandemonium ensued. One man collapsed from inhaling the fumes. Another man said the 'sound of the fart' broke his iPad® digital reading device. Ms. Summers also reported that the bearded man did not panic after the fart; he surreptitiously moved away down 35th Street."

Mr. Pfurzfinder continued: "We are fortunate that no fatalities resulted from the fart. But we cannot let our guard down. Considering the evidence before us, we must conclude that this fart constitutes a serious terrorist attack on American soil. True, the fart did not cause much damage. But it shows that there are men who look like Osama bin Laden in the United States who can emit toxic odors. Worse, it shows that men with beards and white gowns can infiltrate major American cities, eat gas-producing foods and subject everyday Americans to deadly flatulence. We can be glad that no Americans died in this brazen gas assault on New York City. But we must painfully acknowledge that the War on Terror--especially gaseous fart terror--is far from over."

Mr. Pfurzfinder stressed that Americans must do their part to battle terrorism in all its forms: "We salute Ms. Summers for immediately calling authorities after she heard and smelled the enemy fart. And we also salute Ms. Summers for recognizing that suspicious activity is not always visible. In fact, terrorism does not just affect the eyes; it affects all the senses. Since 2001, the NYPD has admonished New Yorkers to report suspicious activity with the slogan: 'See something; say something.' But that admonishment does not encompass all possible terrorist threats. Terror does not limit itself to visible phenomena. As this case shows, terror can be heard and smelled, too. In that light, we hereby modify our slogan to include all the senses: 'See something, hear something, smell something, taste something or feel something--say something.' Although we recognize that some New Yorkers may report things that do not turn out to be terror threats, we believe that the extra caution is worth it. An old woman, for instance, may feel a spider crawling on her neck while she sleeps. She may believe she is under tactile terrorist attack. She might even call police, wailing: "I felt something, so I'm saying something." Yet fielding a few misguided 911 calls is a small price to pay to avoid another 9/11."

Concerning the general terrorist threat level, Mr. Pfuzfinder elaborated: "We are on edge. Within the last two weeks, Muslim agents have tried to blow up Times Square. In the ensuing days, authorities closed down Times Square several times after citizens reported 'suspicious packages' on various street corners. Those packages turned out to contain ham sandwiches, bottled water and cheap novels; but the threat remains. It remains true that Muslims want to kill us. Today's fart incident represents yet another attempt to target America this month. We are in the crosshairs. The Muslims not only want to destroy significant targets in spectacular attacks; they also want to wreak panic by dispersing toxic farts among everyday people who just want to get to work in the morning. That is truly terrifying--and we are working to stop it."

Mr. Pfurzfinder did not specify how the NYPD plans to address farting Muslims in the future. Still, Republican lawmakers in Washington, D.C. quickly jumped on the news.

"Today's incident in New York just goes to show that President Obama is not doing enough to stop terror," declared Senator John Cornyn (R-TX). "This is the price we pay for the President's misguided decision to 'understand' Muslims. We cannot afford to understand these people. They want choke us on the nastiest farts you can possibly imagine. We cannot have a 'dialogue' with people who are out to drown us in farts. Put simply, we need to stop talking and start attacking Pakistan, which is where this fart guy is probably from. If we don't, the next fart is going to really hurt somebody."

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) echoed Mr. Cornyn's call for increased action against Pakistan. "I have it from reliable sources that al-Qaeda is training operatives to produce massive amounts of flatulence in their own bodies. They call it 'the natural approach.' CIA infiltrators have shown me shocking pictures of masked men sitting in desert training camps eating goat cheese, falafel, kebab and raw onions in terrifying amounts. We are blind to the truth if we assume that this New York fart suspect did not receive al-Qaeda digestive terror training in Pakistan. That is why we must attack Pakistan now. I refuse to see a single American killed by a fart we could have prevented."

In a statement on the issue, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) shied away from foreign policy assertions. "No matter what we do abroad, I say we need better domestic legislation to punish Muslims who fart. I have already drawn up a draft bill that expands the definition of 'weapons of mass destruction' to include 'the intentional, reckless, negligent or inadvertent expulsion of intestinal gas by a person who is a Muslim, however slight or inaudible.' Ignorance is no defense. I define 'Muslim' as 'any person not a Christian' or 'any person with a suspicious looking beard, unless he is from Texas; but such exception does not apply to African-Americans with beards, or any female, regardless of State residence or race.' If we enforce this law, we will bring digestive terrorists to justice and protect Americans."

President Obama's Attorney General--Eric H. Holder, Jr.--urged a more circumspect approach to the Muslim fart menace. "Our investigation into this matter has just begun. We still need to determine whether the man who farted did so with terroristic intent. This is a legal inquiry: Only farts expelled with a specific intent to terrorize are currently forbidden under existing law. This administration is committed to law. We refuse to indulge speculation. We also refuse to yield to public hysteria surrounding the incident. Until we have reliable evidence, we cannot commit to prosecuting this suspect as a terrorist. For the moment, he is simply a 'person of interest' who farted on Seventh Avenue on May 17, 2010. We understand that our approach may disappoint those who assume all Muslim farts to be terror farts. But respect for the rule of law--and for basic fairness in the administration of justice--dictates that we assemble all the facts before we conclude that digestive terror occurred in New York today."

Rush Limbaugh denounced Holder's statement as "rubbish:" "When a Muslim farts, it's terror. I don't give a shit what the law says."

New York's Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg emphasized that Muslim farting is not good for the city economy. "The thing that upsets me most is that this fart closed down Seventh Avenue. There are a lot of really big stores and businesses on Seventh Avenue, including Ernst & Young and roughly 75 Starbucks Coffee houses. This fart caused people to miss work and lose out on pay. It also caused people to refrain from shopping and going to Starbucks. That is not good for New York. So whether or not we conclude that this Muslim emitted a terror fart, he has already terrorized New York's economy. And I don't like it when corporations can't do business."

At present, investigators are searching high and low for the man who allegedly farted near Ms. Summers this morning. Officials expect to reopen Seventh Avenue sometime this afternoon, depending on the FBI's determination that residual Muslim fart fumes have sufficiently dissipated to permit vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

President Obama issued the following statement after receiving word about the incident: "Our hearts go out to the families and to those affected. We will not tolerate digestive terror and we will not shirk our responsibilities. We are a resilient people. No matter how thick the fart cloud that hangs over us, we will persevere."

UPDATE AND A WORD ABOUT MY FUTURE PROJECTS

2010-05-12T18:21:00.005-04:00

You've probably noticed that I haven't posted anything in a few days. Once again, I've been extremely busy handling my partner's health problems. I spent the better part of the last two days in the hospital. I didn't sleep much during that time and when I got up this morning I was too exhausted to think, let alone generate a decent post. Aside from that, I was out of town this weekend and have been occupied with lots of new things; and don't worry: They are good for me!

Still, all these events have denied me my writing time. That bothers me on many levels. It makes me feel better just to let you all know what's going on with me, since I'm accustomed to a certain weekly output. On the other hand, I realize that life does not always offer the best circumstances in which to create. And if I have to go into "writing dormancy" more than usual in the coming weeks, I will have to face it. I apologize in advance if I don't crank out my hoped-for three or four posts every week.

I always get so many ideas during my breaks. When I just live and observe, I amass new thoughts, experiences and impressions. I know those ideas will all buoy me when I settle down into another long writing phase. I've actually jotted down three big ideas for longer pieces in the future. Although I do not have the time or space to discuss them all here, I will say that they involve these issues: Truth; confessions; power; capital punishment; free will; death; sexuality; categorization; identity; desire; subjectivity; happiness; prejudice and reflection. I have conceived both fictional and nonfictional structures in which to explore these themes. But my piece on sexuality will be part reflective, part anecdotal and part polemical. Think of it as a sequel to Foucault's work on sexuality, with a personal twist to make it accessible.

To share some detail from my own personal experience lately, I have been entertaining serious doubts about my own sexuality. And my doubts move in an unconventional direction. Namely, for almost 14 years I have been quick to characterize myself as "gay." But in fact I'm not so sure what that means anymore. By the same token, I cannot say what "straight" means, either. In truth, the only reliable conclusion I've made in this inquiry is that sexual identity is never clear-cut. That is because it reflects basic desire. Basic desire, in turn, is purely subjective. It is impossible to categorize desire because there is no limit to individuals' deepest subjective tastes.

I don't think people appreciate just how fluid sexual identity is. That is what I will address in my piece. In the process, I will discuss the unfortunate human tendency to associate absolute meaning with artificial categories. I plan to show that categories like "gay" and "straight" are not talismanic. Rather, I will show that they are at best "rough guidelines" that exist in various proportions in us all at different times in our lives.

I also plan to discuss why I think the term "gay" is absurd. When it comes to categorizing groups, sexual "orientation" is a dubious--and barely unifying--characteristic. That is not to say that people who identify themselves as "gay" do not merit certain assistance or solicitude under law. My main argument will be that "gay" is not a good identifier, nor is it absolute. There are plenty of people in the world--including me--who find men attractive, yet have no difficulty whatever finding women attractive, too. The bottom line is that one desire never excludes another. And "gay" is a category that essentially implicates a particular sexual desire.

So that's what's on my mind these days. Forgive me for the sparser posting. I promise there is plenty more to come. I have a whole list to get to!

Take care. And thanks as always for reading my archives.

Oesterhoudt

PROPERTY OWNERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST DISABLED AMERICANS

2010-05-06T12:38:00.010-04:00

CONSIDERED OPINION

By : Mr. Irwin D. Gallant, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lexington Property Management Group LLC (A Delaware Limited Liability Company specializing in commercial property rentals to Fortune 500 companies in cities across the Nation); Harvard Business School (M.B.A. summa cum laude 1990); Avid Jogger; Amateur clockmaker and watch collector; Christian; aficionado of numerous activities requiring undamaged arms and legs.

Hey you. Yeah, you: The fat fuck in the wheelchair. Get a goddamn move on it. I've got a whole line of customers trying to get into the store, and there you are struggling to maneuver your fucking lard cart through that double door. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know you're disabled. But it's about damn time for property owners like me to tell you what we really feel: We can't fucking stand your lame asses.

How many times have property owners felt this way? They all do--every day. Disabled people are simply not fast enough to keep up with the pace of business in America. They frustrate normal people with functioning legs who are just trying to go to work, buy a few groceries and get home before 10 PM. And how much money have property owners spent trying to accommodate these worthless crippled fuckers? Let me give you a ballpark: BILLIONS!@!@! And I'll tell you another thing: Building expensive ramps for drooling fucktards with canes has driven numerous enterprising Americans straight out of business.

America faces worse threats than foreign terrorism. As a property owner and businessman, I can say without hesitation that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) is the greatest threat to liberty this Nation has ever encountered. Fuck the Times Square bomber; he didn't hurt anyone. But the ADA hurts honest business owners every day by requiring them to build costly additions to their properties on their own nickel. And when business owners hurt, the whole country hurts.

Think about it: The Red Lobster on West 41st Street could have hired 100 dishwashers and 50 waiters in 2009 if it hadn't had to install a freaking "supplemental dumbwaiter" to lift paralyzed midgets from the dining room to the balcony. So in the end, a few lazy fuckheads got to eat the fried shrimp special in 2009, while 150 people lost their jobs. Fair trade? I think not.

Liberty is about owning property and doing whatever you want with it. Liberty is also about making as much money as you can from your property without worrying about other people. But the ADA forces property owners to do things with their property that they'd rather not do. It forces them to accommodate people on their premises who do not help them make more money. This violates property owners' liberty. It also robs them blind by compelling them to build doorways, elevators, extra exits and conveyor belts all over the place. That shit is expensive. And when business owners spend money on useless shit like that, it prevents them from paying out dividends, hiring people or opening new locations.

Put simply, the ADA is a terrorist law because it tramples liberty. In fact, most business owners would simply prefer to die in a car bomb explosion than watch their companies go bankrupt after wasting all their money on unnecessary elevators. Castrating a business' economic potential is just as terroristic as slamming airplane into a skyscraper. The result is the same: People lose their jobs--and their lives. And both are scary.

When we reflect on just how much it costs to comply with the ADA, we must ask ourselves: For what? What do we get for destroying businesses and bankrupting property owners? What do we get for boosting unemployment and dampening our prosperity? A society in which crippled fucktards can wheel into any building they want to spend their pension money.

I know it's "American" to say that everyone deserves an "equal opportunity" to see the Yankees or eat at Red Lobster. But who really gives a flying fuck about some paraplegic kid with a tube down his throat? OK, so we build him his own goddamn elevator and his own goddamn entrance door. Once he's in, does he spend money? Maybe his mother buys him a candy bar, a hot dog or some shit… oh wait, he eats through a tube. Never mind. What I mean is that crippled fucktards don't usually have much money to spend, and there aren't that many of them anyway. So basically property owners waste all that money accommodating them; and they get zero in return. In business, that's called a loser bet. And that's exactly what the ADA forces property owners to do.

I know what you're thinking: How can I be so mean when talking about Americans with disabilities? Well, I've got a simple answer: Because I'm honest. Life isn't easy in America. It isn't easy to run a profitable business and pay your bills. Life is fast-paced; if you can't hack it, you can't hack it. It's hard enough to turn a profit even with full body function; you can just forget about it you're legless. If you had the bad luck to get crippled--or you were born with some freakish defect that condemns you to lifetime care--that's your problem. You have no business doing business. You shouldn't be in the race. Sorry about that. That's just the way the ball bounces, mon frère. Apply for charity or something. Just don't stand in line or apply for a job with everyone else. You really annoy us.

Normal Americans just plain don't like being around crippled people. It makes them uncomfortable. When a family goes to the museum, they don't like waiting for a half-dead, moaning retard on a motorized gurney to navigate a narrow passageway. When young professionals go to a discotheque on Friday night, they don't like waiting two minutes for a blind war veteran on two canes to hop his way up the steps. When hardworking American workers get home at night, the last thing they want is to wait for a paralyzed woman to fish out pocket change in line at the grocery store.

In a word, crippled people frustrate and frighten everyone around them. Nobody likes them. Nobody has patience for them. In that sense, it is perplexing that the ADA forces both business owners and customers to deal with them on even terms. If it were up to the American people, they would stay away from cripples like the black death. But the law forces Americans to treat them "equally." This is both wrong and unjust.

To summarize: Commercial life is fast-paced; and disabled Americans are not fast-paced. They simply cannot cut the mustard. From an evolutionary standpoint, crippled people don't belong in commercial life. They can't keep up. That's the truth, no matter what goody-goody rhetoric apologists on it. If it came between hiring an able-bodied man and a wheelchair-bound man for the same job, no rational employer would ever hire the cripple. Why should he? If both men had the mental ability to do the job, why hire the man who needs a special entrance door and elevator just to get into the building? Why assume the extra trouble? In business, we move fast. We avoid inconvenience when we can. And cripples are inconvenient. The bottom line is that we don't have time to be nice. Time is money. So we hire the man who takes less time to do the same job. Plus he can get up and run errands once in a while.

Commercial life is like nature: Only the strong survive. Yet the ADA compels commercial actors to accommodate cripples and hire them on equal terms, no matter how unprofitable it may be. This is not only counter-evolutionary. It is also unnatural. Would a bee colony support bees without wings? Would a cattle herd help a cow with broken legs? Certainly not: Caring for cripples threatens the well-being of the healthy community. Commerce, like nature, is a death struggle against bankruptcy. Just as a herd depends on healthy, contributing members to avoid death in nature, so too do commercial actors depend on healthy, contributing employees to avoid bankruptcy in commerce. And just as a herd abandons crippled members to avoid death in nature, so too do commercial actors jettison crippled employees to avoid bankruptcy in commerce. In this light, the ADA forces commercial actors to unnaturally hire crippled workers who do more harm than good for the enterprise.

Viewed as a whole, the ADA terrorizes liberty and makes war on nature. In the name of "decency, compassion and humanity," it forces property owners into bankruptcy just to accommodate worthless crippled Americans. It hamstrings employers by forcing them to hire employees who are physically unable to make money. And it frustrates everyday Americans by forcing them to watch pathetic cripples take entirely too long to accomplish rudimentary commercial activities, like boarding a bus.

What is liberty if not the freedom to spend money as we please, to hire whom we please and to keep the company we please? And what is liberty if we must spend money in ways we'd rather not, hire clearly unsatisfactory people and keep uncomfortable company with paralyzed invalids who defecate on themselves in public? That is not liberty--that is terrorism.

As a property owner and an American, I say with all my heart: The Americans with Disabilities Act is terrorism. And I believe in freedom. That means the freedom to shut out cripples from movie theaters and fire people without arms. And it also means the freedom to walk into a grocery store at 6:45 PM without fear that a deaf-mute fucktard on crutches will hold up the line for seven minutes.

I speak for all Americans who believe in unrestricted commerce when I say: "Hey lady. Yeah, you, the amputee. Pick up the fucking pace, will you? I just got out of work. Friends is on soon and I'll be damned if you take two more fucking minutes to pay for that soup."

THE HEIGHT OF DISINGENUOUSNESS : INVESTMENT BANKS "MAKING A DIFFERENCE"

2010-05-04T10:39:00.009-04:00

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

Last week, I took a walk in Brooklyn. As I made my way up Tillary Street past Flatbush Avenue, I noticed an incredible commercial message from Charles Schwab adorning a bus stop: "We want to make a difference, not just a buck. Let's make a difference together."

I beg your pardon? Do investment houses really care about making anything more than a buck? Why do people invest money in the first place? To turn one buck into two or more bucks. It's all about making bucks. If investing makes any "difference," it's a differential between the amount invested and the amount returned. And everyone wants that differential to be positive.

But let's leave investors aside for a moment. Let's focus on the institutional guys. You know, the investment bankers who craft bewildering "portfolios" designed to churn fees and hopefully yield a nifty profit for the client. Now, an investment banker exists to do two things: (1) To maximize the monetary return on a client's investment; and (2) To maximize his own fees by selecting appropriate transactions. To be blunt, it is all about money. In fact, investment bankers are more than mere employees; they are fiduciaries. They must subordinate their own interests to their clients' interests. They can even be sued for failing to make enough money, because that shows "they did not sufficiently have their clients interests at heart."

In that light, it is preposterous for Charles Schwab to suggest that investment bankers care about anything more than "making a buck." If they cared about anything else--like "making a difference"--they would lose their jobs, clients and everything else they value.

And what does "making a difference" really mean? Have investment houses suddenly lost their collective minds? Do they want to open soup kitchens or something? Do they want to build houses for the homeless? How about pay for health care for indigents? Is that the kind of "social difference" they want to make? The phrase "making a difference" implies broader service to the public, or even ethical purity. It rings with selfless nobility. Yet such things are completely antithetical to an investment house's primary mission: To make profits for themselves and their private clients. There is nothing "public" or "noble" about that enterprise.

Recent stock market scandals only weaken Charles Schwab's pitiful attempt to appear altruistic. Did Lehman Bros. care about "making a difference" when they lured investors into placing money on a housing market they bet would fail? The bottom line is that people expect investment bankers to engage in dirty dealing. It is par for the course. Worse, most investors would prefer their bankers to engage in the most barely legal conduct possible so long as that conduct yields a maximal return. That is what it means to "make a buck," not "a difference."

Commerce is about making bucks, not a difference. That is just the way it works. And it is the height of disingenuousness for anyone to suggest otherwise, let alone massive investment banks that personify the commercial spirit. If investment banks choose to "make a difference," chances are they do so in order to gain tax advantages, not to soothe their conscience.

Put thematically, the clash between "making a buck" and "making a difference" is a clash between commerce and ethics. It is also a clash between ends and means. Commerce is about ends; ethics is about means. A commercial man only cares about the bottom line, no matter how he gets there (provided he does not risk criminal sanction). An ethical man cares about the way he achieves his goal. When a person commits to making bucks, he has a distinctly result-oriented motive. But when a person wishes to make a difference in the ethical sense, he is as much concerned about the way he brings about positive change as he is concerned about the change itself.

In commerce, means are secondary. Investment houses like Charles Schwab know that. If it suddenly adopted "making a difference" as its primary business model, its clients would leave in droves. And the company's shareholders would angrily vote off the "insane" directors who approved such an idiotic way to do business. In their place, the shareholders would quickly appoint directors with a more sensible business model, namely: "Making a buck."

And the new directors would immediately yank those ridiculous posters from the bus stops.

Hey, at least they would be honest.

MOMENTS IN TIME : JANUARY 1, 2000

2010-05-03T14:11:00.011-04:00

A REFLECTION

Sometimes memories return to me with uncanny clarity. It is not just the clarity that strikes me. More often I wonder why certain memories return to me so long after the event. After all, of all the things I have experienced in my life, why would one day's details suddenly reemerge? What triggered it? And then a more vexing thought crosses my mind: As clear as my memory seems to me, perhaps reality was very different from what I remember? Who can say now? That is one reason why memory fascinates me so much. It is exquisitely subjective. It seems real, but only to ourselves.

I got up this morning and suddenly remembered December 31, 1999. On that day, I worked from morning to night and beyond. Back then, I was a 22-year-old kid with a "bowl haircut" and a jean jacket. I wore ripped $30 pants for days at a time. I was a college senior who memorized Nietzsche quotes without fully comprehending them. I basically had no money; my mother gave me about $20 a week to spend. So starting in 1997 I worked as a DJ to make a few extra bucks. Much to my good fortune, I met a much older guy named Joe who had been DJ'ing parties around the city for decades. He used to tell me stories about going home with women after disco parties in the 1970s. He was a Vietnam veteran and--to be kind--rather eccentric. He lived alone in a food-strewn apartment on 122nd Street brimming with records and 5 or 6 yappy Chihuahuas (one or two died over the years; but a few more were born, so I can't remember the exact number). Basically, the place was squalid. But somehow Joe kept getting gigs and holding his life together really well. He kept a zillion post-it notes all over his bedroom to remind him to do this and that each day--and he always got it done. For years, we worked really well together. He farmed me out to jobs he couldn't do and I gave him a cut of what I made. Plus we became really good friends.

Both Joe and I knew that New Year's Eve on Y2K would be a gangbuster night for DJ's. After all, everyone was partying that night. Some people thought the world was going to end. I knew it wouldn't. But it was an unprecedented atmosphere. And most importantly, entertainers like us were in demand that night. So we could charge huge fees and we knew people would pay. We could name our price for a change.

Joe wound up scheduling a $2000 job. At the same time, he booked me a job for $1800. We agreed I would get $1500. He would take a $300 commission. That seemed fair to me; in fact, I was thrilled. For a kid who wore torn pants and got $20 a week to spend, $1500 was a treasure trove. I could live the whole semester on that--and all for just one night's work.

I remember the job exactly. We did it in a brand new loft apartment on 21st Street near 6th Avenue. Some nouveau riche woman and her husband were throwing a party. Joe and I drove down to the apartment the morning before the gig to set up. Joe drove a virtually unroadworthy mid-80s Chevy station wagon. It had no muffler and a pretty disgusting, food-like crust clung like a glaze all over the interior. The car had roaches. And Joe stuffed in so many speakers, wires, amps and record crates into it that I was amazed the bumper didn't scrape the pavement as we drove. In short, despite all appearances, Joe was a master of limited space management. The cops never pulled the jalopy over, either.

I remember schlepping all our equipment two flights up to the apartment. The woman and her husband were frantically decorating the place and setting up long tables for the hors d'oeuvres. I had a few words with her. She said she liked hip-hop and R&B. I said that was great because "that was my specialty." She seemed to like me. She didn't seem to like Joe too much, though. After all, at first glance he looked really gruff and he spent his time hauling speakers and wires all over the place. He was always polite and even charming. But he just didn't look the part. Some customers really used to treat him badly, and that hurt me.

After we set up the equipment, Joe and I sat in the car for a few minutes and talked about the plan for the evening. I would show up at the gig and do my thing. He would go to his gig and do his. Then he would pick me up from my gig and I would give him his cut. We would drive back uptown together and call it a night around 4 AM. It was a good plan. We then went our separate ways.

I remember the party went very smoothly. I got to play the music I wanted. The crowd was easy and did not complain. My DJ station faced east; the crowd looked west out the windows over 6th Avenue. Joe set up the lights and I controlled them with a little hand console. It took a while for the alcohol to get the party moving; eventually it did. I started off playing 70s funk and rare grooves. That gave a nice ambiance to the early part. Later, people started asking me to play hip-hop and assorted Top Ten pop. I obliged. I remember one Asian chick kept asking me to play Lauren Hill's "That Thing" over and over again. That tune always generated a huge crowd response, so I waited to play it until the place was really hopping. I kept telling her "it was in the pipe." She never quarreled with me; she just kept going back to her friends and dancing.

Before midnight, nervous excitement came over the room. People started wondering aloud whether the world would end at 12:01. I remember people throwing their drinks and hooting in the minutes leading up to midnight. I also remember looking outside and seeing helicopters flying low over the city with spotlights on. There was a lot of honking and yelling on the street below. I could hear it even over the music. Finally, 12:01 came. Nothing happened. A huge cheer went up on the dancefloor. Then the party went into overdrive. "Hypnotize," "Walking on the Sun" and "Backstreet's Back" were particularly popular that night. Oh, and of course "Groove is in the Heart" and "It Takes Two" made everyone move, too, even otherwise respectable-looking bourgeois with jobs: I always laughed when I saw white bankers singing along to rap songs. But by that point at the party, the alcohol was guaranteed to make everyone dance, no matter what was playing. Even so, as a DJ, I felt like I had accomplished something. Lots of drunk, happy people profusely thanked me for "all the great tunes" as the evening approached its end. It was always a nice perk to get compliments, even if the partygoers were fall-down drunk and virtually incoherent.

At about 3 AM, Joe showed up from his party. People had already started to leave. Beer and broken plastic cups littered the dancefloor, along with squashed finger foods and dirty napkins. Everyone was shouting, hugging, hooting, caressing and laughing. The mood was very good. Almost all the food was gone and the wine was running low. Joe went over to the hostess and whispered to her. She then came over to me and told me it was OK to start wrapping up.

Within 30 minutes, almost everyone had left and I stopped the music. The house lights came up. Joe started breaking down the lights and sound equipment. I chatted with the hostess for a while. She complimented me in the highest terms, even though she was utterly shitfaced. I still felt like I had done a good job; for my part, I did not touch a drink that evening. I had a few Sprites and some ice water. Finally, the hostess pulled out an enormous wad of $20 bills and handed it to me. I thanked her. She went away and I started helping Joe move all our stuff downstairs. Meanwhile, the hostess and her husband started brushing trash off the floor with two big push brooms.

It took us a good 30 minutes to haul all our stuff downstairs. We loaded it into the car and--once again--got it all to fit. After that, Joe and I shook hands and congratulated each other on a job well done. I handed him his $300 commission. Then he headed back uptown and he dropped me off at my dorm on 114th Street and Riverside. I wished Joe a happy new year and thanked him for being so generous to me. He said no problem and drove off into the predawn darkness.

I went upstairs to my room on the fourth floor. There was no way I could sleep after the night's toils. It was about quarter to five in the morning, January 1, 2000. I walked over to my single-size mattress. I took the enormous cash wad from my pocket and laid all the money out on the bedspread. I was in awe: $1500 in cash, all for me. I never thought I could ever make that much in one night. It was unbelievable. What a way to start the new year, the new decade, the new millennium. I felt like life could not get any better than this. I even felt that time had suddenly stopped, as if I could never get older, that this moment would last forever. After all, it was the year 2000! To that point in my life--indeed, in everyone's life--it had always been the 20th Century. I couldn't really fathom that life would go on as it always did. On that night, time froze as I sat there ogling my massive money pile. For a few hours, I felt utterly invincible. I felt that I controlled time and that I would never age.

I was hungry. I went out to get some food at Tom's Diner. It was extremely quiet. All the partying was over. A few stragglers appeared here and there, but that was it. I saw a few "2000" party eyeglasses in a trash can. It was still dark. As I headed down Broadway, a New York Times truck pulled up and a man tossed out the morning edition. I bought one. It had an unforgettably bold headline: 1/1/00. Underneath, in typeface almost as big, was a headline saying that Russia's President Yeltsin had resigned. A new man, Putin, was taking over.

Wow, I thought, everything was looking up! It was a fresh new morning in a fresh new millennium. I had $1500 in cash and there was a new Russian President. One era ended. Another was dawning. Time stood still and I was in control.

Then I went to Tom's and ordered a shake and fries. I stayed there for a while. I let myself get tired. Finally, I headed back to my dorm to go to sleep. It was dawning. Time for bed. It was a good night.

I still have never made that much money in one night as I did on January 1, 2000. I think that's why I remember it so vividly. It felt really good.

Too bad life got harder after that. But on that night, I didn't think anything could ever go wrong.

UNCOMFORTABLE SUBJECTS : IMPERIALISM AND CONQUEST

2010-04-28T12:41:00.008-04:00

AN ESSAY

Over the last half century, "imperialism" has become a dirty word in American academic discourse. During that time, prevailing rhetoric has extolled multiculturalism, tolerance and multiperspectivism. It has championed the rights of historically disadvantaged groups while denigrating traditionally powerful ones. It has empowered the downtrodden and strengthened the weak. It has justified the historically unjustifiable. In the process, university rhetoric has identified "imperialism" as the worst thing one culture can do to another. Great civilizations, so the rhetoric goes, no longer conquer and dominate others. Great civilizations tolerate everyone and allow every culture to flourish within their borders.

Yet I venture that this is an anomalous trend. In fact, I argue that Nations unafraid to act imperialistically are strong Nations, while Nations afraid to do so are weak.

I understand that this squarely contradicts how we are "supposed to think" about imperialism today. But true to my word, I am determined to speak out this week about uncomfortable subjects. To use Nietzsche's term, I am determined to make "Uncontemporary Observations" concerning subjects we have been taught never to consider any other way.

Imperialism is about national power. In its purest form, it means the purposeful, intrusive projection of one Nation's military and cultural power over another Nation. To understand what that entails, it is essential to understand what "Nations" are. In past essays, I have noted that "Nations" and "States" are distinct terms. "Nations" refer to discrete populations united by common linguistic, cultural, genetic and religious traditions. "States," on the other hand, refer merely to a population's adherence to a particular governing instrument for the sake of common administration and convenience. Many Nations can exist under a common State. But Nations are unique.

Throughout history, some Nations have prevailed, while others have fallen. Nations that have prevailed generally have successfully engaged in imperialism. They have crushed and dominated their neighbors. They have brutally stamped out opposition and imposed their own cultural traditions on their defeated enemies. These Nations cared nothing for multiculturalism or tolerance. They did not blink at brutality. Rather, they felt so secure in their own power that they gladly violated other Nations' territory to absorb them into their own realms. This is not a popular thing to do these days. But history shows that the most influential Nations have been the most imperialistic, too.

Consider Rome. Rome grew to eminence because it projected its values across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. By sheer will and military prowess, it subjugated its neighbors, occupied their territory and imposed its values on them. It even made them speak Latin and build infrastructure according to the Roman model. It forced them to live under Roman law and observe Roman customs. Rome was strongest when it was unafraid to conquer. It affirmed its own beliefs when it ruthlessly destroyed all who stood before it. Through imperialism, Rome made itself great. At its height, Rome conquered and killed without a second thought. It believed so strongly in its own values that it did not hesitate to eradicate whole Nations.

But consider now how Rome fell. Rome collapsed several centuries after it stopped waging imperial wars. Once it reached its territorial zenith, Roman values began to weaken. Its government began tolerating new ideas and new cultural trends. Internal cultural cracks developed. Its military power waned. Barbarians began picking away at the frontiers. Put simply, Rome lost its appetite for imperialism. It lost faith in its own rightful dominance. So Nations with more assurance in their own values filled the void. They overran Rome and destroyed it.

Turn now to England and Spain, the "great" European colonizers of the Americas and Asia. Both Nations achieved spectacular eminence because they shamelessly engaged in imperialism. Both Nations reached their zenith when they brutally laid claim to others' land and genocidally slaughtered anyone who opposed them. They unswervingly believed in their own causes: Just like the imperial Romans, the British and the Spanish believed that their values were far superior to the Natives they displaced. So they killed, enslaved and uprooted them without a second thought. In the process, they reshaped the world. Like it or not, the fact that English and Spanish are among the world's most spoken languages is the direct result of unabashed, vicious global imperialism. Like it or not, the only reason why European white people live in North America today is because England and Spain barged in and killed everyone else who used to live there. The very existence of the United States is the product of an original, shocking act of imperialism by Great Britain.

To summarize, Nations are strong when they conquer. They believe in their own values so much that they do not shrink from trampling and absorbing other Nations. Nations weaken when they lose faith in their own dominance and begin tolerating dissention in their own borders. Imperialism showcases a Nation's shameless belief in itself; and its contempt for any culture that differs from it.

Needless to say, it is no longer popular to endorse imperialism. It is no longer acceptable to say that one Nation is rightfully superior to another, let alone to suggest that one Nation has the authority to seize territory and butcher native inhabitants in another country. Yet it is precisely that vicious cultural intolerance that created the United States. That same intolerance sustained all the world's mightiest empires. When a Nation engages in imperialism without shame, it declares to all the world: "My Nation is so great that it deserves to dominate you."

America presents an interesting case. Despite all the recent discourse condemning imperialism, the United States remains an immensely imperialistic country. Since roughly 1865, America has engaged in imperialism all over the world. First, it eradicated or marginalized native populations in its own continental borders. Second, it overran Hawaii. Then it battled Spain and conquered Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, the Philippines and numerous Pacific islands. In World War I, it projected its national power into European affairs, playing a substantial role in dictating the peace terms at Versailles. In World War II, the United States achieved monumental national power by almost single-handedly defeating Japan and Germany, then permanently occupying both defeated countries. After World War II, the United States created the United Nations and oversaw "world peace" by policing various national conflicts from Korea to Vietnam to Afghanistan and Central America. Later, the United States invaded Iraq on fabricated "self-defense" grounds, plunging that country into civil war.

America's voracious imperialism does not end with military conquest. Beyond physical incursions into other Nations' affairs, America also engages in unabashed cultural intrusion. Its music and film industry dominate the entire world. Children from China to Germany to Africa all learn English so they can listen to American songs and watch American movies. People in Beirut listen to Michael Jackson and Rihanna. Business people all over the world adopt English as their lingua franca. America's cultural imperialism is so complete that when two foreign businessmen meet, chances are they will speak English to each other, even if neither is a native English speaker. None of these things would ever have come to pass if America had not engaged in overwhelming, successful imperialism over the last 150 years.

In this light, perhaps it is not a bad thing to say that a Nation like the United States is "imperialistic." After all, America dominates the world in a way not seen since Rome. Its culture, language and military cow the globe into submission. All other Nations measure themselves by the American standard. Like all empires in history, America's imperialism shows that the United States ruthlessly believes in itself. It does not tolerate dissention abroad. And it has shown that it will crush any Nation that opposes its power. Put simply, America is strong; and it is not afraid to beat anyone down who thinks otherwise.

Is imperialism unpopular? In university rhetoric, of course it is. But when we look closely at what imperialism means--and what it has wrought in the United States--we discover an embarrassing truth: We are all the products of imperialism. Our "American civilization" arose because England and Spain were unafraid to savagely kill the natives who once occupied this land. We speak English and Spanish in North America because the British and Spanish felt so superior that they had a right to set up shop on a foreign continent. And we now live in the world's most powerful Nation because the United States carried on the imperialistic tradition that gave it life in the first place.

America was born in imperialism. It will always be imperialistic. Imperialism showcases American values. It reflects intolerance for all who oppose us. In a perverse way, however, it also confirms America's health. As long as America is unafraid to savagely destroy its enemies and to project is culture over all the world, it is still--as Rome was--at the height of its power. America has not stopped expanding. Indeed, it is not in our nature to stop expanding. Once we stop expanding--whether culturally or militarily--we are no longer imperialistic. And when that happens, we can expect our power to gradually wane, just as Rome's did.

Thus, despite all the criticism, an imperialistic Nation is a healthy Nation. Imperialistic Nations might act like ferocious animals, but ferocious animals defeat any living thing that opposes them. In that light, we can thank imperialism for giving us this mighty Republic, as well as all the comforts it brings.

This is my uncontemporary observation for the day.

UNCOMFORTABLE SUBJECTS : PRIVATE RACISM

2010-04-27T17:35:00.019-04:00

A REFLECTION ON RACE IN AMERICA

I want to take some time to mention what I'm planning to write over the next few days. I think it's especially important to lay out my intentions this time because I am about to venture into very difficult territory.

Whenever I set out on a new intellectual endeavor, I always think of my mentor: Friedrich Nietzsche. In this instance, I think about the title to one of his aphorism collections: Uncontemporary Observations. Nietzsche did not care whether he wrote about subjects that ruffled traditional feathers. He purposely contradicted the expectations of the "the present" and "contemporary" society. His ideas at times recapitulated themes from distant history. At other times, they foretold the future. In either case, he was not "contemporary." To the contrary, he purposely defied "contemporary."

Writers face constant pressure to be contemporary. After all, you can't be successful if you don't write to meet present expectations. Yet no one ever evolves without taking daring chances; and writers are no exception. By accident, I find myself in early 21st Century America: A strange, confusing, conflicted, changing civilization. There are certain subjects that we simply do not talk about, or at least we do not voice certain sentiments about them in public. It is irrelevant what we privately think about these "taboo" subjects. We just never voice what we really believe. Sometimes our beliefs are not even conscious.

Race is among those subjects. Personally, race is an obsession of mine. It frequently inspires my writing because it is so maddeningly relevant. Yet there are certain things we simply do not say about it, no matter how often we think them.

Race has played a pivotal role in American civilization from our earliest history. Through race, we have seen just how low American civilization can fall. Through race, we see our principles challenged. All our grand rhetoric about equality, dignity and fairness falls flat when applied to the American experience with race. It is no surprise that much of my satire involves racial realities in the United States. After all, when we honestly view race in America, we see several different Nations living in one. And they aren't all equal, no matter what the law says.

But I struggle with my own conflicts about race. In my writing and in my public expressions, I vociferously advocate equality. I believe that everyone in this country--no matter their origins--should have equal legal opportunities and a fair shot at success. I truly believe that. It is only just. We cannot claim to live in a just society if some people do not have the same chances for success simply because of their ancestry in a certain country or a certain continent.

Yet even in saying this I feel myself a hypocrite. In fact, I come close to a confession when I say that I am a racist. But we all are. Americans simply do not understand that racism comes in many shades. Some are overt, but most are extraordinarily subtle. Everyone in the United States is a racist in their own fashion; you do not have to be David Duke to be a racist. Rather, every American--including declared liberals--harbors deep-rooted cultural expectations about the "ways" of different ethnic groups. Every American believes on some level that people in other ethnic groups are "different" and "act differently" than they do "because that's the way they are." They do not necessarily mean it in a malicious way; but it is ever-present. And it is racism.

We are racists the moment we say: "Two guys and a black guy entered the room." I was raised with these distinctions. I also grew up in a distinct cultural background (southeastern Connecticut; and as the biological product of hardworking Northern European Protestant descendants). Both by nature and by operation of economic forces, that cultural background was racially exclusive. For the longest time, I never thought I was racist. How could I be? After all, I always learned that it was "bad to be a racist" and that I wasn't a racist because I did not publicly say bad things about people in other ethnic groups. But my own family--the same family that taught me these abstract lessons about race with the best possible intentions--cultivated a set of cultural values in me that made me completely dissociate myself from other races. Those values also made me intuitively judgmental toward anyone who did not share them. And on a subconscious level, I began to believe that my values were normal, while others were not. That was racist.

Racism is everywhere in the United States. It is on everyone's mind all the time. And it is intensely private. When white people eat at a restaurant and a black beggar enters the restaurant, I challenge everyone sitting there to say that they do not harbor certain negative assumptions about black people: "Why doesn't he work? Why do they beg? Why are they all so poor? They're all like that..." they think. They might be ferocious liberals and believe in equality. But in that cultural situation, I challenge them all to say that they do not make immediate judgments about black people in their own private minds. And it is not their fault: It is simply a function of their own cultural backgrounds reacting to another cultural background.

America elected Barack Obama. But that does not mean we are not beyond racism. My "uncontemporary observation" on this subject is that EVERYONE IS A RACIST. It is just a question of degree. We may bear no conscious ill-will toward other ethnic groups. Yet when we make even the most subtle assumptions about them, we are racists. Even disadvantaged ethnic groups engage in racism. I challenge any black person to say he harbors no assumptions about white people when placed in a social situation with them: "He's not going to be fair with me. He's not going to treat me right. He's going to condescend to me. He's going to exploit me. He's going to disrespect me. He's going to fire me because I'm black. That's what they all do. White people are mean and will hurt me any chance they get." Racism goes in both directions--all the time.

Overcoming racism is about more than turning to the law for superficial equalization. Overcoming racism is a mammoth cultural endeavor; and we are nowhere near achieving it. Until we truly harbor no assumptions or expectations about "how other ethnic groups act," and until we truly do not think "How typical" when someone from a particular ethnic group acts in a particular way, we are racists. Yet we do these things all the time without even knowing it. We are merely giving expression to the combined weight of our respective cultural heritages. Heritage bears down upon us in America as in no other country on earth. Nowhere on earth have so many disparate cultural traditions been thrown in with one another. And nowhere else has such burning intolerance arisen when those traditions clash.

Let me be clear for the record. I live my life to avoid racism in all things. But I am still as racist as every other American because I cannot honestly say that I do not occasionally make negative assumptions about other ethnic groups in difficult situations. In this sense, we are all racists. When a black youth wearing a doo rag, low pants, a crooked hat and gangster-style sports garb acts rowdy with his friends on a subway train, I intuitively think: "He is up to no good. He's going to cause a scene." I wish I didn't. But I do. I tell myself I shouldn't think it. I challenge any white person from my cultural background to claim the very same thoughts do not flash in his mind in the same situation.

I have no solutions to the racism problem. The best we can do is to forbear as much as we possibly can in our external behavior. We must try to understand one another as best we can for the sake of order and coexistence. It is relatively easy never to "act like a racist" or "say racist things" in public. It is easy not to be David Duke. But it is not so easy to truly drive racist thoughts from our minds in pressing circumstances.

I wish we weren't all racists. I really, really do. But we would all be dishonest if we said we weren't. And I will immediately call anyone a hypocrite who denies his own racism. Racism is not just the overt hatred we hear about in groups like the KKK. Racism is also about unconscious economic segregation. Living in a part of town that no black person can afford is racist, too. Supporting an economic system that perpetuates racial inequalities is racist, too. After all, why do most wealthy white people live in areas that black people cannot afford? Because they won't have to be around black people. When black people are around, it's a "bad neighborhood." Even using the term "bad neighborhood" is racism. It is no coincidence that "bad neighborhoods" are always the poor, black areas. And it is racist to assume the poor, bad areas are always black. Yet people who claim not to be racist use the term "bad neighborhood" all the time.

Consider a white real estate broker who thinks he is not a racist. He says to his client: "You don't want to live above 96th Street. That's a bad neighborhood." Why? Because black people mostly live there. How can that not reflect deeply entrenched, racist assumptions about black people? Think about how often we use terms like "bad neighborhood." They are racist. And most barely comprehend why.

Racism in the United States is exquisitely subtle. It is the inevitable byproduct of placing so many cultural backgrounds in close proximity to one another, along with the natural human propensity to resent those who are different. As such, racism is everywhere. I know it's not popular to say. But that does not mean we cannot honestly grapple with it. Is it terrible? Of course it is. But there are lots of terrible things about American life; and in my view it makes more sense to call a spade a spade than to pretend it's not.

This is my uncontemporary observation for the day.

POLITENESS AND SMALL TALK

2010-04-26T11:58:00.010-04:00

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

I am a very polite person. Even when it makes sense not to be polite, I am polite. It is almost reflexive for me to be polite. In my early life, I learned always to be polite. My mother always said: "Be polite! Say thank you! Do not ask for more!" My mother had another name for this institutionalized politeness: "Good manners."

I did not have a choice. I had to be polite. On the other hand, I grew up in suburban Connecticut. People were not out to get me; in fact, most people were extremely nice. Why not be polite to nice people? They deserved it; they meant me no harm. I didn't mind being polite. In the process, I learned to respect everyone I met. They never hurt me, so it was only fair for me respect them.

But things changed as I got older. Once I graduated from college and started living in the commercial world, I quickly found that not everyone was as nice as they were in my Connecticut childhood. To the contrary, I discovered that most people were dishonest scoundrels who would sooner backstab you than help you up if you slipped on a banana peel. In fact, they would probably even laugh if they saw you fall. Even if they weren't malicious, I found most people flaky and unreliable. If someone told me they "would call me again some time," in almost every case they did not.

Yet I was always polite with these people. I shouldn't have been, but I was. After all, it was reflexive. It was a vestige from my idyllic childhood. I smiled with them, said thank you, made small talk. I even did favors for some. Then I received nothing in return. Many even took advantage of my politeness and gained from it.

Slowly, I realized that it made no sense to be polite all the time. Most people exploited it. And almost no one appreciated it. In fact, it seemed that impolite people succeeded much more frequently than polite people. Impolite people ran right over the polite people and got away with everything. What good did smiling and thanking do? Not much.

Still, I was determined not to become just another impolite ogre on the New York streets. I simply learned to be more wary about according respect to everyone I met. I adopted a new rule: Be polite with exceptions. I used my intuition about whether someone deserved my respect. I tried to sense whether someone was worth respecting, or whether they were just another self-interested shark in the water. Sometimes it was obvious to me that someone was a self-interested shark. So I wasn't polite to them. They had nothing ethically in common with me. So there was no need to be polite. Why be polite with someone who would just as soon leave you dead in a gutter? That is just stupid--and servile, too.

I developed a real suspicion toward new acquaintances. Eventually, I could detect immediately whether someone was a complete selfish asshole or whether they were worth further emotional investment. In some settings, I was polite no matter what, as when I interacted with sales staff and other pathetic commercial pawns who obviously meant me no harm. But in all other settings, I kept my guard.

Recently, for instance, I walked back into my building after taking my dog for a stroll. I got on the elevator. A moment later, a very smily, well-dressed woman with a leather portfolio and an expensive cell phone joined me, along with some bewildered looking adolescent who wore his hat backwards. She was clearly a real estate agent showing apartments to this little punk, who probably had just graduated from college and whose dad was definitely paying the rent.

As soon as the doors closed, this insufferable woman opened her mouth. "What a cute little dog! What's his name? What's the breed? This is a nice building, isn't it? The elevator is very nice. It is very convenient. The lighting is good. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH."

I was about ready to vomit. I couldn't help but notice the Cartier bracelet on the agent's wrist as she spewed forth her endless, dishonest pleasantries. I knew instantly that she was just talking to keep things on an even keel with her client. After all, no one likes awkward silence. So she filled the air with condescending blather. "It's a wonderful building! You like it here, don't you? It's such a great location, isn't it? There's a grocery store right downstairs, you know," she told me, as if I didn't know there was a grocery store in my own goddamn neighborhood.

"Yes, there sure is," I said, without a smile. I consciously said it impolitely. "And my dog is a she."

"Oh, wonderful," she responded without missing a beat; and without really registering what I said. God forbid any silence should intervene to make her client feel uncomfortable. For his part, the youth-soaked client just stood there staring at the floor indicator as the elevator rose. He was wearing shower shoes, shorts and looked like a smug, boring-ass moron. On weekdays, he probably put on a suit and shlepped to some skyscraper to type emails for one of his dad's friends. Worse, he probably even felt important for it. I could see it immediately.

Thankfully, client and professional stepped off the elevator two floors below mine. They went about their business. The agent kept chatting the whole time. The client bumbled along a step or two behind. He was probably thinking about going out later that night. She mentioned something about a trash compactor as they faded from earshot.

I thought about how impolite I had been with this woman. It didn't bother me at all. Why should I have been polite to her? What did she mean to me? Would she have helped me with anything? And why was she even talking to me in the first place? To provide confirmation for her silence-destroying questions? She was using me as an instrument to avoid awkwardness with her client and talking to me as if I knew nothing about my own building. I knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to seal the deal with this little brat by appearing "friendly" and glib with everyone she encountered along the way. I was just a bump along the road to her commission. That's what bothered me.

Why should I have respected this woman? Why should I have been polite? I do not award politeness to people in situations like this. I do not respect people who ingratiate in order to fill their own pockets. So I do not smile or act nice. Now, that does not mean I am an impolite person. Quite the contrary; it simply means I am judicious with my natural politeness. It also means that I resort to impoliteness with people who deserve to be treated impolitely. Don't be fooled: They are out there. And it is actually worse to treat them politely.

I have been walked over too often for being polite. That is why I now know when to be polite, and when not to be. Believe it or not, it is undignified--and very weak--to invariably be polite with everyone you meet. On the whole, people don't deserve it. So you need to learn when it works to be polite, and when it doesn't.

HOW TO BE A GOOD PERSON : IN A LANDLORD'S EYES

2010-04-23T12:48:00.005-04:00

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

At some point in our lives, we all wonder whether we are "good people." We live with others. We know how "good people" act. We have an intuitive sense about what makes a person "good." We even hear things about what makes a person "good:" They are friendly, kind, forbearing, compassionate, ethical, honest, caring, loving, trustworthy, gracious, forgiving and generous. "Good people" do not hurt you. They do what they say; and they apologize if they do not. They consider you at the same time they consider themselves. Aristotle and many other philosophers have written tomes about what it takes to be "good." It is an age-old question.

Of course, not everyone can agree on what is "good." You can't know you are a good person until you know what is good in the first place. What is good in one person's eyes may be bad in another. It is easy to lay down absolute standards for goodness. Yet like all ethical dilemmas, only we can say whether we subjectively feel that we have done right. Nonetheless, we can generally all agree that being "good" involves living without intent to injure other people. In that sense, being a "good person" essentially depends on positive motivation. And that positive motivation shines through in good actions toward others. Good people think selflessly; they refuse to hurt others to advance their interests. Bad people do the opposite; they are willing to hurt others to help themselves.

Being a good person is an individual lifestyle. It does not depend on how much money you make or what you do for a living. While it is possible to identify "objective" factors that hint whether a person is "good," true goodness comes from the heart, not from action alone. Enron fraud artists probably donated some money to charity the same year they robbed millions; that donation did not make them good people. No, being good is internal; and good shines through in external action. It is hard to verify. But everyone knows it when they see it.

It is refreshing to know a truly good person because they are rare. In our world, it is hard to be selfless and honorable. There are so many impulsions to discard goodness toward others in order to advance yourself. By the same token, it is hard to be patient. No one wants to wait or understand others' problems. Nor do they want to waste their time on others without reward. After all, people need to fend for themselves. They only have a limited time to get the job done. If they waste their time being nice to others, they might injure their own fortunes. And no one likes to do that. Put simply, we expect most people not to be good; our society frustrates goodness. That is why it is a welcome relief to meet a good person.

There is no formula to being a good person. Yet people throw the term around far more than they should. In many cases, they say someone is "good" solely because they act in a way that enriches them. That misunderstands what it means to be good. A truly good person acts with malice toward no one. The fact that a person acts the way another person wants them to does not make him good. To the contrary, expecting a person to act in a way that is beneficial to you undermines their value as an individual. It "instrumentalizes" them; it makes them pawns in a game you want to win. Just because someone pays you according to a contract does not make them "good." Merely fulfilling an external legal obligation is no shortcut to goodness. A good person holds to his word because it is his word, not because the law threatens him to do so.

Yet many people think that observing external obligations makes you "good." It is easy to make this mistake. After all, complying with the law seems like a "good" thing to do. But the law is indifferent to intention. And intention is the only thing that determines whether a person is good. In that sense, it is possible to seem good by fulfilling every imaginable legal standard. Yet it is also possible to have only bad intentions while complying with the law. You can be a total scoundrel yet do nothing illegal. If a person did not know you, they might say: "Well, he is law-abiding. So he must be a good person." To that extent, fulfilling external obligations can disguise ethical flaws.

I encountered an example to illustrate this easily confused distinction in the New York Post a few days ago. I read an article about some poor web designer who got run over in a Brooklyn street. See N.Y. Post, Horror hit-run in B'klyn, April 19, 2010 at p. 9. The article quoted his landlord. She spoke about his character: "He works. He comes home. He's a very good person (emphasis added)."

What did the landlord know about this guy? How did she know he was a "very good person?" She based her assessment on the fact that he works and comes home. What does that have to do with ethical goodness or pure intention? Nothing. If anything, it reveals that the landlord thinks the web designer was a "good person" solely because he went to his job, came home every night and ostensibly paid the rent. He might have been an utter scoundrel who doublecrossed his friends and broke women's hearts. Yet as far as the landlord was concerned, he was a "good person" because he adhered to his contractual obligations to pay rent. He also was a "good person" because he quietly went to his job and caused no disturbances.

I suppose this is what it takes to be a "good person" in a landlord's eyes. Landlord apply a "formula" for goodness: Have good credit; make an income; cause no trouble; pay your rent; keep your mouth shut; pay next month's rent; pay a late fee after the first. Your intentions do not matter. And "being a good person" means acting exactly the way the landlord wants. In this case, the landlord happened to like the way her tenant behaved because he did what enriched her. She morally approved him because his behavior coincided with her interests. His own ethical qualities did not influence her appraisal. It was "all about her." And that determined whether he was "good."

This gravely misunderstands what it means to be a "good person." A person is not "good" simply because he acts in a way that enriches another. Nor is he "good" simply because he adheres to contractual obligations under law. Rather, goodness is more subtle than that. There is no checklist. Action is not enough. It takes real reflection to see whether someone is good. Getting a rent check in the mail every month does not suffice to prove goodness.

Criminals and scallywags can mail rent checks, too. That does not make them good people.

But who has time to sit down and really think about character in our society? It seems we only care about character when we want to damage a foe with some embarrassing "flaw." And once again, we do that to merely to advance ourselves at their expense. By hurting them, we help ourselves. And hurting others is rarely good.

YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SATISFIED WITH YOUR JOB : A RESPONSE TO MALCOLM GLADWELL

2010-04-22T12:11:00.007-04:00

AN ESSAY

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell analyzes "successful" lives in the United States. In large part, he focuses on work: What draws "successful" people to their work, and why do they enjoy it? In broad outline, he asserts that "satisfaction with work" involves three distinct criteria: (1) Autonomy: You must have control over what you do; (2) Complexity : Your work must involve fresh mental challenges, not mind-numbing repetition; and (3) Connection between Effort and Reward : You must receive compensation in an amount that fairly correlates with the amount of effort you believe you have expended. Gladwell says that all three criteria must be present for a person to "enjoy their job."

I agree with Gladwell that people who have autonomy in their working lives "enjoy" their work far more than people who receive condescending orders all day in a suffocating corporate hierarchy. I also agree that people who face fresh new tasks every day enjoy their jobs more because they do not burn themselves out endlessly doing the same thing day after day. And I agree that people who get paid what they think they deserve obviously feel better about working than people who receive virtually nothing for ceaseless effort.

But who the hell fulfills any of these criteria at a typical American job, let alone all three? Gladwell's formula might be accurate, but it is essentially inapplicable: In America, our employment system is not designed to grant autonomy, complexity or fair rewards. To the contrary, it is designed to suppress autonomy, eliminate complexity and pay the least for the most effort. This is the sad truth. And it is no one individual's fault: It is the fault of private capitalism and its tendency to instrumentalize human beings for private profit. And this is also why no one is really "happy" at their job, at least under the Gladwell criteria.

Gladwell's criteria are antithetical to a private employment system committed to corporate profit. In America, most working people are corporate employees. That means that they serve an incorporeal legal entity that is, in turn, established to enrich those who own it. As such, they are mere pawns in a vast machine that is not working for them; it is working for the shareholders. Indeed, they are not just practically working for the shareholders. They are legally bound to act in their interest. Corporate employees are "fiduciaries." That means they must set aside their own personal interests to serve the corporation. If they put their interests first, they could face a lawsuit for "breach of loyalty."

In this environment, "autonomy" is anathema: Corporate employees must know their place in the hierarchy. They do not control their working lives. They receive orders from supervisors, branch office managers and other "higher-ups." They do as they're told, not as they want. While they might have "illusory" autonomy over a few meager peons in the mail room, in reality they are just pieces in a larger corporate jigsaw puzzle. They have no autonomy. They are instruments. In this light, it is impossible for the vast majority of American employees to meet the "autonomy" prong of Gladwell's analysis. As such, they cannot be "satisfied with their jobs."

Private capitalist employment systems also make "complexity" an impossible goal. In most corporate settings, employees exist for a single reason: To perform a discrete task calculated to maximize corporate earnings. Companies do not expect complicated thinking or novelty from their employees; they expect employees to learn their role and do it every day--forever. After all, companies operate under the so-called "profit principle." They expect a certain profit every month, and they hire employees to carry on the operations necessary to win that profit. If the employee deviates from his expected role, he threatens the profit margin. That is unacceptable. As such, employees cannot rightly insist on "complexity" in their jobs. That would contradict their purpose in the corporate scheme. They exist to do one thing: Process claims; answer phones; file papers; send mail; appear in court; put shoelace in shoe; hammer nails; the list goes on.

Employees are like machine parts. What good is a cog if it insists on being a wheel? Cogs must be cogs and nothing else. That is how our system works. And that is why it is impossible to achieve "complexity" in most American jobs. It would undermine the entire reason why employers hire people: To transform them into single-minded profit generators who do a simple task and no more.

Finally, our private capitalist system also heavily disfavors a "connection between effort and reward." Companies do not employ people to pay them what they think they deserve. Rather, companies exist to generate a particular profit level for their owners. To generate that profit level, managers must examine two factors: Income and expense. Employees are an expense. But they are necessary to generate income, too. Thus, employees represent a "profit balancing act" in the corporate scheme. They must be paid; but never so much that their salaries threaten the expected profit. Employee effort has nothing to do with it. It is all about numbers-crunching to satisfy the shareholders. While a happy employee would certainly like to get money commensurate with his long hours, employee satisfaction is not the goal. Employers don't care whether their employees think they are getting a fair deal. They don't care whether employees feel that they are getting comparatively nothing for their effort. None of that matters. Only the profit margin matters. In that light, almost no American employees--or any employees in a strictly capitalist system--can insist on a "just" connection between their effort and reward. After all, it is not about them. It is about the shareholders.

Considering all these things, it is no wonder that almost no one "likes their job" in the United States. Those who say they like their job are probably just being dishonest with themselves. Perhaps they meet one factor from Gladwell's test and mistake it for true happiness. Maybe they get to perform a novel new task every Thursday and now think their work is "complex." Maybe they have a few college students to supervise and now think they have "autonomy." Or maybe they got a $500 Christmas bonus for working 2500 hours last year, and now think they have a fair "connection between effort and reward." Yet these are all illusory "achievements." They do not change the system. The employee remains firmly under the corporation's control. And he remains instrumentalized: He exists solely to generate profit in exchange for the smallest paycheck possible in the circumstances.

Some will say I am exaggerating how many people cannot meet Gladwell's test for "work happiness." Some will say that only certain job "classes" cannot achieve autonomy, complexity and just reward for effort. But I know from experience that so-called "better jobs" are no more satisfying than "lesser jobs" under Gladwell's standard.

I was a lawyer. People think that lawyers are all rich and have wonderful working lives. They are "professionals," so they must have autonomy. They are highly educated, so they must encounter interesting, new and "complex" work every day. And they obviously must make a lot of money from their effort.

Yet that was not the case: I was a pawn in our law office. I had virtually no autonomy. I had to follow instructions from senior lawyers and the firm's boss. I received harsh criticism and discipline for failing to know my place. I was reprimanded for suggesting novel ways to approach old problems. In short, I was low on the totem pole. I did not control my own destiny. And it felt really bad.

Neither was my work "complex." I did the same things every single day. I filed papers, I made phone calls, I met with clients. Then I consulted with my boss and we discussed how to make the most money from cases. True, the work involved technical expertise that I learned in law school. But it was all dismally formulaic. It was horribly boring and stressful at the same time. It was always the same. There were knee-jerk responses for every type of case. We even sent the same standard questions to opposing counsel in every case. The details may have changed from case to case. But the overall structure was gruelingly banal. There was no "complexity." To the contrary--and applying Gladwell's contrasting term--it was "mind-numbing repetition."

And I certainly did not receive a reward to equal my effort. I made $50,000 a year in the law firm, without regard to the number of hours I worked. I was at my desk every morning before 8. I normally stayed in the office past 6:30 every evening. I even worked weekends. I brought work home. Yet no matter how much I worked or how much I won for the firm, I got the same lousy $50,000. To add insult to injury, I got a $50 bonus for Christmas after breaking my ass all year for more than 60 hours a week. My friend got nothing, so I guess that made me "lucky." In short, there was no connection between my effort and the reward I received.

I mention all this to show that every working person in America faces the same insuperable challenges. Lawyers and Fed Ex deliverymen grumble about the same thing. They are both dissatisfied with their work because they are instruments in the same private capitalist system. The same "profit principle" applies to them. And the "profit principle" does not exist to make workers happy; it exists to enrich owners. That is why Gladwell's test for "work happiness" is hopelessly utopian. Our system does not exist to grant workers autonomy, complexity or fair rewards. It strips away those things because they are inconsistent with the profit principle. If workers suddenly had autonomy, complexity and fair rewards, corporations would start losing money. That would be unacceptable.

In the end, it does not matter whether people are happy with their work. Sigmund Freud wrote in Civilization and its Discontents that human beings have a "natural aversion to work." Strachey, trans., p. 30, fn 5. Additionally, they can never achieve the autonomy, complexity and just rewards they seek from it. People not only just don't like work; they can't get any satisfaction from it once they begin it.

People aren't supposed to be satisfied with their work. Our system is not designed to satisfy workers. And it functions just fine without satisfying them. In fact, it would break down if it did. In that light, Gladwell's criteria for "work satisfaction" are all well and good. It's just that our system works strongly to ensure that no working person ever fulfills them.

No, the only people who enjoy autonomy, complexity and just rewards in their work are the wealthy owners, employers and entrepreneurs. These are the true capitalists. These are the men who instrumentalize others. These are the men who take home the profit after cutting the paychecks. They control their own destinies. They don't listen to anyone but themselves. They get to do different stuff every day. And they set their own salary. They get it all.

There just aren't that many of them. They don't want newcomers in their club, either. So they keep membership low. That leaves more goodies for them.

They might be miserable, wretched, contemptible, exploitive fuckers. But at least they fulfill Gladwell's factors. They are satisfied with their work. Hey, if you had a mountain of money, called all the shots, did whatever you wanted all day and paid yourself a mammoth salary, wouldn't you be satisfied with your work, too? You know you would.

But that's not you. So shut up, get back to your desk and await further instructions from your supervisor.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF AVOIDING MASSIVE CRANIAL DAMAGE TO CAREER SUCCESS IN THE UNITED STATES

2010-04-21T12:22:00.011-04:00

TOP NOTCH CAREER TIPS

By : Ms. Vanessa H. Breaker, M.S., University of Texas (Facilities Management); Founder and Chairperson, Help-U-Advance, Inc., a Career Management Consulting Bureau (Houston, TX); Author, You Can Do It : A 10-Step Formula to Achieve Wealth, Success, Money (And Yes, Love, Too); Owner, several real estate tracts in central Texas; Married; Cowboys fan.

Recently, a college graduate came into my office and asked: "How will I ever get a job in this economy? How will I ever pay my own rent?"

I can understand his frustration. By all accounts, times are very hard out there. For people just starting out in the world, life looks intimidating. No one is hiring. No one even gets an interview. And without a job, you can't pay your rent.

But success is possible. It is possible to defy the odds and live the American dream. Anyone can learn how to be successful. There is a recipe for success: You can learn it. Successful people all behave in a similar way. They all have similar habits. By learning those behaviors and acquiring those habits, you can be successful, too. And when you achieve success, you not only get the job, you get the promotion, the raise, the bonus and the beautiful wife, too! Doesn't that sound nice? You bet it does.

So what are successful behaviors and habits? Well, let us begin by stressing that success is a lifestyle. Success is not a hobby; it is a discipline. You must eat, drink and breathe success. You cannot tolerate failure. And you must be tough: This is a race; no one hires the runner-up.

Living success begins at an early age. Successful people get on the track to success when they are children. They understand what they want from life and they commit themselves to excellence. To that end, stable households produce more successful people than broken ones. After all, a child will not develop the basic skills needed to get good grades and work hard if he or she suffers parental sexual abuse and beatings every day. Those challenges make doing math homework difficult. And kids who fail math won't go to Harvard. In that light, a peaceful home is essential to growing up successful: It allows the focus needed to "home in" on success.

Successful people do not give in to distractions. To achieve success, it is necessary to "stay on track." That means working hard, getting good grades, going to bed early, taking instructions seriously and remembering your place. Yet it is easy to forget these rules when peers goad you to go dancing on Friday night, or when you'd rather watch television shows all evening than do your homework. Put simply, distractions surround us every day. And they threaten to derail us from the success track. To resist distractions, you must simply say: "I want to be successful. I will avoid these distractions." It is about mind over matter: Forget the video games: Think about the accounting job you want.

Education is essential to success in America. In bare outline, success means getting a good job at a good company, making good money and owning property. Yet good companies do not give good jobs to just anyone; they only give them to good people with good educations from good schools. In that light, success requires that you get a good education at a good school. That, in turn, requires that you live successfully without distractions. Only children who live appropriately during childhood will get into the schools needed to get good jobs. It is not so much about learning as it is about showing: Firms want to see good grades from good schools. As long as you get into a good school and show the good grades, you will get a shot at the good jobs. It does not matter whether you remember what you learned. And you will stand no chance at all if you don’t get into a good school: Good grades from bad schools will not impress good companies.

Still, successful living means more than just getting good grades. Once you actually get a job, it is essential to observe successful habits. Successful people keep their jobs because they know what is expected. That means they understand their employer's mission and loyally advance it. They also observe decorum by dressing appropriately, speaking respectfully and refraining from all distractions while carrying on the employer's business. In this sense, successful living is all about acting appropriately on the job: Loyal workers advance far. Ultimately, they rise through the ranks. Good companies love loyal workers who suppress their own interests to earn profits for them. Self-sacrifice is a hallmark of successful living: And it is rewarded.

Intangible factors also influence career success. For better or for worse, birth has much to do with success. Wealthy children stand a better chance to live stable early lives. That, in turn, prepares them to "get on the success track" without distraction. Additionally, powerful parents who attended good schools can assure that their children, too, attend those schools. Wealthy parents can also pay large tuitions and urge employers to hire their children. In some cases, wealthy parents are the employers; and they naturally award jobs to their own blood. In this light, the importance of fortunate birth cannot be overstated. Although it is impossible to "learn" how to be related to powerful people, blood is a sure way to get a big head start in the success race.

Still, success is never guaranteed, even for people who enjoy all the advantages. After all, even a minor mishap along the path to success can sink an entire life. A student may develop a drug addiction, ruining his semester grades and costing him a job at a banking firm. A junior associate might have a relationship dispute and perform poorly at work. A promising employee might fall in love and show up late for work. A woman might give birth, requiring her to put off career focus. Put simply, things can happen in life. And they can easily knock a person off the "success track." Just one distraction can unravel a lifetime of work.

And that is to say nothing about the danger of massive cranial injuries. In the above examples, otherwise successful people gave in to distractions through some fault. In other cases, otherwise successful people might fail to achieve success simply because something massively damages their cranium.

Consider, for example, a first-class legal scholar who has done everything right. He has been born into a good family, his father was successful, he had a stable childhood, he followed instructions, he went to bed early, he dressed appropriately, he got into first-class schools and got first-class grades his whole life. He even landed a job at a first-class law firm and the managing partner said: "He is bound to be successful because he has successful habits." He worked hard his whole life and had every reason to expect success. But he amounted to nothing because someone shot him in the forehead with a .38 caliber revolver. This example proves that massive cranial injury can ruin even the most successful lives.

Consider, too, a respected office manager with an excellent salary. This man did everything for his company. He gave up personal relationships to make sure his employer profited. He worked nights and weekends as he advanced up the company ladder. Through his childhood, he followed instructions and did everything he was supposed to do. He never rocked the boat; people called him a square, but it never bothered him because he achieved success. But one day on his way to work he tripped over a piece of fruit and fell into the street, where a concrete mixing truck rolled over his head. Once again, massive cranial injury derailed an otherwise successful life.

These examples say nothing about all the potentially successful people who suffer massive cranial injury prior to achieving success. What about the countless young people who study hard for exams, refrain from drugs, avoid peer pressure and go to bed early, only to be shot in the head with rifles? What about the super interns who give up everything for the company and win glowing reviews from supervisors, only to have their brains dashed out by falling cinder blocks?

No matter the circumstances, these examples teach a clear lesson: Avoiding massive cranial injury is a crucial step on the road to success in the United States. While it is essential to learn positive behaviors to achieve success, it is also vital to avoid being fatally struck in the head while practicing those behaviors. After all, a lifetime of hard work, study, high birth and promise can be instantly destroyed by a single bullet to the brain. That is why the most successful people absorb this lesson: You must not only live successfully; you must also avoid massive cranial injury at all costs.

Massive cranial injury is a worse threat to success than distraction or inappropriate workplace behavior. After all, it is possible to rally from distraction or an office faux pas. But it is not possible to rally from having your skull crushed by a concrete mixing truck. A person's career can recover from an embarrassing extramarital affair or a "C+" on an exam. But it cannot recover from a pointblank shotgun blast to the face.

In all these cases, the lesson emerges: The real key to success in America is to avoid massive cranial injury. After all, no person who suffers massive cranial injury will ever achieve success. And any success he has achieved up to that point instantly vanishes. To that extent, massive cranial injury is the worst thing that can happen to a promising career. Interview mistakes, bad resumes, lackluster university performance and even drug abuse do not threaten careers as much as being brutally slammed in the head with a baseball bat.

You can fix a resume. But you can't fix a shattered cranium. And people with shattered craniums do not get promoted or hired.

In conclusion, if you wish to achieve success in America, remember what is important: Avoid massive cranial injury first. The rest is just details. Because even the best career habits can vanish the moment someone cracks your head open.

WHY I WRITE ABOUT TIME

2010-04-16T11:20:00.003-04:00

A REFLECTION

In recent weeks, my writing pace has slowed. I am thankful for that. It has allowed me to look back over my work and reflect on what is important to me. No one likes change, but I welcome this one.

I write thematically. Last week, I looked over several old pieces and started to think about the themes that occupy me most. I asked myself: "Why do I write about these things? Why are they important to me? Is it apparent why they are important?" Perhaps it is apparent why I write about reason, dignity, evidence, law, power, money, death, fairness, equality and happiness. Perhaps it isn't. Perhaps people think it's just because I am a hermit who writes whatever he thinks on a certain day.

But that would be incorrect. Common threads unite all my themes. Those threads bind all my pieces together. Taken together, they present an overall philosophy about our existence. I am a consummate individualist: I never surrender who I am. I do not like to follow, but neither am I a zealous leader. I am not presumptuous enough for that. If my ideas gain traction, it is by quiet assent, not by compulsion or advocacy. In the end, I am a voice against all the forces in our society that subvert individual creativity and value. I criticize commerce because commerce is antithetical to both. I do not like forces that instrumentalize human beings or reduce them to purposes. I do not like convention. That is why I write satire, too. Normality makes me laugh--hard.

Among the threads that unite my work is a respect for time. I write about time in many ways. But in the end I admonish my readers to remember that time is vital because it is all we have. Without time, we cannot cultivate our interests or expand our personalities. Nor can we experience joy or feel good about ourselves. Yet so many forces compete for our time. When we lose our time to some competing interest, we lose the opportunity to live for ourselves. That is one reason why I am so critical of employment: Employment robs our best time and leaves nothing for us. It purports to "compensate" us for the robbery with a paycheck. But what good is pay (even really poor pay) if you can't spend it until your best time is gone? We have just a limited time to experience positive emotions before we die. If we give up our time in unpleasant ways, we never get it back to spend it pleasantly. We have only one shot at joy.

My views about time have changed significantly over the years. Before my father died in 2006, I had a very dismissive attitude about time: I always thought I would have more. I did not mind working for 14 hours a day in an office because I knew there would be time to enjoy myself later in life. I had smug assumptions; I thought life would just wait for me as I slaved away, wasting my time. I thought for sure that I would have at least 25 more years with my mother and father. I thought they could wait until I put in all that work, so it wouldn't hurt if I skipped seeing them for Christmas. I thought they would understand if I had to work a weekend.

But all those smug assumptions came crashing down when my father died. He died without any warning. In January 2006, he was a healthy 58-year-old who ran half-marathons every year. Then he developed pancreatic cancer. By June 2006, he was dead. And I had skipped his birthday every year for five years before that because I had no idea that he could die. I was focused on my "traditional career program." I did not respect time. And I suffered for it.

Thankfully, I learned my lesson. Only after living with death did I start to respect time. It made me rue the choices I had made in my life. I did not care about "success" any more. After all, what good does "success" do when you can suddenly just die at any moment like my Dad? Who cares whether you get a certain job or own a home? It's all meaningless; it can all end before you know it. Recognizing how fast life can end makes you respect time. And it makes you start spending your time more wisely, too.

Within six months after my father's death, I resigned my job at the law firm. It came to nauseate me. It probably would have nauseated me even if my father had not died. But after experiencing his death, I simply could not bear the pettiness of law practice. I could not bear hearing people whine and bicker about money. I could not bear the infighting about filing papers, sharing copy costs, managing calendars and setting docket dates. And I could not bear the ceaseless criticism about "not moving fast enough" to make profits on cases. It all seemed utterly, utterly meaningless. I did not care in the least. After all, what difference did all this make? I could just die suddenly like my father; what good what profits and docket dates do then?

When my father lay dying, he was not thinking about success, careers or money. He was thinking about his own existence. He was thinking about the fact that his time was running out; and whether he had spent it well.

I took that lesson to heart: Was I spending my time well? Or was I wasting it in a chase after meaningless rewards? I concluded that I was wasting it. I began living in the awareness of death; and that made me treasure my life. I started savoring my time. I resented anyone and anything that impinged on my time; for how was I to know whether I would be here tomorrow? I wanted to be master of my own time, because time gave me my chance to live. Obviously, this did not make me a good candidate for employment. So I had to adjust my approach to supporting myself.

I contented myself with making just enough money to feed and house myself. And I did so in a way that did not rob my time and dignity. Since then, I have been happier with my lot. For the most part, I am master of my time. That brings its own rewards.

I never forget what happened to my father. It tempers me whenever I feel the impulse to get into the "success race." I reflect on how little time I have to relish my life. Then I think how much time I will have to yield in order to achieve "career success." That is to say nothing about the sacrifices in dignity, ethics and happiness I would have to make to achieve it. Finally, I think: "Even if I do achieve 'career success,' what will I feel? What good will it do? What if I simply die on the way? When I lay dying, what will I think about how I've spent my time? Will I regret all the days and nights I toiled in an office fighting for a company's profit?"

These thoughts comfort me. They assure me that I have made the right decision for my life. Having said that, I know not everyone will make the same decision. My views about time reflect my experiences. They work for me because I live in the awareness of death. My respect for time intertwines with my respect for death. After all, life--with all the joy and misery it can write upon our bodies--hangs by a thread. It can end instantly. And life is time: There is our time, then there is death.

That is a pretty good impulsion to spend our time well. Because once it's over, we're over, too.

That is why I write about time: It is the tragic, ever-diminishing coating that encapsulates us all. When we waste it, we waste ourselves. So I choose not to intentionally waste it on anything that does not bring me joy.

HOW TO BREAK UNHEALTHY ATTACHMENTS TO PEOPLE

2010-04-14T11:20:00.007-04:00

OESTERHOUDT ON RELATIONSHIPS

People often approach me for relationship advice. I don't like to flatter myself, but I'm good at it. I know a thing or two about human beings and their capacity to live with each other. I have credentials. I have been in a committed relationship for eleven years and I have endured every emotional, physical and sanity-damaging challenge you can possibly imagine. Along the way, I have coped with jealousy, envy, longing, lust, passion, disappointment, infidelity, vanity, heartache, reconciliation, misunderstanding, rage, sleeplessness, abuse, frustration, ecstasy, contentment, simple joy, tension and anxiety. I have even weathered trying health troubles at my partner's side, like unforeseeable life-changing accidents and mental illness.

When it comes to living with another person, I've been around the block. I'm not a boy anymore. I'm a man. That's not a boast. That's a fact.

In many cases, people ask me whether they should transform pleasant acquaintances into lasting relationships. Others ask me how to overcome consumptive attachments they develop to people, then the terrible disappointment that flows when their love interests do not reciprocate their devotion.

These are related situations. They arise frequently. When a person tries to force a relationship onto another level, a power struggle ensues. One person wants something the other might not. This leads to a disparity in desire, as well as wishful thinking and blind faith that the other person is acting in accordance with your fantasies. In short, it is emotionally dangerous. When you start expecting another person to act the way you imagine they will, you are setting yourself up for heartbreak or worse.

I did this in my first love. I became very close friends with someone when I was just a teenager. I loved our time together. We had a very special friendship and I felt respected whenever we met. Eventually, my feelings grew stronger. I wanted a romantic relationship. I started believing that he did, too. He really didn't. I wanted him to love me the same way I loved him. I turned it over in my mind all the time; it kept me up at night. I wanted to talk to him all the time, but I didn't want it to seem that I was the only one making the phone calls. So I would wait around for days at a time wishing that he would call me; and of course he didn't. When he finally did call, my heart would race and I would stumble on my words. I felt that I was speaking to my savior; he had all the power over me. It was just pathetic. I was slavishly dedicated to him even though he never gave me the reciprocation I craved.

It took me several years to break my attachment to this person. I wasted so much psychic energy on an illusion. I will never do it again.

Now I see clearly what I did wrong. I created a whole mental patchwork of fantasies about my friend. Those fantasies overwhelmed my mind. I expected my friend to act in accordance with them. It was unrealistic, of course, but when you're craving a person's love, you do not think reasonably. My mistake was this: I fell in love with a subjective fantasy image, not a real person. And when the real person did not act according to the fantasy script in my mind, I felt crushed. I expected too much; and I learned that people are basically inscrutable: They rarely act the way you really want them to.

My youthful attachment to my friend was unhealthy for another reason: It led me into slavishness. I hung on his every word. I followed his every action with total devotion. I delivered my fate into his hands. Whatever he did, I followed. I gave him all the power because I wanted him to give me what I wanted. I wanted him to love me so much that I sacrificed my own dignity and spirit to win his affections. I stumbled on my words when I was around him because he was my mental master. I wanted too much. That made me slavish.

I did not break my attachment to this person until I stopped wanting what he had to offer. And that is the lesson: If you have an unhealthy attachment to a person and they are not showing you the love you want, you must convince yourself that they have nothing you want. Once you do that, you will stop obsessing about them. You will regain your peace of mind and dignity. You will reorder your desires and think clearly again. True, it is hard to do. But you will thank yourself if you can pull it off.

Let us try to understand how this works. We develop unhealthy attachments to people when we WANT something they have. "Want" is the most important word in our mental lives. It expresses our truest desires. It honestly discloses who we are. No one controls what we want; our personality dictates it. We are never so happy as when we get what we want because it satisfies our deepest, most personal yearnings.

Problems arise when we want something that only another person can give. In this case, we cannot easily address our wants because we cannot directly slake them. And because the other person has what we want, we make concessions in order to entice him to give us what we crave. We indulge him far more than we should. We bow, scrape, flatter and stumble on our words. We make our love interest our master; he has power over us because he has the discretion whether to grant us what we want. That is unhealthy. It leads us into despair because we willingly enslave ourselves to his will. Disappointment and frustration become our dominant emotions. We never get what we want. And we are crestfallen every time our love interest does not act the way we expect--which is much more often than we'd like.

But there is a way to overcome this cycle. To break the attachment, you must engage your reason. You must take control over your own desire again. You must convince yourself that the other person has nothing you want. If you can do that, the other person loses his authority over you. He becomes indifferent to you. You get to say what you want, not him. You can pursue your own desire again without a fickle middleman. That is freedom in the purest sense.

I know it is difficult to do this when you are caught in an unhealthy attachment. It is hard to engage your reason when you are contorted with unrequited desire. But it is worth the effort. It helps to have a distraction that breaks your incessant attention to your love interest. In my case, I met someone else who took my mind off my obsession. It helped me turn my mind away from its destructive focus on unattainable affection. Within a few weeks, I felt free again. It was wonderful.

If you ever find yourself with an unhealthy attachment to another person, think about why you feel the way you do: You want what the other person has. You put your happiness in his hands. You heap unrealistic expectations on the other person and you disappoint yourself every time he acts some other way. You give him total power over the way you feel. Conceptually, it is easy to understand. To break the attachment, you must simply stop wanting what he has to offer. Once you control your own wants again, no one will ever tyrannize you with frustration and disappointment. And life feels much better when you're not frustrated.

FACTS DO NOT NEED TO BE OFFICIAL; THERE ARE NO "REAL FACTS"

2010-04-13T11:58:00.007-04:00

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

I went to Starbucks this morning to buy a coffee. I wasn't really thinking about anything. I was groggy and I was battling a cold. But as I waited for the barista to serve up my venti bold, I overheard the man behind the espresso machine say to his coworkers: "Wikipedia is written by us. Those aren't real facts."

My mind immediately sprang into action. I really did not care about the man's opinion about Wikipedia. Everyone knows that you need to read Wikipedia with a grain of salt. Its reporting can be unreliable, just like any other source. But I took serious issue with his assertion that Wikipedia does not contain "real facts" because "people like us" write it, as if "regular people" are incapable of reporting "real facts."

I was saddened for two reasons. First, the barista's comment revealed the widespread--and servile--public belief that "facts" must flow from certain "official" sources. Second, it revealed the belief that "regular people" do not deserve credibility when they report "facts."

Let us begin with "facts." More than a year ago, I struggled to formulate a workable definition for "facts." Everyone thinks they know what "facts" are. They think "facts" are "things that actually happened." But it is impossible to really know whether something "actually happened" if you were not there to perceive it. Everyone else must rely on second-hand reports to form an opinion about "what actually happened;" and that opinion may not reflect what "actually happened" at all. Facts intertwine with belief; a person calls something "a fact" as long as he subjectively believes it to be true, even if it is not. A person's belief, too, is a "fact." It is a "fact" to say: "John believes that Mary robbed her mother." It is not necessarily true that Mary robbed her mother. But if John believes it, John's belief about it is "a fact."

Viewing all human existence as a whole, most "facts" are incredibly banal. It is a "fact" that I just moved my eyelid and that I just pursed my lips: I perceived these "acts" through my visual and tactile senses, so they are facts. Facts are rarely newsworthy, and almost never "the stuff of history." Yet many people mistakenly believe that "facts" must be "official." Like the barista, they believe that something is not a "fact" unless some reputable source reports it. To use the barista's term, only certain sources can present "real facts," not plebeian sources like Wikipedia.

What is a "real fact?" How does a "real fact" differ from any other fact? After all, a "fact" is any event, act or condition that is objectively verifiable and perceptible by the human senses. Your own emotional state is a "fact" at this very moment. Whether you're wearing blue jeans right now is a "fact." These are "conditions" and "acts" perceptible by human sense. The New York Times will never report these "facts," but they are still facts. Anyone can recount facts. As human beings, we all can recount our sensory impressions through memory and language. Put simply, the power to recount facts does not require a reputable press pass or an advanced degree.

Facts do not distinguish. There are only "real facts" to the extent that another person chooses to believe them. Source is irrelevant to the inquiry whether something is a fact. Source is only relevant to the question whether a reported fact is credible or reliable.

But the barista confused theses issues in a deeply troubling way. He not only manifested a belief that certain sources were not reliable. He also revealed a belief that certain sources cannot even report "facts" at all. According to the barista's logic, only reputable sources dispense "real facts." Sources like Wikipedia do not. Yet this is pure nonsense. Wikipedia definitely reports "facts." It reports "acts, events and conditions that are objectively verifiable and perceptible by the human senses." True, its reports might contain inaccuracies and falsehoods. But that is a danger inherent in all reporting. And in the end, "facts" are not about "what actually happened," but rather about "what we are willing to believe." Both Wikipedia and the New York Times face the same "factual" dangers every day when they report on matters that occurred beyond their writers' own sensory range. Both Wikipedia and the New York Times ask their readers to believe their words to be facts, no more. In that sense, they are exactly the same.

It is dangerous to believe that only certain sources have the power to dispense "facts." When people believe that only certain "official" reports deserve credibility as "facts," they disempower themselves. They yield their power to judge the truth for themselves by conditioning their belief systems on "official sources." The barista's comment revealed this servile dynamic at work. He demeaned Wikipedia because "regular people" write it, not "official sources." As such, he refused to even believe that it reported a single "real fact," as if any fact were more real than another.

Worse, the barista tacitly acknowledged his inferior station in our society's truth-creating hierarchy. Our society perpetuates the notion that truth can only proceed from certain "official" sources, like news agencies, universities, government offices, courts, churches and science labs. While those sources might deserve credibility in particular circumstances, the ultimate decision whether to believe something is entirely individual. And when people do not do their own research by investigating as many sources as possible, they subject themselves to dominant power systems. They accept some reports as "fact" solely because they flow from some exalted source, not because they verified the reports themselves.

We all can perceive the outside world. We know facts because we perceive them. We can report what we know. When we are honest, we know our word is the truth, even if we are not an "official source." We might even write an article about our knowledge in Wikipedia or some other popular publication.

Yet according to the barista's logic, we do not deserve belief. More substantially, we are not even recounting "real facts," even if we saw them with our own eyes. Only "official sources" can dispense "real facts," not regular people. That is not just weak. That is outright capitulation.

I wish more people would understand that we all can report facts as long as we can perceive and communicate. All facts are "real" as long as we believe them. And we do not have to be news agencies to deserve belief.

FAIR LABOR CONTRACTS? WHAT ARE THOSE?

2010-04-09T11:38:00.007-04:00

THE MYTH OF EMPLOYMENT IN AMERICA

PART 3 - CONTRACTS

Commerce would not work without contracts. Contracts provide legal assurance that people will adhere to their commitments. Both commerce and the law presume that men do not naturally hold to their word. But no one would take financial risks if they knew their fellow man would not fulfill his promises. So the law supports commerce by forcing men to do what they say. If they don't, they must face dire economic consequences. Men don't like dire economic consequences, so they adjust their behavior to avoid them.

In theory, contracts reflect a perfectly equal bargain between two perfectly equal commercial parties. One party wants something the other has. Each parts with something in order to gain something from the other. It is not gratuitous; it is methodical. One party suffers detriment in the precise proportion that the other obtains benefit. And there are no flaws in the bargaining process: The law presumes that both parties are rational, shrewd, cynical businessmen who know all the risks before committing to do something. Thus, neither can complain when something goes awry: After all, when two rational, equal adults bargain for something, they have a right to delineate who bears the risk if it does not work out.

But does this sound like commercial reality? Certainly not. In most commercial exchanges, parties are not equal. One party inevitably has more money and power than the other. As a result, the stronger party can leverage his strength to foist more risk and burden on the weaker party. After all, the weaker party needs what the stronger party has. So what authority does the weak party have to influence the bargain? He can take it or leave it. If he leaves it, he does not get what he needs. That is commercial reality: A perennial Hobson's choice. The legal myth of "equal exchange between equal bargainers" is a tiny exception to the rule: Unequal, unfair exchange between parties with gross disparities in power.

I always marvel at inconsistencies between legal myths and practical realities. They always reveal a tension between theoretical aspirations and cruel commerce. After all, theory and reality follow different paths. Just because something exists in theory--as it may in legal doctrine--does not mean that it exists in reality. Theory is just an overlay. Theory concerns objective abstractions; as long as a situation exhibits a few technical requirements, it is "so." But practice is more fluid. It does not restrict itself to formulae or aspirations. In practice, the only inquiry is: "Does it work?" If it works in accordance with principle, fine. If not, no big deal.

In most cases, people just want things to work. That is certainly true in commerce. It is one thing to strike a technically enforceable contract. It is quite another to strike a just one. After all, practical realities reflect existing power structures. Things "work" when they please those who have power. Contracts are usually unfair because they work best when they are unfair. The strong offer terms to the weak in a manner that satisfies legal requirements. As a practical matter, they maintain the unequal relationship. The law has nothing to say about that. And that suits the strong just fine.

On some level, everyone knows this. Everyone suspects that contracts somehow "screw them over." They do not exactly know how. They just know that if the other guy does not deliver, they will have no recourse against him. But if you do something wrong--or if something unforeseeable happens--he will have recourse against you. This is why everyone fears "fine print." It is as if everyone who signs a contract resigns himself to the idea that the bargain is one-sided. They know the "fine print" will work against them when push comes to shove. They just hope it doesn't come to that.

So much for equality in bargaining: Everyone who signs a contract knows that he is subjecting himself to the other's unlimited authority. He doesn't even know how much power he's giving the other guy. He just knows the "fine print" gives the other guy license to do almost anything to him.

I see support for my analysis everywhere. Just yesterday, for instance, I watched a clip from the 1998 movie "Player's Club." In it, Bernie Mac plays a sleazy strip club owner named Dollar Bill. In one scene, his DJ (Jamie Foxx) enters his office to complain about how much money he has to forfeit from his paycheck every week. Bernie Mac looks him straight in the eye and says: "I got a contract between me and you that says you do what I tell you to do. Therefore, shut the fuck up. Don't say nothing, don't speak to me, don't look at me."

That concludes the negotiation. Bernie Mac is the employer with power. Jamie Foxx is the employee without it. The contract symbolizes their unequal relationship. It embodies a fundamental disparity in power. By law, it allows the strong party to tyrannize the weak one; it even allows him to silence the weak one when he complains about the terms. True, the weak party can walk away from the deal. But what if he has mouths to feed? Another Hobson's choice.

These are the practical realities. There is no "equal exchange" between "equal partners" in most commercial relationships. Rather, in most cases, the result is more like the exchange in "Player's Club": One party needs a job and a paycheck; another offers a job and paycheck in return for the power to dictate all the terms and control the employee's conduct. As a practical matter, contracts grant power to one party while subjecting the other to the same power. They generally operate in one direction. And if the weak party complains, the strong party just has to whip out the contract and explain why he has the legal authority to do what he is doing. If there's a dispute, the strong party wins. That's practical reality.

I mention all this because it coincides with my weekly motif concerning employment in the United States. Contracts perpetuate the "Myth of Employment in America" by granting legal authority to strong parties to dominate weak ones. Employment "terms" in America are rarely equal. And they certainly do not reflect full and fair bargaining between two evenly-matched commercial entities. Rather, a weak party needs a paycheck. A strong party offers one; and that gives him the right to dominate the weak party's life in exchange for almost nothing.

According to the law, contracts reflect equality. But practical realities paint a vastly different picture. When it comes to contracts, there is a disparity between law and reality. The real questions are: Who wants what; who's giving it; and who gets to say who does what in exchange for it. Those questions are invitations to tyranny. And when private employers operate under the "profit principle," do you really think they will treat employees in a way that threatens their bottom lines? Certainly not: And that is exactly why contract law allows them to function as they do.

So to all the employees out there who are disgruntled with their lot: "Shut the fuck up, don't say nothing. Don't speak to me, don't look at me."

You signed it. You wanted it (kind of). So live with it.

Go ahead and leave. Think you'll be able to pay your rent if you do? It's your choice.

That's not just practical reality. That's commercial reality, too. It's not a fair game.

YOU ARE AN EXPENDABLE (AND EXPENSIVE) INSTRUMENT : THE UGLY TRUTH ABOUT JOBS IN AMERICA

2010-04-07T12:16:00.003-04:00

THE MYTH OF EMPLOYMENT IN AMERICA

PART 2 - PRACTICAL REALITIES

During the 2008 presidential campaign, both Barack Obama and John McCain touted their plans to "create American jobs." No matter what subject they discussed--the environment, the military, the schools--they always related it to the "jobs question." The fact that they talked so much about jobs reveals just how much Americans love jobs. In 2008, Americans were certainly worried about jobs; unemployment was rising after the worldwide financial collapse. They wanted jobs. The candidates understood that. So they talked about jobs.

Since 2008, it has not gotten any easier to get a job in America. Unemployment steadily rose through 2009. Many people lucky enough to get a paycheck during this time got it from some "sub-level" job with no benefits and no entitlements. Americans started to panic about their economic futures on a scale not seen since the 1930s. Why? Because there were no jobs out there. No one was hiring. Skilled workers and professionals compromised; they took jobs with much lower pay and responsibilities than they deserved. That, in turn, left unskilled workers holding the bag. There simply were not enough jobs to go around.

Meanwhile, the old American rhetoric continued to churn: "You must have a job. Go to school to get a job. Learn in order to work at a company one day. You can even learn how to find a job by writing a good resume with the right kind of paper. You can learn how to interview properly, answer employer questions and wear the right suit to the meeting." Yet millions of Americans who followed the program did not get what they expected. Graduates who did everything right found themselves completely unable to land even an entry-level scrub job.

"What happened?" they said. "I got all the right grades, wore the right clothes, wrote the right resume on the right paper and answered the interview questions the way I was supposed to. And I didn't get the job?" Either that, or the employer just wasn't hiring in the first place.

Americans are rightly confused about why it is so difficult to get a job. After all, our history has somehow given rise to an expectation that everyone easily gets a job in this country. When we look back through history, it seems Americans have always been working. Europeans immigrated here to work. They built things. They worked in factories. They worked on farms. Later generations continued working. It was almost a matter of right. Historically, then, America has symbolized work: We provided work as inexhaustibly as our mighty lakes provided fish and our vast plains provided wheat. We were the great "Land of Opportunity." There was always something to do here; and we needed all the labor we could get.

Times have changed. But popular expectations have not. That is why Americans are confused about why it is so difficult to find a job these days. And that also explains why modern jobs are not as appetizing as they were in the past.

Americans simply do not understand how the modern free market system works. To understand why jobs are no longer so appetizing or available anymore, we must investigate how labor operates in the free market system. In essence, jobs are scarcer and more demeaning today than in the recent past because employees are little more than expendable instruments calculated to win profits for employers. At the same time, employee advocacy has fallen, while employer power has grown.

We can begin our investigation with two basic premises. First, people only engage in commercial activity for large profits. Second, jobs are contracts for labor offered by those who intend to use the worker's productive capacity to win larger profits. As such, they are not entitlements; they are private, discretionary relationships that may be terminated at any time. They are, so to speak, a "matter of grace" bestowed by those with enough money to pay.

These two premises lead to two basic conclusions. First, because people only engage in commercial activity for large profits, they offer employment to others on the implicit understanding that they will further their ultimate profit goals. That means that employees are only as good as their profit potential. If they do not further the ultimate profit goal, they are expendable. Second, because employment is a matter of grace, not right, employers assume a necessarily superior position over their employees. This results in a permanently unfair relationship in which one party takes almost all the benefit from the other's labor. All the while, he subjects the other party to ruthless control, discipline and indignity. When the laborer works, in other words, his time is not his. It belongs to the employer. And it all inures to the employer's benefit.

We can more closely understand these conclusions by focusing on the "profit premise." The "profit premise" is the best way to understand both why it is hard to get a job and why existing jobs are so precarious. The "profit premise" takes all the guesswork out of employment. It takes all the subtlety and uncertainty from the equation. Rather, it simplifies the inquiry to simple arithmetic: "Does this employee yield more profit to me than he costs me in expense?" Employees, after all, only have value to the extent that their labor vaults the employer toward greater profit. But the problem is that employees also represent an expense. It is impossible to have profit if expenses outweigh income. In that light, employees must "pull their weight." If they do not justify their cost in profit, they will be fired. And if the employer simply does not have enough money to "purchase" an employee in the first place, he will not hire anyone.

This explains why no one is hiring these days: Companies do not have enough money to spend on new employees. Private employers are usually corporations. Corporate officers, in turn, must answer to the shareholders. The shareholders want profits. If new employees mean threatening the existing profit level, corporate officer cannot spend money on new hires. If they did, they would disserve the corporation and undermine the very reason why people do business in the first place: To make money, not lose it. Corporations have no duty to the public; they only have a duty to deliver a constant profit stream to their owners. Corporations would actually violate their raison d'etre if they hired people as a "public service."

It helps to see the "hiring problem" in strictly economic terms. It demystifies the issues. From a job-seeker's perspective, it also makes life in the job market much easier to understand. After all, the "profit premise" makes all non-profit-related concerns irrelevant: It does not matter what clothes you wear to the interview. It does not matter what paper you use to print your resume. It does not even matter how smart you are or what school you attended. No, all those things mean nothing compared to the ultimate question: Does the employer have enough money to invest in your labor potential? If he does not--or he fears that your labor potential will not generate a suitably high profit level--you will not get the job. It does not matter how charming you are, or how good looking or even how qualified. All that means nothing next to the real issues: (1) Does the employer have enough money to gamble on you? and (2) Will the employer make a big profit on your labor?

In other words, your own talents and will have nothing to do with the employer's decision to hire you. If the economy is bad and the company is unwilling to threaten existing profit levels, you will not get a private sector job. End of story.

Understanding the "profit premise" also helps clarify why companies lay people off. Existing employees present a different question than new hires. Once a private business hires someone, a new relationship arises. The employer has new concerns. Before hiring, the question was whether the company had enough money to invest in another person's profit-creating potential. After hiring, the question is whether the employee is adequately productive. From this point, the employer takes on a more evaluative role. He investigates whether the employee is working "hard enough." He compares the profit generated with the amount he must pay the employee in wages. If the wages are greater than the profit--or if the profit is not sufficiently greater than the wages--the employer lays the employee off. He says there were "cost concerns." The investment did not pay off. So the employer cuts his losses and dismisses the employee. After all, it is voluntary relationship. And the employer can say "good bye" whenever he wants.

Of course, the above scenario assumes that the company has enough money to continue employing people. When the economy tumbles, or when the company suffers overall losses, it loses the ability to continue paying its existing employees. In that case, it does not matter how qualified or productive the employee may be. When continuing to pay wages threatens overall profit levels, employees get cut. That's the "profit premise" at work.

All these examples lead to a more abstract conclusion: Employment is a vastly unfair relationship. Having a "job" not only subjects the employee to ruthless economic appraisal under the employer's "profit principle." It also places him in an institutionally inferior position. Despite all social expectation to the contrary, employment is not a right in the United States. It is a matter of grace. This is significant because a "relationship of grace" is no equal relationship. Rather, only lords, Gods, sovereigns and those with greatly superior power bestow "grace." And only pathetic petitioners and sinful beggars seek grace from their acknowledged superiors.

Some may say that it is an exaggeration to call employment a "relationship of grace." But close analysis confirms it. In a "relationship of grace," a suppliant party seeks the benevolence of another party known to have strength, power and influence. The suppliant throws himself on the master's mercy in a plea for grace. One imagines a lowly feudal peasant begging his local lord for a loan, throwing himself at the lord's feet. Then the lord, with a condescendingly smug look on his face, extends his ring for the miserable peasant to kiss. Once the lord gives his grace, the peasant bursts into tears and thanks the lord for his benevolence. The lord can then count on the peasant's complete dedication in paying back his grace, even if he exacts a sum far higher in obligation than the sum he bestowed in grace.

Isn't this what happens in a modern employment relationship? Isn't this what job-seekers must do to win approval from their lordly potential employers? Don't they have to debase themselves and claw the floor and kiss rings? Don't they indebt themselves to the employer for his generous decision to throw them a few shekels? Isn't it just as pathetic and despicable as this?

No matter what "career experts" say, I cannot escape viewing the quest for private employment in these "feudal" terms. Landing a job requires more than a healthy economy and an employer who can afford to pay you. It also requires a subservient mindset and the willingness to sacrifice individual dignity for "grace," namely a paycheck. To win that grace, employees must kiss the symbolic ring every day. They must shlep to and from their jobs. They must stay awake. They must attend to meaningless tasks intended solely to enrich their employers. They must remain in an obedient position to receive commands for at least 8 hours a day. To add insult to indignity, they must bear all this so that their employer makes a bigger profit. And when they finally go home, they are both physically and spiritually drained. They have neither the strength nor the will to enjoy their own lives. Rather, they live for the employer. They live for their modern feudal lords.

Inwardly, employees thirst for their precious two days (or less) off. They yearn for time that belongs to them, not their lords. But is that not ironic? After all, they fought so hard to get their jobs. They bowed and scraped and sacrificed everything to get hired. Now, once they commit their waking lives to their employer's profit, they dream about the weekends. Is that not somehow disloyal to the lord they pledged to serve? Or at least "less than diligent?"

If you need proof for this proposition, just listen in on some honest employee chatter. Just note how often they mention what they plan to do next weekend or what they did last weekend.

So is this what it's all about? Are these the magical "jobs" everyone wants? Are these the symbols of our strength as a nation? Is this how we all should spend our lives? As expendable economic instruments to be cast away the moment we fail to justify our costs to our employers?

Perhaps it is. Then again, perhaps that is why there is so much unhappiness in our society. Perhaps the unending pressure to have a job stands at odds with what we want as individuals. Yet jobs always win; "what we want" always loses. And we can only ignore "what we want" for so long until we start feeling really, really bad about life.

Worse, what do we gain for all this unhappiness? A paycheck. Only the employer really wins. He doesn't care whether you're happy or sad. You are just a variable in the income/expense equation. You are a figment of the "profit principle," no more.

SURRENDERING, WASTING TIME AND FOLLOWING ORDERS : THE LANGUAGE OF EMPLOYMENT

2010-04-06T13:02:00.006-04:00

THE MYTH OF EMPLOYMENT IN AMERICA

PART 1 - LANGUAGE

Last week, the White House announced some encouraging news about the economy. It said that the "Job Report" for March showed "significant gains." Apparently, more people found private employment during the early spring; and that meant more people were getting paychecks. Since late 2008, the "Job Report" had consistently reported losses. So last month's news was cause for celebration: When people have private sector jobs, it is a national victory.

What makes jobs cause for celebration in America? After all, what exactly is a "job," and why do Americans fetishize them so much? Is there something magical about jobs that makes people live their whole lives seeking them and toiling at them? I say no: In most cases, jobs are a poor way to spend your life; and they are sure way to obliterate your spirit as an individual.

Viewed in the abstract, jobs are nothing to glorify. In most cases, they are just a waste of time. People only work because they need to earn money to stave off material ruin at the hands of creditors, landlords, banks and other superior economic beings. They do not enrich people intellectually or spiritually. Rather, they commit people to a "service obligation," namely, unswerving dedication to the employer's economic mission. That economic mission might involve questionable ethics or outright deceit. But jobs require people to put those concerns aside and "do what the company wants." Worse, if the employee does not "do what the company wants"--or if he simply does not justify his cost in company profit--he is fired. If anything, jobs are gloomy reward. In return for a paycheck, an employee not only must sacrifice his time, dignity, ethics and individuality; he must also commit himself to another's material gain. That is a high price to pay for freedom from bankruptcy.

But still Americans thirst for jobs. Everyone wants one. Economists even measure national commercial strength by evaluating "job creation" and "job robustness." In other words, the entire economic system depends on everyone getting a job and doing what they are told so that larger commercial interests can profit and pay more employees. Jobs depend on hierarchies and disparities in power. Some live to benefit the employer; meanwhile the employer makes off with all the money. The employer expects total dedication to his economic mission; he pays just enough wages to keep the employee fed and under a roof. The employee must follow instructions and be productive.

It is not a fair system: No matter what free market apostles say to the contrary, very little labor is actually voluntary in the United States. True, no one is pointing a gun at employees to force them to work. But deluging people with ceaseless economic obligations under threat of homelessness amounts to practical coercion. If the choice is between letting one's children starve and taking an unfair job somewhere, is it really a choice?

If the field is so tilted, why does everyone want a job? If jobs are inherently unfair, coercive and wasteful, why does the White House tout them as the ultimate measure of national success? Does it not say something about our collective life expectations that we view our jobs as the highest expression of who we are? After all, most jobs are quintessentially counter-creative and anti-individualist. To understand that, consider that in American discourse it is often possible to replace the question "Who are you?" with "What do you do?"

Language relating to employment paints a bleak picture. It tells a story of banality, wasted time and exploitation. By investigating a few common words that regularly appear in the employment context, we see an oppressive, anti-individualist motif at work. And in the process, we begin to understand that the whole mythology surrounding "jobs" in America is exactly that: An elaborate hoax that sustains itself on false expectations and wretched servility.

Let us begin with the most obvious example: "Job." The word "job" is ubiquitous in modern American discourse. We cannot escape it. We even think we know what a "job" means; we visualize some guy slapping on a Starbucks apron and serving up mocchachinos for $5.50 a pop. But do we really understand the word? Where does it come from? What does it tell us? Is it really the sacred thing the propaganda tells us it is? Is it really the thing that determines our strength as a nation? Is it the be all and end all of our lives?

Let us look.

No one can agree on "job's" precise etymology. Most scholars agree, however, that "job" relates to the Middle English word "gobbe," meaning a "lump or mass of something," like clay, mud or grime. Dictionary.com says that "gobbe" did not imply "work" in 1400. But by the 17th Century, it began to assume a new meaning. Specifically, it meant a "specific, discrete piece of work done for an agreed-upon price." That distinguished it from long-term employment; jobs were "petty" and "inconstant." The handyman did "jobs," while the priest had a "profession." A person with a "job" was common trash. The fact that the word relates to "gob" tells almost the whole story. Jobs are grimy, unsavory and despicable ways to spend time. They are like lumps of filth with which people contend every day for a few lousy shillings. And they have always occupied the lowest spot on the "employment hierarchy." Only the meanest types worked "jobs." "Better people" spent their time with "professions" or "callings."

In this historical context, who would ever want a "job?" The etymology tells a nasty story. Only common rogues would deign to be "jobbers" slaving away at their daily lumps. What a horrible way to spend a life. While the word "job" may have taken a more neutral meaning over time, etymology never lies. It is indisputable that the word "job" reflects low social standing and abject surrender to a superior master. Only the most wretched people did "jobs" in the past, like cleaning privies or washing horse dung. Yet now Americans fetishize jobs. Who would have ever thought that so many Americans would have wanted to be the linguistic successors to Elizabethan shit sweepers?

Other employment-related words do not really improve the overall linguistic image. Those fortunate enough to avoid having a "job" might have a "career" instead. Like "job," "career" has become ubiquitous in American discourse. And like "job," Americans think they know what a "career" is. They also understand that "careers" are somehow "better" than jobs. They might not know why; it just seems that "career people" make more money than common slugs with "jobs."

But from an etymological perspective, "careers" are just as pernicious as jobs. While "career" has always elevated itself over "job," both concepts do the same thing: They voraciously consume time. "Career" especially implies a lifetime dedication to a chosen economic pursuit. It derives from the Latin word "carriara," meaning a "road intended for vehicular transport." See Dictionary.com, v. 1.1. "career" derivation. The dictionary's definitions stress "career's" temporal demands: "1. An occupation or profession, esp. one requiring special training, followed as one's life work; 2. A person's progress or general course of action through life or a phase of life." Id.

On its face, "career" does not necessarily imply economic service to a private master. But in American discourse, it does. People go to "Career Schools" and learn how to "prepare for their careers." They hear that it is "great to have a career" and that losing a career is worse than death. In all these usages, "career" implies dedication to a particular economic mission. It is wonderful to have a "life's work" if you believe in it, but how many "careers" really inure to individual benefit? A corporate "career," for instance, is not about the worker; it is about the corporation. A lawyer's "career" is about purposeful economic activity, not individual enrichment or creativity. In this light, "careers" in American discourse paint a disheartening image: They show people slavishly dedicated to a particular economic master for their entire lives. While "career people" may need special training to have a "career" rather than a "job," and while they may earn more money at longer engagements than "jobbers," they are no better in dignity. After all, to have an American-style "career," you have to give up your life to a "particular course of action;" you must "get on the road." In most cases, that means disciplined, directed service to a private economic master. If you do that, what time do you have left for yourself? Very little, if any. In this sense, "careers"--like jobs--generally reflect an essential hostility to individuality and creativity, as well as dedication to superior economic masters. And that is exactly how it is supposed to work, too.

American discourse about employment reveals its hierarchical function through other words, too. Beyond the basic distinction between "jobs" and "careers," there are also "professions." In modern American usage, "professions" are "special careers" that involve some unique learning or discipline. They pay more than other careers and certainly more than mere jobs. "Professions" even conjure mystical connotations because they involve special skills that average people cannot even fathom. "Professionals" use highly specialized language. They ply highly specialized procedures to obtain almost miraculous results. Generally, they go to school for a very long time before going into business. And on that basis they demand more money for their services. The word "profession" is all about "exclusivity:" Not everyone can be a "professional." We cannot all be so smart or skilled. If we were, we could pull our own teeth or conduct our own trials--that would not be good for dentists and lawyers.

"Profession's" etymology bears out these colloquial connotations. The word derives from the Latin "professio," meaning the "taking of the vows of a religious order." Dictionary.com v. 1.1 (profession etymology). In modern usage, the word means: "1. A vocation requiring knowledge of some department of learning or science." Id. Professionals, then, are modern-day mystics. Their very name invokes a "religious order." But they are not free spirits; they "took oaths" to the "religious order." This commits them to their "craft," or--in modern terms--their "knowledge of some department of learning or science." And they are essentially secretive: Not everyone can join a secret religious order, let alone master its complicated rituals or rites.

In practical terms, there is not much difference between a "career" and a "profession." Both refer to constant work for pay, most likely in the service of a private master. In that sense, "professions" consume time even more than simple "careers." Some "professions" genuinely do good. But in most cases, "professionals" band together to maximize their profits by exploiting public need for their "special knowledge." And in America, people do not become professionals to do good. They become professionals because they want "high-paying careers." In the process, they commit themselves to the profession's narrow "department of learning or science" for their entire lives, ruling out all else. Like jobs and careers, then, professions work strongly to suppress individuality and creativity. There is simply no time for anything but the profession--and profiting from it.

Finally, there is a general word that applies to almost all employment-related terms: Occupation. In many ways, occupation perfectly summarizes the temporal difficulties involved in employment. It is a relatively simple word; the subtlety lies in the imagery.

Occupation derives from the Latin "occupare," literally meaning to "occupy." But beyond the familiar "occupation," the word implies a "taking of possession of time or space." There is an element of both superior power and control in the word. It implies that someone or something takes possession. Obviously, anyone or anything possessing someone or something else is superior to the person or thing possessed. In this sense, "occupation" requires a subject and an object, a dominant element and a subordinate element. There is an "occupier" and an "occupied object." It is all about power.

These are revealing insights when applied in the employment context. After all, if a person has an "occupation," who is occupying and who is being occupied? Does the work "possess" the worker, or does the worker "possess" the work? I would venture that the work possesses the worker. It possesses his entire being, including his mind, his time, his creative strength and his focus. He allows someone to occupy him for pay. But he sacrifices his dignity in exchange. It is fundamentally submissive. And it confirms the essential power struggle that pervades all employment relationships: Someone occupies; another is occupied. The occupier profits by occupying the occupied object; the occupied object receives "compensation" for allowing the occupation. Yet make no mistake: It is always the occupier who holds the power, just as a carpenter holds power over his tools.

Where does all this leave us? It leaves us with an ugly picture about employment. American employment propaganda tells us that we should all want jobs or careers. Or a career of jobs. Or maybe a profession, or a professional career. Or at least an occupation. But if we understand what those words actually mean, we should hesitate before so zealously pursuing them. Jobs are just gobs of nasty filth. Careers are time thieves. Professions are hypnotizing, mind-narrowing cults. And occupations are invitations to be "possessed" or "owned." They are all about surrender. They are all about submission.

But maybe that's the point. Maybe we're supposed to surrender and just do what we are told. After all, the White House says we're a stronger nation when we all have jobs.

That is pretty scary if you ask me. Then again, not everyone reads the dictionary like I do.

THE MYTH OF EMPLOYMENT IN AMERICA

2010-04-05T11:06:00.005-04:00

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

Over the next few days, I will write several interrelated essays about employment in the United States. I often write about employment, both in expository and in satirical form. But in these essays, I want to methodically go to the heart. I want to write "Oesterhoudt's Manifesto" on employment in America.

I believe that America has a dangerous "employment fetish." It has completely warped people's minds. True, America has always been "all about work." Yet in recent decades, the line between life and work has blurred considerably. People fanatically give themselves over to their employment without a second thought. They sacrifice what little dignity they have serving a master for comparatively little compensation. And they chase employment like the Holy Grail: A whole social system of propaganda has grown up around the idea that "you must have a job;" and that you should be ashamed of yourself if you don't.

But it is not easy to get a job these days. After all, everyone wants one, and they do not just magically appear. You can't watch the news without hearing about America's "critical job situation." Most people cannot understand why it is so difficult to get jobs. I will explain that the archetypal private sector job is no entitlement. Rather, it is a matter of grace.

In my essays, I plan to utter the final word about the employment "hustle" in America. To do this, I will explain what private sector jobs mean in strictly economic terms. I plan to explain that "jobs" are not rewards for employees. Rather, they are calculated investments in which the employer gambles that human labor capacity will make him a profit. If he does, wonderful. But jobs mean employer expense, too. And if a job costs more than it yields, out goes the employee, even a former "Employee of the Month."

Jobs are simple mathematics: If they cost more than they generate, they are gone.

This is why I recoil from all the rhetoric about "private sector job creation." It is impossible to stimulate job creation without flushing private employers with cash. Employees are expensive investments; and employers can only gamble on investments if they have money. In this light, private employment depends on healthy economic times for the employer. If he's not making a profit in his field, he won't be hiring anyone, even Superman. In brief, it is impossible to talk about "job creation" in the abstract. Only the changeable winds of private market economics dictate whether more employees get to feed at the employer's profit trough.

I also plan to write about the social mythology that pervades discourse about employment. To deconstruct the myths, I will explore language relating to employment. In the past, I have debunked commerce by exploring common commercial words and their etymologies. Now, I will debunk employment by exploring words like "job," "occupation," "career" and "profession." I will dive into etymology to analyze what conceptual complexes operate in these words. In the end, I will show that employment is nothing to glorify. Rather, I will demonstrate that it is just a crude, unfair system that perpetuates social inequalities and obliterates individuality in society.

I will begin addressing these issues tomorrow. As I have mentioned in recent weeks, my schedule has become somewhat more hectic lately. I will do my best to write all the essays on employment this week. But just in case I miss a day, you can attribute it to my exciting new schedule.

Thanks for reading!

Oesterhoudt

DON'T SAY "NEXUS;" SAY "CONNECTION" : WHY I DON'T LIKE PRETENTIOUS LANGUAGE

2010-04-03T12:06:00.002-04:00

AN ESSAY

During my first year in law school, I had to take a "legal writing course." It was pure misery. The "professor" was really no professor at all, but rather a disgruntled low-level staffer from the Attorney General's office who worked part-time scolding terrified first-semester students for putting one space before a period rather than two. She never praised anyone. And she consciously tried to drain all individuality from everyone's writing. She said: "This is legal writing. It's time to un-learn everything you've ever learned about writing. Right now."

In her defense, legal writing is certainly different from expository writing. It follows distinct conventions and customs that differ from the classic liberal arts essay. It proceeds along identifiable logical pathways and channels arguments to lead ineffably to a conclusion. It is not subtle. Legal writing does not hide anything from the reader. It tells him exactly what he is reading and repeats it about fifty times before it is over. In our legal writing class, we learned how to manufacture these technical baubles. And we got lots of bad grades along the way to remind us that we missed some essential detail or other.

I became a pretty decent legal writer. After all, it isn't difficult. It's just a skill, like baking. There is no artistry to it. You just take a position, organize some arguments to support it and start declaring why you're right. You avoid the passive voice, follow a set sentence structure and repeat your argument over and over again. You make all your sentences declarative and begin each closing line in a paragraph with "thus." Clarity is important. Subtlety is not. And why should it be? After all, if you're writing to a court to win a case, you don't want to leave your fate to interpretation, do you? Hell no. You want to scream why you're right; and you'll be damned if you hesitate in your demand for victory.

But there is irony in all this. Legal writing--like the law in general--leads lawyers to believe that they possess magical powers. After all, lawyers feel exulted because they know that they can influence the machinery of the State to deprive others of property, liberty and even their lives. They influence that machinery through advocacy, including writing. For that reason, lawyers believe that their "legal writing" opens the doorway to power over others.

Yet there is nothing magical about the law or legal writing. In fact, I came to understand that legal writing actually wields very little influence, despite the mythology to the contrary. When I practiced law, my superiors praised my writing. I thought it led courts to make better decisions in particular cases. But time after time, I saw that judges probably had not even read what I had written. Rather, they knew beforehand how they would rule in a case and carried that prejudice with them through the proceeding. No matter how grand my rhetoric or airtight my logic, my writing would never dislodge an entrenched conviction. Just because I nailed all the technical criteria required for "good legal writing" did not mean I would magically win the case.

All this sobered me about the "power of the law." I learned that there was a vast propaganda machine at work perpetuating the idea that "judges were impartial" and that "good arguments always persuade." The cruel fact is that judges and lawyers are just as shortsighted and prejudiced as the next man. They make decisions based upon their cultural intuition, social values and emotional reactions. They can skillfully cite the law to provide a seemingly "neutral" justifications for their decisions. But in the end, "good legal writing"--and even "good arguments"--will almost never change minds.

Nor should it. Legal writing is agonizingly formulaic. I even wonder how judges can even keep their eyes open when they read it. And who really needs to know what one side in a case says? You can pretty much figure out what each side wants in the case simply by looking at the facts. If a person gets injured, he's going to say the other guy is at fault and should pay him money. The other guy will say he's not at fault and shouldn't have to pay. Or maybe he'll say the injured guy caused his own injury, so he's excused. Our legal system is adversarial. That means that you can figure out exactly what each side wants beforehand: Team A wants to make money; Team B wants to save money. Each accuses the other of bad faith and shouts to the court why he should win.

It's not complicated. It's just a game: One team wants to beat the other. You don't need masterful writing to understand how most cases go. Our adversary system explains it all. And chances are a judge will form an intuitive opinion about the dispute long before he reads what either team has to say about it. So nothing either team says will change the result.

Yet lawyers love their writing, even if it does not ultimately influence anyone. Worse, they scold lower-level employees who do not use the right words in court papers. This may seem meaningless--after all, why insist on particular words if the writing does not affect the outcome in the end?--but it happens. It is as if lawyers understand that their writing will change no one's mind, yet they adhere to rigorous standards merely to show that they can. This is sheer pretentiousness, and I don't like it. Moreover, it is pretentiousness without reason; for even when lawyers use all the right formats, phrases and page headings, their writing will not influence the judge. He has already taken an intuitive notion about the case.

Take this example: In legal writing class, we learned that you must always recite a legal rule exactly as it appears in a case. Over the centuries, pretentious judges have written pretentiously (and sometimes very poorly) about the law. When they lay down a legal rule in a particular case, they enshrine bad writing for generations to come. But in legal writing class, you must cite the rule exactly as it appeared. I recall an example about some lawyer being disciplined for neglecting his client. Once upon a time, a court said there had to be a "nexus" between the lawyer's conduct and resulting harm in order to determine whether an attorney should be disciplined for client neglect.

What the hell is a "nexus?" In law school, I remember thinking: "What a pretentious, unnecessary word. You can just use the word 'relationship,' or even 'connection' to express the same idea without sounding like a complete SAT-word-dropping douchebag.'" So in my brief, I cited the rule without using "nexus." I changed it to "connection." I thought it sounded more accessible. It sounded less arcane. I did not want to sound like a spell-casting sorcerer when I wrote. I wanted my reader to understand immediately what the law said.

But I got a bad grade on that paper because I did not literally use the word "nexus" in reciting the legal rule. It did not matter that my formulation expressed the rule better than the judge's legalese. No, details are important in legal writing, even really bad details that do nothing to improve communication or style.

Still, at the time I had not yet recognized that the law cared nothing for style. I had always prided myself on making my writing as clear and as accessible as possible. It was difficult for me to comprehend that clarity and style did not matter in this new discipline. I resented the formality and structure in legal writing. Ultimately, I learned to do it with the best of them. But it was just imitation. I never believed that legal writing possessed any intrinsic merit over my traditional, expository style.

Recently, I have begun to see legal writing in a larger context. Now, its rigidity and pretentiousness make sense: They reflect the law's effort to construct a fanciful aura of authority and inaccessibility.

Courts and judges--as well as the governments that institute them--benefit from a population that fears the law. People fear things they do not understand. They cower before institutions that speak in a hard-to-understand way. It makes them obedient and respectful. That is why courts want words like "nexus" instead of "connection." If they used words like "connection," people might understand what they were saying. If that happened, more people might see through the law's charades and disrespect it. They might not even need lawyers to translate all the legal rubbish.

In this light, pretentiousness in legal writing makes some sense. It is a smoke-and-mirror routine. It is Wizard of Oz stuff. It looks impressive. But in the end it's all nonsense. Men behind velvet curtains are still men, even if they use befuddling synonyms for common words.

And the ultimate irony is that even the best legal writing will not impress the men behind the velvet curtain. They already know what they plan to do each day. Lawyers can talk and write until they are blue in the face. It won't change anything.

"HONOR BOUND TO DEFEND FREEDOM" : WHAT ARE WE STILL DOING IN IRAQ?

2010-04-01T11:53:00.004-04:00

AN ESSAY

Two weeks ago, I watched Paul Greengrass' searing Green Zone. Although the movie masquerades as a pure action thriller, it actually deeply criticizes American involvement in Iraq, especially the manufactured casus belli that led us to war. At several points during the movie,my emotions surged. I have always spoken out against the War in Iraq. I always considered it an illegitimate, illegal, unethical, imperialist venture without justification in law, justice or good policy. The movie showed raw American power at work. And that reawakened my slumbering vitriol about the war.

Green Zone opens in the din of an air raid. It is March 19, 2003, the day the U.S. air force began bombing Baghdad. Sirens wail. We hear the buildings shudder as explosions rip through the city. Iraqi men and women frantically run through hallways, shouting and screaming. We see lights flickering. Dust falls from ceilings. Windows break. Then the shot pans out to a vista over the city. Massive fireballs light up the night. Buildings burn. Anti-aircraft fire streaks into the sky. Jet engines and cruise missiles boom through the air before yet another explosion rips the skyline.

That scene choked me up. So that's American power, isn't it: The power to bomb a city into oblivion. The power to make civilians scramble in panic as the house next door explodes into a million pieces. The power to knock out electricity and destroy infrastructure. And for what? In hindsight, I knew there was no justification for the war. There were never any weapons of mass destruction. Iraq did not plan 9/11, nor did any Iraqis hijack the planes that attacked the United States. No, America flexed its muscles against Iraq simply because it could. It ignored the United Nations and its weapons inspectors. It acted with breathtaking defiance, even if it mumbled about "reliable independent intelligence" concerning an Iraqi nuclear arms program.

Worse, we're still there, seven years and 6000 American dead later. That's to say nothing about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and countless more lives ruined for nothing.

War apologists will inevitably label be a socialist for making these observations. They will tell me that "intelligence was uncertain" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in early 2003, so it was better to be "safe than sorry." They will also tell me that America had "good reason" to attack Iraq because Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant who tortured and murdered his own people. In fact, they will stress the fact that America "fights for freedom" around the world; even if we did not find nuclear weapons in Iraq, at least we gave Iraqis democracy.

I recoil from this facetious "freedom" explanation for the invasion. The argument is not just illogical; it also shows American involvement in Iraq for what it really is: A selective, hypocritical, arbitrary application of brute force. It is illogical because America does not really care about "worldwide freedom." In the first place, it is presumptuous to even suggest that "American-style freedom" can work in diverse cultures around the world. And even if such a thing as "freedom" were universal, why stop with Iraq? George W. Bush said that the war was necessary because "Iraqis needed freedom from a murderous tyrant who tortured and gassed his own people." Yet there are many nations across the globe that need the same treatment. The "freedom" rationale--if believed--would require U.S. military involvement in virtually every sub-Saharan African nation, as well as Saudi Arabia, several southeast Asian countries and even Russia. There are "tyrants" in all those nations who "murder their own people."

So why haven't we attacked all these other countries? If we truly care about "freedom," we should attack Rwanda, Uganda, the Congo, Pakistan and Malaysia. The fact that we haven't shows that our involvement in Iraq is purely selective. And because the freedom rationale is so weak, it begs the real question: Why Iraq? Only a naïve idiot could believe that America had a genuine interest in "Iraqis' freedom from tyranny." So what was the real reason?

For a long time, I thought that America invaded Iraq to gain access to its lucrative oil reserves. The cynic in me can never really suppress the thought. Yet after seven years of occupation, oil prices are no lower than they were in 2002. In fact, they have even spiked several times in the ensuing years. With oil men like Dick Cheney and George W. Bush in the White House, Iraq's oil must have been one reason why they decided to invade. In retrospect, it should have been an easy assignment: Knock out Saddam, capture the oil fields, set up some pipelines and start pumping.

But it did not work out that way. The war planners encountered a set of problems they did not anticipate: Sectarian strife. They must have underestimated how difficult it would be to occupy Iraq. They could not set up their pipelines or build their oil-carrying infrastructure because the Iraqis did not just roll over and allow the Americans to have their way with their country. They sabotaged roads, blew up tankers, ambushed convoys and beheaded "contractors." And because men like Donald Rumsfeld woefully miscalculated how much force would be needed to subdue Iraq, the U.S. military never had sufficient strength to pacify the countryside. Rumsfeld thought a "small, rapidly mobile force" with overwhelming air power could claim Iraq.

He was wrong. In the end, U.S. forces in Iraq wound up fighting a desperate "fire brigade" war in which they struggled to respond to local hotspots without bringing overall stability to the country. As a consequence, America could not realize its initial commercial war goal: Oil mercantilism.

Still, I am not writing today to summarize America's strategic failure in Iraq. Rather, I am writing to stress that America's failure was far larger than mere military stalemate. America sacrificed much more than young soldiers' blood to occupy Iraq. It also sacrificed its historically "moral high ground" in war by engaging in illegal, unethical behavior on an unprecedented scale. In the end, American occupiers showed themselves little better than the Baathist torturers they set out to depose in 2003.

Green Zone alludes to this. In brief, the movie follows an army officer (Matt Damon) assigned to locate nonexistent "weapons of mass destruction" at various sites throughout Baghdad. After coming up empty every time, he begins to wonder whether his intelligence is sound. He decides to investigate his sources and gradually uncovers a tangled web of official deceit running all the way down from the Pentagon. When he realizes that the Pentagon has basically misled the army into supporting the war, he sets out to locate an Iraqi general who met with a senior Pentagon official (Greg Kinnear) prior to the war. The general told the Pentagon official that Iraq had no WMD program. The Pentagon official lied about what the general said and told Washington that Iraq did have such a program. To prevent the truth from emerging, the Pentagon official sends a hit squad to kill the general. Meanwhile, the army officer rushes to save him and expose the truth.

Green Zone's plotline makes for a good thriller. But it also makes a valuable point: America's case for war against Iraq was marred from the outset. It was built upon official deception. It threw ethics to the wind and committed American blood for fabricated reasons. The movie shows the American government working in a criminally underhanded manner. It shows senior American officials manipulating the truth and authorizing murder to conceal it. While Green Zone might just be a movie, it is certainly based on real events.

I thought America was supposed to be better than this. What ever happened to America as the "White Knight" of international politics? There was a time when America went to war for good things--and only as a last resort. There was a time when people around the world looked to America as a beacon of freedom and justice. During that time, no one would have dared think America could be tyrannical or evil. America did not lie, cheat, deceive, torture, murder or kill. It punished those who did while remaining true to its ethical principles. Hitler tortured, killed and invaded. America liberated the death camps and freed Europe from Nazi domination. That was noble and just. That was America's international reputation. That America could never act a villain.

Sadly, America did act a villain in Iraq. In a telling scene, Green Zone reminds us that American forces committed atrocities against Iraqi prisoners. It shows us a "detainee camp" in which U.S. forces hold allegedly "high-value" Iraqis in a stockade. It shows U.S. troops brutalizing prisoners with clubs, barking dogs and extremely loud music. It shows them forcing prisoners to sit in uncomfortable positions. We hear prisoners crying out in pain from darkened solitary cells. Some even lie bleeding on the floor without medical care.

Ironically, a sign over the stockade reads: "Camp So-and-So : Honor-Bound to Defend Freedom."

What kind of freedom is this? What kind of honor? It is as if the American army in Iraq still believed that it was the "White Knight" of 1945, even though its "intelligence division" members acted more like SS torturers than noble liberators.

There is no honor in torture or inhumane treatment. America said it waged war in Iraq to overthrow tyranny and torture. Yet within weeks, it began committing the same outrages on Iraqi prisoners that Saddam committed against his own people. Of course, war apologists will say that troops in the field must discover valuable battlefield intelligence "by any means necessary." That may be so as a practical matter. But America used to draw ethical strength from its refusal to engage in the unsavory tactics of its enemies. America acquired a sterling reputation because it refused to be Machiavellian.

We have drifted far from our ethical moorings. The war in Iraq has cost this country more than individual soldiers. It has also cost us our international reputation. We are no longer noble liberators committed to justice. Rather, we are now petulant rogues who wage war simply because we want to, without regard to ethics or international law. Our involvement in Iraq is a very dark chapter in American history. It is the chapter in which America became just another Machiavellian State determined to do its will, no matter the cost in blood or principle.

I wonder whether we will ever repair the damage we have done to ourselves.

A LITTLE ENCOURAGEMENT FROM NIETZSCHE

2010-03-31T11:06:00.004-04:00

A REFLECTION

Sometimes I wonder what all my writing will lead to. I never intended to make a career from my writing. People tell me: "Go write a book." But then they say: "You need to have a story that people will like, etc., etc." In other words, to be a successful writer I need to stop wandering and get focused. If I want a bestseller, I need to Grishamize.

If you read my blog, you know I'm no John Grisham. I simply write what occurs to me. But my writing is thematically consistent. An identifiable core runs through everything I write here. I think it's possible to glean my life philosophy from the topics I choose to discuss. That might not be a recipe for bestselling commercial writing. But what have I ever cared about commerce? If anything, I recoil from it. I'm an Aristotelean in that regard: Philosophy and commerce just don't mix.

Still, it's a lonely road sometimes. I look at authors who achieve commercial success and wonder why no one ever notices me. Maybe I am just too weak or too preoccupied to promote myself. On the other hand, I know that most Americans really don't care about--or care to think about--the issues I typically address in my writing. So my commercial non-viability is really twofold: (1) I do not promote; and (2) My substance is largely unpalatable.

To be clear, I am not complaining. It is exciting to write only about things that stimulate me. For the longest time, I lived life without commenting on it. Commentary simmered in my mind all the time; work just never gave me a chance to write it all down. This blog has given me the chance I always craved. It has transformed me. So even if this blog does not pay me in U.S. dollars, it pays me in emotional satisfaction. If I die tomorrow, people would know who I am. My voice would not be lost. This blog is as much a testament as it is a forum.

I always find inspiration and encouragement when I need them most. Yesterday, I sat thinking about the fact that no one will ever read what I write, at least not in my lifetime. It frustrated me a little bit. I even thought about my philosophical archetype, Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche never achieved commercial success in life, either. His books barely sold a thousand copies. When he was 45, he lost his mind and never recovered. He died young. I don't think I'm losing my mind yet, but I identify with what happened to Nietzsche: I am defiantly proud of the fact that I am anti-commercial; but it nonetheless hurts to know I will likely never receive wide recognition.

So I felt a little down yesterday. It was cold, gray, windy and rainy outside. I reflected on how poor I am. I can barely pay my rent. In fact, this month I can't even pay it at all. I need to budget out my money to buy food. Plus I need to care for Steve, who is incapacitated. It pretty much sucks. I still experience joy these days. But it only peeks through like tiny patches of blue sky on a very cloudy day.

I decided to crack open Nietzsche's Human, All-too Human. I paged through the aphorisms. I stumbled on this one: "121. A Vow--I do not want to read any more authors about whom people say: 'He set out to write a book.' Rather, I only want to read authors whose thoughts became a book by accident."

Is this me? It sure sounds like it. I just write my thoughts. I never set out to write a book. I simply allow myself to pour out impressions on things that fascinate me or incite me. There is consistency in my thoughts. But they do not reflect a conscious plan to "write a book" in the conventional sense. Could they "accidentally" become a book? Perhaps. As a whole, I like to think that this blog resembles a collection of Nietzschean impressions. Nietzsche's unconventional thoughts transformed into books. Perhaps mine can too.

That was encouraging. Without even trying, I fit into the category of "authors" whom Nietzsche might have wanted to read. I am not one of those authors who "set out to write a book." I do not sketch plots or try to cram my writing into a conventional format that people like. I am not John Grisham. John Grisham's thoughts do not become a book "by accident." No, when he sits down to write, he knows what book it's going in. He's just fleshing out the formula he laid down before he starting writing.

I'm glad I stumbled on Nietzsche's aphorism when I did. I was feeling low and worthless. I was losing hope. But after discovering that Nietzsche, too, faced similar struggles in his time, I felt encouraged to face mine. I felt freshly secure in my writing. It did not bother me that I am not a bestseller. Rather, I felt hope that perhaps one day--like Nietzsche--my thoughts would "accidentally" transform into a book. That thought brightened me, even if the "book" appears after I die. I do not really value my life too much anyway. I would rather have people remember my thoughts than my "too too solid flesh." As the Germans say: "Wer schreibt, der bleibt" : "He who writes remains."

I blog because it is the only way for me to publish without editorial control or commercial pressure. Nietzsche wrote longhand and hoarded his writings in his desk. He found a publisher who printed a few editions. I can publish over the internet, even if my audience is small. At least it's something. And I will continue. That is my vow.

ANOTHER BUSY WEEK

2010-03-29T09:28:00.003-04:00

Well, it looks like I won't have too much time to write until late this week. In a way I'm disappointed, but in another way I'm happy to see that times are changing. For almost two years, I wrote this blog every morning because I literally could not leave the house. Now, as my partner heals, I have more and more time to pursue life outside. I might even make a few dollars this week. Who knows? Believe me: I need the money; I live in New York and landlords don't take excuses for long.

So against that background, please forgive my minimal production this week. I still have a long list of issues to discuss. I just won't get to it until Thursday!

Thanks for your patience. And thanks always for reading my catalog.

Oesterhoudt

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL : A BAD ARGUMENT, AND AN EMBARRASSING DOUBLE STANDARD

2010-03-27T10:49:00.005-04:00

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

Last week, former Supreme Allied Commander (Atlantic) General John Sheehan testified before a Senate subcommittee investigating whether it was prudent to repeal the American military's ban on openly gay soldiers. General Sheehan argued that the military should not alter its policy. He said that openly gay soldiers reduce morale, combat effectiveness and unit cohesion.

To support his assertion, General Sheehan referenced an incident in which the Dutch army failed to defend a Bosnian town against Serbian aggression during Yugoslavia's Civil War in 1995. Although he could not directly attribute the Dutch army's failure to individual gay soldiers, General Sheehan explicitly said that Holland's "socialized" and "permissive" attitude toward homosexuality in the military made its armed forces "ill-equipped" to fight battles.

Dutch officials reacted with surprise to General Sheehan's remarks. They found it bizarre that anyone could link military ineffectiveness to a policy permitting openly gay men and women to serve in the military.

I find General Sheehan's argument bizarre, too. Moreover, I also find it foolish, hypocritical and ignorant. I have long criticized the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy as reflecting a fundamental double standard. It not only assumes that abstract homosexuality makes a person a bad soldier. It also assumes that there are no gay people in the U.S. military. Anecdotal evidence suggests that homosexuality is rife in the armed forces. It's just that no one talks about it. And yet General Sheehan does not suggest that the U.S. military is "ineffective," even though it certainly has gay people in it. Policies do not change the way people are.

But these are not the only flaws in "don't ask, don't tell." Put simply, the entire policy functions on logically untenable premises. First, the policy purports to "strengthen morale, combat effectiveness and unit cohesion" by eliminating openly gay people from service in the ranks. The argument is that openly gay men might form emotional relationships with one another that could jeopardize a particular "mission." Morale and combat effectiveness, in turn, depend on the chain of command. Morale and combat effectiveness require unswerving loyalty to the chain of command. And if men develop romantic connections to one another, then perhaps they will be loyal to one another, not the chain of command. Thus, it is proper to exclude openly gay men from military service: Gay relationships threaten the chain of command because romantic connections switch loyalties from the mission to individual men.

But what about women? The "don't ask, don't tell" policy assumes that romantic connections are only dangerous to the "mission" when they exist between two men. Yet the military allows straight women to serve alongside straight men. Human beings will develop romantic connections with anyone to whom they feel attracted, no matter the gender. Straight men fall in love with straight women just as deeply as gay men fall in love with each other. In that light, the fact that the U.S. military permits straight women to serve with straight men poses the same theoretical danger to morale as allowing openly gay men to serve. Straight people develop romantic connections just like gay people. And according to the army's rationale for "don't ask, don't tell," romantic connections are "bad" because they divide loyalties. Apparently, however, love affairs between men and women in the army do not divide loyalties as strongly as love affairs between men.

This is just ignorant: If the problem is potential romantic connections between soldiers, then neither straight women nor gay men should be allowed to serve in the military. There is no qualitative difference between romantic connections among gay people versus straight people. According to the army's logic, such connections are equally "dangerous to morale" and "unit cohesion." The fact that the U.S. military presumes that gay relationships are somehow "more dangerous to morale" is logically untenable.

I can see no good reason to keep gays from the U.S. military beyond naked prejudice. The only thing that seems to support "don't ask, don't tell" is a historical animus directed from straight men against gay men. Straight men feel "weird" when they know they are sitting next to a gay man, so the policy aims to eliminate that awkwardness. Yet there is no principled reason for this. It functions on the bare assumption that "gay people are different" and therefore must be excluded. To quote Justice Stephen Breyer's observation from the oral argument in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 538 (2003)(the case striking down State gay sodomy laws), "don't ask, don't tell" invokes this reasoning: "I do not like thee, Doctor Fell; the reason why I cannot tell." Straight people in the army just plain don't like being around gay people. That's the only reason for the policy.

I also question the military's assumption that gay relationships could somehow damage unit effectiveness. Leaving to one side the consideration that thousands of gay people already serve in the military without saying so, divided loyalties dominate military service. Men (and women, too) form extraordinary bonds with one another under the stress of combat. Their camaraderie deepens from the moment they enter training to the toughest moments in battle. I have written that the military is inherently socialistic because it cares about its own people; and soldiers are also socialistic because they are all willing to die for their brothers. In fact, they are all willing to die helping to save their brothers, even if their actions "endanger the mission." Put simply, soldiers will always divide their loyalties because they care for each other, romance or not. Allowing openly gay people to serve in the army will not change all soldiers' natural commitments to each other.

Finally, General Sheehan implied that the mere presence of gay people in the Dutch army made it a poor fighting force. This is ridiculous. There is simply no historical correlation between homosexuality and military ineffectiveness. Alexander the Great, Peter the Great and Frederick the Great were all allegedly gay, yet they went down in history as model soldiers. To suggest that an aesthetic sexual taste for members of one's own sex somehow renders a person "effeminate, weak, womanly and unsoldierlike" is simply rank stereotyping. Although history has placed restrictions on the manner in which gay people express their sexuality, it is indisputable that they have served with distinction as soldiers, officers and even conquerors. In that light, General Sheehan's argument that "the presence of gay people" in the Dutch army made it "weak" ignores history.

In conclusion, there is no logical or historical reason to continue the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. It makes pernicious assumptions about the relationship between sexuality and military competence. And it also functions on a double standard because another policy permits straight women to serve alongside straight men. The policy identifies "romantic connections between soldiers" as a reason to exclude openly gay men. Yet it allows straight women to potentially compromise straight men with "romantic connections:" "Romantic connections" are only dangerous among gay men, not straight men. The U.S. military offers no justification for the differential treatment. In that light, it is logically untenable. It simply reflects gross and outdated adolescent stereotypes. Romance is romance; it poses the same "dangers" whether it exists between boys and boys or boys and girls.

GERMAN BREAK

2010-03-25T10:15:00.003-04:00

In 1999, I lived with a German family in Berlin. In retrospect, it was probably the happiest year of my life. I was still very young, but I just remember feeling exhilarated every day in my new environment. My German "parents" seemed to respect and understand me better than my own parents. It broke my heart to go home when I did. Although I have been back to Berlin many times over the last 11 years, I have never recaptured the pure joy I used to feel when I lived there.

As the years passed, I gradually lost touch with my German parents and their two daughters. I regretted this very deeply. I tried several times to contact them but to no avail. That is, until yesterday. My sister called me from Brooklyn to tell me that my German mother had called looking for me. She gave my sister her number. I was overjoyed.

I called my German mother early this morning. She was busy and couldn't talk, but we agreed to have a nice conversation tomorrow morning. I was a little disappointed that we could not talk at that moment, but I'm so glad we've reconnected. Now, I'm just full of memories and old emotions. I can't concentrate at all on my writing, so I'm going to take a day off. Tomorrow I might take another day off so I can talk to the German parents I haven't seen in 7 years.

I'm really quite excited! Hopefully I will have time to write a post, too, but if I don't, you know the reason.

Thanks again for checking in!

Oesterhoudt

AN ETHICAL PRESIDENT? OBAMA, LINCOLN AND THE HEALTH CARE VICTORY

2010-03-24T10:37:00.008-04:00

AN ESSAY

While the moment is fresh, I must write a few words about the monumental health care reform bill that passed Congress this week. It is really quite a surprising--and inspiring--development. I had to temper my usual cynicism when I realized that the United States actually took a serious step toward reforming its health insurance system. Although President Obama always said he wanted to change health care, I gradually lost faith that he could penetrate furious Republican resistance. But against all prognostications, he did penetrate the resistance. He may have won only by a small margin. Nonetheless, Obama's principled win over private health insurance companies is unprecedented in modern American history.

Still, I am not writing about the health care bill today per se. I am not going to exhaustively discuss its intricacies, loopholes or missed opportunities. True, it is not fundamental reform. It does not create a European-style "single-payer" government-run health insurance program that guarantees coverage to every citizen as a matter of right. Nonetheless, as President Obama noted, it is "major" reform. It regulates private health insurance companies in significant ways. It prevents them from refusing to cover people with "pre-existing medical conditions" (ie, "most people"). And it mandates that everyone obtain health insurance. Uninsured Americans (including me) will benefit because the legislation provides extremely low-priced coverage from a "high-risk, government-supported" insurance company. In other words, health care won't be free for uninsured people. But it will be close to it.

For almost a century, no President has achieved such meaningful reform to American health care. And it is not just the legislation's substance that bears mention. In my view, the most memorable thing about Obama's health care victory is the ethical manner in which he conducted himself throughout the debate.

Public faith in American politicians is virtually nonexistent. People expect them to lie, hoodwink, steal, gladhand and enrich themselves at public expense. They expect politicians to sacrifice all their principles to save their jobs. When a politician says something, the natural response is to assume that he will do the opposite. In short, most people think that ethics is completely foreign to Washington politics. Promises mean nothing. People expect politicians to break them as soon as the water gets hot. In a word, people are extremely cynical about politicians in America.

But then along came Obama. In 2008, he won a landslide victory by promising "change we can believe in." He seemed a breath of fresh air in the noxious political marshland, a man who did not seem ready to engage in backroom dealing or pork barreling. He talked about principles and truth. He was a "white knight;" he was an uncorrupted soul. Although cynical Americans always have a hard time dropping their natural suspicion about politicians, they did when they elected Obama. They really thought that Obama meant what he said. They thought he would hold to his promises. He promised to reform health care.

In 2009, President Obama began the push for health care reform. Despite his good intentions, mean-spirited Republican resistance undermined his popularity. As the year wore on--and as the economy continued to falter--even Democrats began to question whether Obama could get anything done. They wondered whether all his campaign promises had just been rhetorical fluff. Republicans caricatured Obama as a "law professor," a man who thought too much and did too little. Critics castigated him for being "too polite for Washington." They blamed him for giving too much deference to opposing arguments. In other words, he was too weak to survive Washington's ruthless, dog-eat-dog political atmosphere.

Yet President Obama stayed true to his heart. He did not turn into a conniving Washington technocrat. No, he stood by his promises. He swore to push through health reform no matter the political cost. He did not care whether his commitment to his word would cost him a second term. He said he would fight for health reform. So he kept fighting. And he did not become an ogre in the process, either. He retained his composed decorum, even as Republicans hyperventilated around him and spread outrageous horror stories about "Obamacare."

Obama's fidelity to his own word paid off this week. Despite all the tempests and scares in Congress over the past few months, both the House and Senate passed a substantial reform bill. Although every vote along the way split sharply down party lines, the reform effort pressed forward. Something larger was at work beyond mere politics. Obama's commitment to his word seemed to vault Congress past its stifling political slavishness. What was it? It was the power of ethics.

It is no surprise that Obama quoted Abraham Lincoln the day before the House voted on health care reform. Obama quoted: "I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have." Put another way, it is always more important to do right than it is to worry about your political future. And there are deeper rewards to be gained from ethical fulfillment than mere reelection. No words could have encapsulated Obama's extraordinary commitment to ethics in Washington more poignantly.

Abraham Lincoln is the most inspiring President in American history because he was the most ethical President. He took office as the Nation faced its single worst crisis. He then transformed a War for Union into a crusade to end slavery in the United States. He did this because slavery was simply "wrong" as an ethical matter. His decision was politically unpopular. Someone assassinated him for it. But he did it because it was the ethically right thing to do. Lincoln had no personal interest in freeing the slaves. Politically, it was unnecessary. Yet he did it because he did not just care about "winning." He cared about being "true" and "living up to the light he had." That meant following ethics in his heart, not the politics that raged outside him.

Almost no President has dared to jeopardize his political future to "do the right thing." While health reform may not be as significant as ending slavery in America, President Obama nonetheless followed in Lincoln's footsteps by committing himself to an unpopular cause and risking everything to realize it. That is inspiring. And it is almost shocking, because it contradicts the comfortable cynicism most people adopt when thinking about Washington politicians. After all, can you believe what you just heard? A President is willing to risk everything to reform health care because he promised to risk everything to reform health care? You mean he actually takes his word that seriously? Can't be!

But it is, and that's what is so moving about Obama's victory. It was not just a technical victory over unfairness in health care. It was a victory of ethics over politics. It was a victory of principle over expediency. Obama pushed health care because he said he would. That is almost unprecedented in modern American political history. And it is even more inspiring that he did not let the "turkeys get him down" along the way. He kept his composure. He maintained his respect and dignity. He remained a "law professor," no matter how much people ridiculed him for it.

He didn't just care about winning. Rather, he was "bound to be true." And suddenly I find myself with an anomaly: Ethics just prevailed in Washington. That makes it harder for me to scowl and wax cynical about America.

Now, I'm actually inclined to smile. I feel strangely justified today. I love it when ethical people prevail, even if just for a day.

As I have always said, there is more to life than winning games.

TEXAS ANNOUNCES "WORLD WAR I THEME" FOR UPCOMING EXECUTIONS

2010-03-23T11:35:00.016-04:00

TEXAS TALK

By : Mr. Brad Livingston, Executive Director, Texas State Criminal Justice Agency (Austin)(2005-present); Former Chief Financial Officer, Texas Board of Criminal Justice (1997-2001); Former Deputy Director, Financial Services Division, Texas Department of Criminal Justice (1997-2001); Accounting Expert; Christian.

Here in Texas, capital punishment works. We are not afraid to swiftly execute offenders. Our prosecutors, judges, legislators and administrators are all on the same page on this: We don't have mercy for killers, rapists, drug dealers and thugs. So we get them out of the community in the surest possible way we can: By lethally injecting them after a couple pointless appeals.

Our State criminal justice system is the best in the Nation because Texans support it. Criminal justice doesn't work without strong backing from the community. Thankfully, our system is both effective and efficient because every Texan knows where criminals belong: Strapped to a gurney in the Huntsville death house. Here at the Corrections Department, we think like Texans. We don't forgive and forget. We inject first and ask questions later.

Capital punishment works in Texas because it brings our community together. Texans love a good execution. Although we do not hang people in public like we did in the old days, we nonetheless widely publicize our executions "21st century style." Texans can stay current with day-to-day executions by logging into our "Executed Offender" database. See http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/executedoffenders.htm. That site provides accurate information about offenders who got their judicially-prescribed dose of potassium bromide. It shows their faces. It describes their crimes. It tells you what they said before they bought the farm. It even tells you what they had for dinner before taking a mosey down the death chamber. Basically, if you want to hear about the latest about executed offenders in Texas, just click on the link and you will get the whole story. Enjoy!

We are committed to bringing Texans a satisfactory capital punishment experience that is both invigorating and entertaining. At the same time, we must note that executions are not cheap. Although the State provides executions free of charge, our capital punishment delivery system has historically operated at a loss. We recently made that fact known to Texans in a local television broadcast. To our great relief, we found that millions of Texans were willing to pay a price to watch a good execution. We even received substantial voluntary donations from private citizens. Those donations defrayed our costs. As Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, I can assure you that Texas will always give you the executions you expect and deserve.

We are thankful that Texans support our criminal justice system. We also know that many Texans wish to directly participate in future executions. We have received many letters from victims' family members requesting the opportunity to push the button that releases chemicals into the offender's bloodstream. Other citizens have requested introducing some new execution methods "just to spruce things up a little bit." Still others have petitioned for larger spectator venues to accommodate all the people who want to see an offender die.

In response to these queries--and to reward Texans for their support--we have decided implement some positive changes to our capital punishment delivery system. Effective immediately, we hereby designate 2010 the year for "World War I Fun" in the Texas criminal justice department. Until further notice, we will execute offenders with vintage World War I weapons. Additionally, we will allow victims' families to directly participate in the execution for a small administrative fee. We believe that this program will bring Texans even closer together, while at the same time teaching a valuable history lesson about World War I. It will give families the chance to take personal revenge on offenders, deter future misconduct and raise funds for the State. In sum, we believe that "World War I Fun" is a "win-win" for both Texans and Texas.

But we need your support to make "World War I Fun" work. To that end, we would like to introduce the various new execution methods available under our new program. If you are a crime victim or a crime victim's relative, carefully review this information to determine which method best suits your needs and your budget. Although we wish we could allow every crime victim to choose the most expensive execution method, we must always observe budgetary constraints. For that reason, we list execution methods in ascending order of price.

1. TRENCH SHOVEL - $50 per execution

Get back at your girlfriend's murderer with this trusty old steel spade. For just $50, you can grab this vintage 1917 shovel and smash that convicted varmint to your heart's content. Notice that the shovel has a sharp edge as well as a flat surface. It also has a good heft for crushing skulls or severing arteries. At just $50 per execution, the trench shovel is an economically wise--yet emotionally fulfilling--way to exact justice on a real Texas bandit. If you wish to bring a friend (or parent) to the execution, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will provide another shovel for just $25 more--that's a 50% discount! With two shovels, you and your friend can really give the convict a walloping. After you've finished clubbing the criminal to a bloody pulp, corrections officers will add insult to his injury by using the brain-smattered shovels to dig a grave for him out back.

2. BAYONET - $100 per execution

Cut right to the chase with a REAL World War I bayonet! You'll make a slicing impression with this genuine German antique. Your mother's killer will be trembling in his socks when he sees you coming at him with a foot-long silver blade. He'll wish he never raped and shot your mom as you thrust the shiny bayonet into his abdomen. Imagine how scared he'll be as he sits there helplessly strapped to a chair as you slash and stab him to death. You can do anything you want with the bayonet. You can scalp the criminal. You can stab him through the top of the head. You can saw off his fingers. Hell, you could even cut open his stomach and stuff his kidneys in his mouth while he's still alive. Go ahead! Knock yourself out! Do justice! We'll even throw in rubber gloves and a wetsuit for just $50 more so you won't get your nice clothes all bloody.

3. SPRINGFIELD MODEL 1903 - $250 per execution (plus additional ammunition beyond 5 rounds)

If you prefer firearms to close-quarters weapons, then the Springfield M1903 is the choice for you. Don't get your hands dirty. Be an old-fashioned Texas marksman. Line the child rapist up in your sights, get the range right and BLAM! There goes the back of his head. As an added bonus, the Texas Criminal Justice Department will provide an ENTIRE CLIP of ammunition for your amusement; it is our way of saying "thank you" for your support. That means you can take your time with your criminal. You can fire your first shot through his shinbone. Then the next through his hand. You know, whatever you like. Give him a nice gutshot and ask him how he likes it now. But if you do not finish the convict off in five rounds, you must pay $10 per additional bullet. Despite the cost, we are certain that all you Texas sharpshooters out there will really appreciate going round for round on a scumbag with a Springfield. Go for it! Ready, aim, fire!

4. MUSTARD GAS - $500 per execution

Maybe you liked chemistry in high school. Maybe you'd rather use science on a punk than a gun or a knife. If this fits your bill, then Texas Corrections has the solution for you: A genuine mustard gas grenade. For just $500, you can REALLY make a bank robber squirm by tossing some lethal chemicals directly into an airtight container. You can watch him squeal like a pig as he tries to hold his breath. But you'll just laugh, because the mustard gas will burn away his skin at the same time. That'll teach him to touch little girls at the playground! At the same time, you'll learn why most countries outlawed mustard gas after 1918! For the more adventurous citizens out there, mustard gas is the way to go. In Texas, we don't just shoot 'em, beat 'em or stab 'em. We gas 'em, too!

5. MAXIM MACHINE GUN - $1000 per execution (includes 250-round ammunition belt)

If you're a marksman but prefer rapid fire, don't settle for a single shot. Get behind this VINTAGE 1911 Maxim machine gun and UNLOAD into a child molester with a full belt. Learn how the machine gun changed the face of warfare as you demonstrate what 250 30-caliber bullets can do to a Mexican gangster tied to a chair. Have fun with it! Hold down that trigger and roar! Let the machine gun do the talking. Cut the bastard in half if you want to. We regret that the Maxim costs more than other execution methods. It is difficult to find working models that do not jam. Additionally, it takes time to set up the Maxim and calibrate it; this thing weighs a lot. Your $1000 contribution helps defray all these costs. And believe us: Once you squeeze the trigger on this baby, you'll say: "It was worth every dollar!" So what are you waiting for? RAT-A-TAT-TAT, bitches!

NOTE: If the Maxim jams at any time before you complete your 250-round belt, we pledge to refund your $1000 contribution pro rata ($4.00 per round) depending on how many rounds remain in the belt. We also pledge to lend you a Corrections Officer's service pistol to administer a final shot to the offender free of charge.

6. FLAMETHROWER - $2000 per execution

It's time for an old-time Texas barbecue! Take fiery revenge on your wife's lover by toasting him like a stuck hog. For just $2000, we will give you an ORIGINAL 1918 flamethrower with a full tank. Don't mess around with shovels or pistols. Burn the sumbitch alive! Light up the starter, twist on the fuel flow and reduce him into a pile of ashes. Don't worry: He won't turn into ashes before he struggles in vain to escape the flames. Torch him! If you really want to make him regret what he did, don't hose him down right away. Shoot a fireball above his head first. Make him sweat. Then shoot another burst to his left, then his right. Finally, give him just a little scorch. Make him live for a while with peeled-off skin. See how he likes being a victim now. See how fun flamethrowers can be? Nothing says "Ouch" like a full-body burn. And you can only give a full-body burn with a flamethrower. So get in there and start cookin'!

7. BIG BERTHA - $5000 per execution

For Texans who have some money to spare, why not blast a criminal to smithereens? Chances are the offender changed your life forever. Chances are he stole something from you that you can never replace. You probably want to make his life as empty as yours, don't you? If this is the way you feel, BLOW HIM AWAY WITH A BIG BERTHA ARTILLERY GUN! When you pull the firing cord on this baby, there won't be anything left of the man who ruined your life. There won't be anything to bury. Nobody--and no body part--walks away from a 16-inch, 2100-pound high explosive direct hit. When you really just can't stand criminals, nothing says "I hate you" more than landing a Big Bertha shell on his head. For just $5000 (credit available), the Texas Corrections Department will set up a secure firing range, as well as the VINTAGE 1908 "Big Bertha" artillery gun. It will load the weapon, place the offender downrange and allow you to say "FIRE!" before pulling the firing cord. Then, via closed-circuit television, you can watch in slow-motion as the shell falls on the offender. One moment he is there. The next moment he is gone. We will even give you a complimentary DVD recording so you can watch the moment as often as you like for the rest of your life.

In closing, I would like to personally thank Texas for its commitment to criminal justice. Here at the Department of Criminal Justice, I can assure you that we will continue to make executions accessible to the public in a way that is both emotionally satisfying and economically sensible.

Thanks again for your support.

LAWYERS : WHAT'S IN A NAME? MORE THAN YOU THINK

2010-03-22T14:53:00.005-04:00

AN ESSAY

Lawyers are always in the news. They like talking to the press. And the press likes talking about them. They always have something to say; lawyers are pretty glib. They like free advertising, too. So they are happy to speak up when cameras roll.

But no matter how much press lawyers get, it's usually bad. In most cases, news stories involving lawyers discuss their avarice, moral bankruptcy, hypocrisy or outright criminality. Most recently, for instance, several newspapers reported on the proposed settlement between New York City and 9/11 workers. Apparently, the lawyers in that case (it's a big class action suit) advised the 9/11 workers to settle for around $675 million. That would give the lawyers at least 33%, or $225 million. The 30,000 workers would get the rest. A judge rejected the proposal. The press described it like this: "Judge refuses to bow to greedy lawyers. Rejects 9/11 settlement."

People expect lawyers to be greedy in America. That's their reputation. That's what they do. They intervene in private disputes, work mysterious magic behind the velvet curtain then take their fee. That's just how it works. At the same time, people expect lawyers to break rules as often as they enforce them. Vulgar punners like to cross the word lawyer with "liar;" and the pun is not too far off the mark. When hearing about lawyers, people expect elusiveness, craftiness, dishonesty, theft and nasty-spiritedness. It's all part of the public image. It is no wonder that the public does not respect lawyers. Viewed in the abstract, they are a lousy bunch.

But it's all part of the trade. Lawyering is a lousy business. Government tries its utmost to cultivate respect for the law as a beneficial social construct designed to bring about good. Yet a quick brush with lawyers undermines any respect a citizen might have developed for the law. With lawyers, it's not about doing good. It's about winning. And if winning means subverting good--or even allowing evil to prevail--then so be it. That's business. After all, that's what the client wants. As law firms like to say: "We are result-oriented." How true: Lawyers get results for their clients, even if those results seem despicable to everyone else on earth. The word "result," after all, does not necessarily imply "good" or "ethical." Results depend on who's getting them. A good result for the labor baron is a bad result for the workers. A good result for the State is a bad result for the Defendant. A good result for the employer is a bad result for the employee.

Lawyers sell results. They get them however they can. That is why people don't respect lawyers; they are crass partisans who zealously go to bat for scoundrels. In the process, they milk everyone for money and accuse everyone of lying--except themselves.

Maybe our language has something to do with lawyers' poor reputation in America. Yesterday I thought about the word "lawyer," as well as its interchangeable synonym, "attorney." Then I thought about the German word for lawyer, Rechtsanwalt. I have often uncovered compelling conceptual relationships among English words by comparing their equivalents in foreign languages. Perhaps I could understand why lawyers have such a bad reputation in America by making some linguistic comparisons.

Literally, Rechtsanwalt means "rights advocate." That sounds somehow more detached than "lawyer." Although lawyers are not the most respected members in German society, either, their name reveals something more transcendent than "lawyer." After all, a "rights advocate" is someone who stands up for rights. Rights are principles that mean something greater than individual self-interest. Rights stand for something beyond commerce and winning. Rights symbolize personal worth against government intrusion. Rights are somehow "sacred" and "inviolable." When someone violates a right, the aggrieved person has a claim against the violator. We enshrine rights. They exist beyond life. They encapsulate our deepest values. They express our fundamental expectations as individuals in society. Men have gone to war over rights. They have written philosophical treatises about the "Rights of Man" and launched revolutions to secure "inalienable rights." While rights may just be a human invention, they nevertheless represent something larger in people's lives. People willingly fight for rights. While it is ignoble to die for money, it is noble and just to die for rights.

In this light, a "rights advocate" seems a much nobler name than "lawyer." While lawyers in America--just like Rechtsanwälte in Germany--make their living by defending clients' "rights," their name suggests something far less honorable. "Lawyer" is embarrassingly common. It says nothing about "advocating for rights." Rather, it sounds like just another petty craftsman. In English, after all, the suffix "-yer" historically connotes a street-level artisan, like a "sawyer" (man who crafts wood with a saw) or "bowyer" (man who makes bows). Linguistically, then, lawyers fit into this tradition as "petty craftsmen who bend the law just as a journeyman bends a bow."

This interpretation goes beyond mere mockery. It is surprisingly appropriate in describing the lawyer's role in America. After all, lawyering is all about results in America. It is commercially straightforward. It is no different than manipulating tools to saw planks or build bows. People who want to buy plywood and bows don't care about others' rights. They merely want products to be crafted and built. And lawyers hawk the law in stores, just as sawyers hawked sawcraft in old England.

In a word, the word "lawyer" perfectly expresses the commercial nature of legal practice in America. It is not about "transcendent rights for all." Rather, it is about tailor-made products for particular clients who want particular results. The word's origin conceptually places lawyers exactly where they belong: Among street peddlers and common craftsmen.

But what about "attorney?" Does the synonym save the concept "lawyer" from moral destitution? To determine this, we must examine its etymology. "Attorney" derives from French. It takes its form from the French verb "tourner," meaning "to turn," then adds the Anglicized prefix "at-", meaning "to" or "toward." In French, the past participle of "attourner" is "attourné," meaning "turned to." The suffix "-ey" indicates that at some point an Englishman changed the French past participle into letters he could pronounce: He transformed the foreign-looking "é" into "-ey." Behold: Attorney. Literally: "Person turned to."

So how does this differ from "lawyer?" Is it any "better?" Not much. If anything, the word "attorney" refers to the lawyer's role as confidant and advisor in times of trouble. People need to "turn to" others when something bad happens to them. In some sense, the word "attorney" is paternalistic because it implies that people are too weak to fend for themselves and they need a "father-like" lawyer to shepherd them through difficulty. But in another sense, "attorney" implies that a lawyer is a partisan mercenary who will do anything his client tells him. After all, why would you "turn to" a lawyer if not to win your case at all costs?

In my view, the word "attorney" represents the lawyer's role as adversary in the American system. People "turn to" lawyers when they have a commercial problem. They expect their lawyers to vigorously advance their interests, even if those interests stand at odds with all the world. As a partisan, the attorney will "bend the law" in whatever way he can to win. In this way, the words "attorney" and "lawyer" mutually reinforce the commercial--and result-oriented-- nature of legal practice in America. People expect lawyers to do their bidding, so they "turn to" them. And once they do, they expect lawyers to sell them a ready-made product without quibbling over larger issues like conscience or ethics.

This is not to say that some American lawyers are not "rights advocates." On many levels, they are. Every legal case involves rights. But not all rights are noble. In fact, most legal rights involve contracts, property and other social mechanisms designed to maintain private ownership. As a consequence, legal rights perpetuate unfairness because those who can assert them generally have much more power than those who do not. To speak broadly, those with more riches often have substantially more legal rights than those without riches.

But these are merely "technical," private legal rights. There are public rights, too. And those rights have a largely positive connotation. Most people think about public (constitutional) rights when they hear the word "rights," like the right to free speech and the right to equal protection under law. That is why the German word Rechtsanwalt conveys a more positive connotation with regard to the law than the English words "lawyer" and "attorney." It focuses on rights, not commerce or craftsmanship.

In America, people "turn to lawyers." Yet that is the reason why lawyers always get bad press. No one likes a crafty, small-minded, contentious partisan who bickers and backstabs for a fee. Yet that is what lawyers do here. They are crafty craftsmen who bend bows for a set price, not noble "rights advocates." They sell products, just like any other peddler. But unlike other peddlers, they are paid to fight for one person's "rights"--and trample you if you get in their way.

REVERSE STEREOTYPING IN ADVERTISING : MORE INSULTING THAN REGULAR STEREOTYPING?

2010-03-18T11:45:00.006-04:00

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

Stereotypes fascinate me because everyone taught me to revile them. It is a dirty word. You are not supposed to stereotype anymore. But what is stereotyping, actually? It means making generalizations about particular people or things, then exaggerating those generalizations in a pejorative way.

Stereotypes are pernicious when applied to "disfavored" groups. They are even worse when a person in "superior social position" directs the stereotype against a person in an "inferior social position." In other words, it is "politically incorrect" for a wealthy white man in America (i.e., a person with a historically "superior social position") to stereotype against a poor black man (i.e, a person with a historically "inferior social position"). Yet when people in traditionally inferior social positions stereotype those in superior social positions, it is somehow more forgivable. After all, who gets up in arms when black comedians say all white people are awkward? No one: Because everyone knows that white people have historically enjoyed a "superior social position" over blacks in America. In this sense, stereotypes are objectionable only in context: They are "bad" only when directed downward from a superior social position against an inferior one.

Still, it is hard to talk about stereotypes without inviting anger. Even outside the racial context, stereotypes raise emotions because they depend on uncomfortable--and sometimes remotely true--assumptions about others. No one likes to be mocked for their intrinsic characteristics, even if their intrinsic characteristics are less than praiseworthy.

It is even difficult to analyze the stereotyper. Ten years ago, I angered the American government when I applied for a Federal scholarship to study the systematic way in which American media stereotypes Germans. I did not get the grant. Apparently, the Federal government did not want to fund a paper that would tell it how shortsighted, ignorant and simplistic most Americans are when thinking about Germany. At the time, I was disappointed I did not get my grant. But it taught me a valuable lesson: Neither the proponents nor the victims of stereotypes like talking about them.

Whether or not the Federal government chooses to recognize it, stereotypes are everywhere in this country. They surround us. We even buy into them without even knowing it. To start, it is hard to watch American movies without encountering some condescending racial, sexual or national caricature. Even in a sci-fi action movie like Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen, the "hip" robots have black voices and banter in ebonics. Most gay characters are pathetically effeminate, with the lisps, hair and flamboyance to match. And people from other countries? Forget it: Germans are merciless, icy, calculating, humorless villains (Schindler's List; Hellboy II). Italians are lusty, hairy, slicked-back tough Guidos who use big hand gestures and talk about their families all the time (Saturday Night Fever). Russians are crafty, suspicious tyrants with thick accents (Rambo III; Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). The French are perfumed, well-dressed, snotty, red-lipped, arrogantly petulant metrosexuals with perfect hair who usually wind up buying baguettes or espresso at some point in the movie (The Matrix : Reloaded, Ronin)(Jean Reno is the default American choice for a Frenchman). The British are absurdly prim, polite, insistent on protocol, silly or villainous (The Patriot). Arabs are maniacal terrorists who wear turbans, shout "Allah, Ackbar!" and blow things up (True Lies). Asians are generally kung-fu-fighting, sword-wielding comic relief with funny accents (any Jackie Chan movie).

Of course, not all American movies support racial, sexual and national stereotypes. There are exceptions in every category. But the fact that so many mainstream films thrive on stereotypes means something. It means that America has an appetite for them. They like laughing at smooth-talking black robots and silly gay men. They expect Italians to be gangsters and Germans to be killers. After all, stereotypes are easy to grasp. They distance "us" from "them." They allow "us" to feel secure in our identities by condescending toward the way "they" speak, act and move. Stereotypes unite through ignorance.

Hollywood films are not the only medium that supports rank stereotypes in the United States. Even so-called "neutral" news networks reinforce racial and national generalizations. Whenever news agencies report on street crime, they usually point out that the suspect is a "black male," or they just show his face onscreen: Just another scary-looking black guy with unkempt facial hair. Whenever news agencies report about China or Russia, they usually make ominous comments about sinister motivations and repressive governments. And when they report about destitute Third World countries, typically they focus on some ridiculous sideshow, like peasants cooking dirt shavings or worshipping a river bank.

In short, Americans get their stereotypes from multiple sources. Stereotypes help them order their world. They help them remember who "they" are. Yet no matter how much Americans love their stereotypes, and no matter how often they buy into them, they also hear a countervailing message: "Stereotyping is bad." Students learn that it is wrong to make sweeping generalizations about ethnic, national, sexual and religious groups. Even corporations instruct their employees that it is "wrong" to generalize about "others." It might not be wrong to exclude "them" from the workforce or relegate "them" to the mail room. You just can't make callous remarks about their low station.

We have lived in the era of "political correctness" for several decades now. Some people have gotten in trouble for breaking the official rules about stereotypes, like Don Imus and some other indiscreet white men. But despite the "official" stance against stereotyping, it survives. It lives on in men's hearts. People can dutifully watch what they say in public without privately abandoning stereotypical thinking. It is very easy to be "politically correct" in observance, yet politically incorrect in spirit. Even the worst bigot can navigate the sparse minefield of forbidden phrases that demarcates "politically correct speech." You just need some minimal public discretion.

But what happens when traditional stereotypers try too hard to show their political correctness? In advertising, for instance, I have noticed an increase in so-called "reverse stereotyping," namely, painfully obvious attempts to portray traditionally stereotyped roles in the opposite light.

Take these examples: A major garment company runs an ad showing a married black man in a very nice home choosing a white starched shirt from a hickory-paneled closet. In the next ad, a home security company shows an affluent black family in a very nice home being terrorized by a white burglar, then calling police. In another ad, a life insurance company hawks its wares by showing an extremely well-dressed black man behind a desk in an office building. He is an "insurance executive;" and a desperate-looking white man calls him to ask about life insurance options. In yet another ad, a trade school notes that "times are tough," then it shows an unemployed white man struggling to find a job. It suggests that he get an education in order to stop receiving public assistance.

What is significant about these ads? In my view, they are even more condescending to "disfavored political groups" in America than flat-out stereotypes. After all, pernicious stereotyping generally operates in a "downward" manner, from people in a "traditionally superior social position" against people in a "traditionally inferior social position." In all the social contexts relevant to these ads, black Americans generally occupy the inferior position: They do not have nice homes; they do not wear button-down shirts; they are not even married; they are the burglars, not the ones who call police; they do not buy life insurance, let alone run the insurance company; they are unemployed and need educations to get off welfare. A flat-out stereotype would have shown white people buying button-down shirts, calling the police on black burglars and running an insurance company. But here the ads simply reverse the stereotypes, placing black people in the traditionally superior positions, while white people fancifully occupy the traditionally inferior positions. This "racial reversal" so obviously contradicts predominant social realities that it invites scorn.

It is easy to see why the corporations did this. They did not want to "appear stereotypical" by portraying blacks in "traditionally inferior social positions." They wanted to comply with "political correctness." But in attempting to avoid stereotypes, the corporations came off as even more patronizing than they would have had they simply stuck with the generalizations everyone expects to see. Americans expect to see black burglars; that's what they see on the news all the time. Americans expect to see white insurance executives; after all, insurance executives are basically all white anyway. And Americans expect to hear about unemployed black people on welfare; laziness is a classic racial stereotype that has long fueled resentment between racial groups in America.

In sum, anyone can see that these ads do not correspond to social reality in the United States. That fact confirms that Americans like their stereotypes. It makes them uneasy--and even disbelieving--to see black people portrayed outside their traditionally inferior social positions. No one will ever believe that black people will run insurance companies. Nor will anyone believe that white Americans will commit street crime in the same proportions as black Americans. Americans are too comfortable with their stereotypes. A few advertisers will not change anyone's assumptions by reversing stereotypical roles that have existed in Americans' minds for generations.

No, Americans still have a voracious appetite for stereotypes. Just go to the movies or turn on the news. And ironically, attempting to be "political correct" only worsens stereotypical thinking. That's because telling Americans that "stereotyping is bad" is like telling a star baseball player that baseball is bad: Stereotyping is what we do--and we really like it. Telling us to stop doing what we like will result in confused, disingenuous absurdity, just as we see in these ads.

H.I.R.E. : HEALTH INSURANCE RESISTANCE EDUCATION

2010-03-17T10:56:00.009-04:00

A MESSAGE FROM THE F.B.I.

"JUST SAY NO"

By : Mr. Robert S. Mueller III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C.

Americans face threats every day. Foreign terrorists plan violence against us. Domestic thugs commit robberies and senseless killings in our midst. Organized gangs intimidate and extort honest businesses. And psychopaths brutally beat loved ones, including their own wives and children. In a word, crime is everywhere.

Here at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, we are committed to protecting you from criminals. We hunt down killers and thieves. We bring them to justice. But that is not all we do. We try our best to prevent crime, too. While we cannot stop a hardened shoplifter's decision to filch from a store, we can at least help protect potential victims from crime. To that end, the FBI believes in education.

Not all crime is obvious. Everyone knows it's wrong to put on a hoodie and pry into a nice-looking home with a crowbar. Everyone knows it's wrong to smash an elderly woman in the head with a hammer as she struggles to cross the street. These are visible crimes. But not all crime is visible. Crime happens all over the place. Well-educated executives might be committing monumental financial crime two stories above your head as you toil for minimum wage in a corporate copy center. Traders might be illegally fixing prices on a proprietary computer program somewhere down the block. Although these crimes might not be as obvious as bashing an old woman in the skull, they still pose a threat to Americans everywhere. And the FBI is determined to informing Americans about all crime, not just visible crime. We believe in a simple motto: Because information is the best protection™.

Today, the FBI wishes to inform Americans about a pervasive criminal threat: Health insurance sales. We do this because many Americans do not realize that they are being victimized by ruthless health insurance gangs masquerading as upstanding corporations. Until Americans receive the information they need to protect themselves, health insurance gangs--including the notorious "Cigna Hustlaz" and the most-wanted "Blue Crips Blue Shield Brothahood"--will continue to rain unrestricted economic terror on millions every day.

To combat health insurance gangsters, racketeering and economic intimidation, we have instituted a new program directed at Americans of all ages: HEALTH INSURANCE RESISTANCE EDUCATION, or H.I.R.E.

Let's start with some basics. Everyone likes health insurance. Health insurance gangs know that. Health insurance gives people a high; it makes them feel secure that someone else will pay their medical bills if they get sick. In recent years, private employers stopped giving employees health insurance because it made them lazy, unproductive and apathetic. Gangsters like the Cigna Hustlaz stepped in to fill the supply vacuum, selling exorbitantly-priced health insurance at street rates. Once hooked, a health insurance addict can't get enough. He wants more and more insurance. He wants more and more free medical care. And when the gangsters see this, they just keep raising the prices, knowing the addict will pay. In the end, health insurance gangs reap fantastic profits, while addicts waste all their money paying whatever price the gang demands.

Until now, health insurance gangs have tyrannized Americans with relative impunity. For one thing, they do not look like regular criminals. They are generally not African-American or Hispanic. Rather, they are not people at all: They are corporations. Their senior leaders are generally white men between 40 and 60 with suffixes like "IV," "Jr.," "Sr.," and "Esq." after their names. Some health insurance high-ups even have street nicknames, like "Chip," "Skip," "Tad," "Dodger," "Lil Princeton," and "Biggie Witherspoon AKA Tha Kash Docta." Many live in the suburbs and pay their taxes. Most Americans have no idea that these friendly-looking white men are actually vicious health insurance thugs determined to drive them into bankruptcy, addiction and early death.

But the FBI knows all about these gangsters. We have a Most Wanted List for Health Care Thugs. And today we declare that we will protect average Americans from health insurance gangs all over the country.

America's addiction to health insurance has reached epidemic proportions. It has destroyed homes and fortunes. It has ruined marriages. It has even led to imprudent surgeries and haphazard medical care. It has driven hard-working people into homelessness. Now, destitute beggars roam the streets, desperately seeking their next health insurance fix. Citing "cost concerns," health insurance gangsters have caused children to forgo needed doctor visits. And they have forced millions of Americans to deal with vicious health insurance gang "employees" ("wiseguys") who torment them every day with unfair appeals, denial letters and various other petty indignities. Many Americans fear telephone calls from these health insurance "wiseguys." In most cases, they learn that the gang has once again rejected their request for a heart transplant because it is "not covered."

Health insurance gangs have almost succeeded in reducing the American public to dependency. They have laid their hooks into American families from coast to coast, wringing them for excessive premiums every single day. When they don't pay, "wiseguys" threaten them with collection action and illness. Health insurance gangs know that Americans can't get enough health care. They know that Americans crave the health insurance high. So they just ignore the law and common decency to throttle Americans for everything they own. At the same time, they shrewdly cover their tracks by complying with corporate laws, paying taxes, making political contributions and advertising on television. No one thinks they are gangsters. And this all works to their advantage.

We refuse to tolerate health insurance gangsterism any longer. Through our new Health Insurance Resistance Education program, we are confident that we can save America from health insurance thugs. Information will always win over crime. That is why H.I.R.E. will begin teaching America's children how to spot health insurance hustlers. It will teach them to JUST SAY NO to street peddlers like "Holla Humana" and "Dem Anthem Playaz." It will teach them to talk to their parents about health insurance alternatives and fair prices. And it will teach them that strength in numbers is the best way to resist a lone health insurance dealer. When our kids take H.I.R.E., they will learn that health insurance is not cool.

But H.I.R.E. is not just about children. Adults have a lot to learn about health insurance crime, too. We plan to educate all Americans about health insurance thugs, including how to spot them. Health insurance gangs only became strong in America because they hoodwinked Americans into thinking they were "respectable businesses." But through H.I.R.E., we will teach Americans that companies hawking basic doctor visit coverage for $900 a month plus a $50,000 deductible are not "respectable businesses," but rather vicious health insurance thugs. We will inform America about our Most Wanted list and what the worst criminals look like. We will make Americans less naïve about trusting white men who work in the Cigna tower. And we will offer addiction treatment programs to help Americans cope with the fallout from health insurance abuse.

In the end, we are determined to tell America the truth. We refuse to allow health insurance gangs to ruin any more Americans lives. We refuse to see Americans driven to bankruptcy and homelessness because they could not cough up the monthly health insurance vig. We refuse to allow shameless thugs get away with extortion while pretending to be "just another corporation in a skyscraper." That is why we started H.I.R.E. And we are confident that we will put these crooks down once and for all, along with all their "wiseguy" call center enforcers.

America needs health care without health insurance gangsters. Health care by itself is not dangerous. It is only dangerous when sold on the street. We can save America from dependency on street health insurance only by bringing health insurance under government oversight. Just as food used to be dangerous before the government intervened to regulate food production, so too is street-level health insurance dangerous without government supervision. Health insurance is too important and too harmful to entrust to profit-hungry street gangs. Everyone wants health insurance. Everyone needs health insurance. That is all the more reason for the government to ensure that people receive quality-controlled care in a fair, honest manner.

But we will not achieve health insurance safety without first defeating health insurance gangs. Only education will win the war against them. H.I.R.E. is the first step to helping America understand the danger they face. Once Americans see that they are being exploited, bamboozled and extorted every day by so-called "respectable health insurance corporations," they will understand that government regulation is the only way to protect them from gangsters. While we appreciate that many Americans hesitate to support government control over health care, we are confident that H.I.R.E. will show them that the health insurance street market has victimized them, not helped them.

For decades, America has lived at the whim of health insurance thugs. That time is about to end. Here at the FBI, we are determined to protect you from exploitation and violence, even when you do not realize that you are a crime victim. Health insurance gangs have been victimizing you for years and you don't even know it. No more. That is why we promise to win the war against the health insurance gangsters who now tyrannize your life.

One day, every American will have health insurance at very low cost. Education will pave the way. The FBI will do its part. And we promise that no criminal gang will ever profit from your addiction to health care.

This is America. We do not tolerate unfairness or exploitation here.

Watch out, health insurance thugs. We know who you are. You can run but you can't hide.