Public Enquiry Project

“My former mother” – or how Japanese families differ from Western families.

Over the past twelve years we’ve had a few score Japanese exchange students live with our family. I’ve spent uncounted hours eating meals with them, watching TV with them and chatting with them. I love Japan and her people, especially her girls.

I know that Asian families don’t adopt orphans and that when Asians get divorced – which is looked down on and rare - that the children are often irrevocably separated from their mothers. If a divorced mother remarries she usually “leaves” her children in the care of a Grandmother.

Almost without exception we’ve found the Japanese girls who’ve lived with us to be delightful temporary family members. The sweet 28 year old that just moved in this past weekend has an amazing story to tell us. She shared wonderful pictures of her family, including pictures of the traditional Japanese Wedding of her father and “mother” in a magnificent Shinto temple. Her mother wore fourteen kimonos; the top one being just like the one Princess Masako wore when she married the crown prince. But the wedding was only ten years ago.

Her birth parents were divorced when she was eight and her father kept her and her brother. She was told her “former mother” was jealous of her and had “gone away.”

My wife was astounded that she hadn’t seen her birth mother in twenty years, even though we knew this was culturally accepted, even necessary in Japan. Cindy couldn’t imagine carrying a child for nine months and caring for her ‘til age eight and then just leaving.

Yes, Asian “family values” are often wonderful… but they are very different from ours, and in some ways, not as good. Perhaps the best family value system would be a mix of Asian and Western family values.

Two reasons why only poor folks or fools send their children to public schools

I am a collector of Ancient coins and American coins. The following appeared in a post on a chat list today -

"... My wife works for a public elementary school, and a couple of years ago they were doing someting about Presidents on coins. Most of the teachers at her school thought that was Washington on the nickel!
Tom"

This reminded me of a mother in my daughter's Montessori school who was a Public School "science teacher" in the Boston public school system. She complained that "I have to teach the solar system tomorrow and I don't know anything about it. I'll be up all night studying for it."

I made the mistake of sending my son to Massachusetts Public Schools and he turned into a knee jerk Democrat. That will never happen with my daughter.

Since LBJ, the Democrats have destroyed the American Schooling System (ASS)

I got a fabulous education in the Public Schools of New York City. I graduated from my High School, Brooklyn Tech, in 1962 and it was one of the best in the world. None of my teachers belonged to a union.

I went to MIT that September and was able to save the amount of my tuition – $1,700 – during my summer job. None-the-less, when I got there the students were demonstrating and complaining that “Seventeen hundred is too damn much!”

Since then our ASS has been degraded by the Leftwing Establishment to the status of Political Indoctrination Camps. I realized this too late and now have a 37 year old Leftwing son. He’s highly schooled – at Ivy League Universities to the PhD level – but just doesn’t realize how brainwashed he is.

I’m not making that mistake with my 9 year old daughter. She goes to a private Montessori School where the teachers actually listen to me when I explain to them how I insist on a fair and balanced presentation of the issues.

Under LBJ, the Lefties got an idea that they could CHANGE the world through our Public Schools and Universities and they have been pressing that program ever since.

We don’t need a “No Child Left Behind” program. We need a “No Political Indoctrination” program in the ASS.

A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR THE NETWORKING OF THE BLOGGOSPHERE.

I will give AUTHORS PRIVILEGES to any other blogger who will do the same for me.

When I started my blog, the PUBLIC ENQUIRY PROJECT, my goal was to get Lefties and Righties to actually TALK TO EACH OTHER. I’d hoped it would be respectful, but I’m afraid political feelings got a little too intense due to this important election.

None-the-less I’ve found three months of writing my own blog has been quite exciting. However, the BSphere seems to consist of blogs frequented by either Lefties or Righties with very little serious enquiry or debate going on anywhere. I’ve personally tried a multi-dimensional approach by mirroring threads on a variety of Lefty and Righty blogs but have been a bit disappointed by the nasty reception I get on Lefty blogs and the “You-go-girl” reception I get on Righty blogs.

Today, smalfish addressed me on ATRIOS thusly:

“Hey! Is Adrian Spidle still here?

If so, I would like to ask him why the free republic bans people at the drop
of a hat?

Are the masters at the free republic
that scared of differing views?

Do they really hate freedom of
speech so much as to ban independent thinking?

Speak up Adrian and let us know what the views are of the masters of F.R.

What about it?
smalfish”

Well, I have two answers for you my little aqueous friend:

1 – You’re invited to post on my blog any time, but preferably,

2 – help me integrate and network the BSphere so we can have multi-dimensional threads wherein bloggers of different POVs can, hopefully, enquire and debate respectfully.

What do you say?

A NATIONAL HEALTH CARE PLAN THAT MIGHT ACTUALLY WORK

The brilliant Kerry Advisor Prof Brad Delong (who should be a Republican) in a very interesting analysis of Health Care finance. I think I agree with him as much I hate to admit it.

The plan seems to basically involve using the treasury as the reinsuror of last resort. The insurance companies act just as they do now but on all claims uop to $20,000 or something like that. Once a claim reaches that threshold the goverment then pays the bills as reinsuror.

Insurance premiums would be much lower so more people would be able to buy it. It actually sounds pretty good to me except that I would want the Republicans to design and implement it so it really works.

Adrian

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004_archives/000910.html

How liberal Democrat ideas are ruining our children…

How liberal Democrat ideas are ruining our children…

As a fairly successful father of two and a host father to over a hundred youths from all over the world, I think I speak with some authority on different styles of child rearing. It has become clear to me that, all over the world, that a significant proportion of highly educated parents are seriously failing their children by a neurotic coddling that fails miserably in their most important parental duty; and that is preparing their children to thrive and survive in a very dangerous world.

Paradoxically, I’ve noticed another significant subset that is under parented, and this group also consists of many highly educated parents, typically two career parents or divorced parents.

This tendency is destroying the ability for the Industrial Democracies to defend themselves.

WHERE IS THE DRAFT NOW THAT WE SO BADLY NEED IT TO TURN OUR OVER SCHOOLED WUSSES INTO MEN.

I wonder why no academic child rearing specialists have noticed this?

Adrian

The Evolution of the SOCIAL CONTRACT

The Evolution of the SOCIAL CONTRACT

I am nearing the end of my Father’s Day present – “The Origin of Life” by John Maynard Smith and Sza…. (sp?). I have just finished the section on the evolution of stable human societies. Like all complex systems, human societies are made up of countervailing processes acting on the system components. (I have read widely – not deeply - in the areas of history, physics, biology, marketing, politics, language, philosophy, art and economics. I am driven by a search for paradigms that operate in all domains).

The authors make the interesting case that one needs effective models to understand complex systems, but that any model made up of too many relationships and variables will predict anything depending on the initial assumptions and thus is TOTALLY USELESS. The challenge is then to design a simple model that can predict the outcomes of complex systems. Such a conundrum...

Anyhow, the authors (two biologists) use “The Social Contract Game” as their simplified model for a stable human society. The main processes in their model are a “law of the jungle” kind of natural selection countered by cooperation among the populations. They had extrapolated this model, believe it or not, from the well-known insect societies (ants, bees and termites).

They posit that a stable society must be governed by LAWS that enforce cooperation that are supported by MYTHS and RITUALS. DEFECTORS must be punished for their derelictions to prevent individuals from taking advantage of the law-abiding populace. Most interestingly, they insist that all society members MUST PARTICIPATE in the punishment of defectors.

By their definition the US is not a stable society. One might wonder if a stable society is worth the tradeoffs required. I THINK IT IS. The goal is then how do you maintain a stable society consistent with modern democratic sensibilities.

I believe that biology is the most complex system of all (physics is more subtle but much less complicated), and that many of the paradigms and processes we discover in our researches into the mechanisms of life will have application in politics. Given that the future of biotechnology will be shaped by our politics (I know you hate politics, BUT POLITICS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT HUMAN ENDEAVOR, … it is nothing less than the total determination of the parameters of our lives), it is crucial to the success and survival of our species that we make a real science out of political science.

Adrian

The Brooklyn Perspective

The Brooklyn Perspective
By Adrian Spidle

The Brooklyn born psychologist Abraham Mazlow brilliantly defined the basis of the Human Condition in his book “Toward a Psychology of Being” wherein he explained the “Hierarchy of Human Needs.”
MAZLOW’S Hierarchy of Needs.
• Five Stages of Human Needs
1. Physiological needs
 Air
 Food
 Water
 Shelter
2. Needs for safety and stability
 Stability of life
 Material gain
 To stay away from danger
3. Social desire
 To be a member
 To gain a reputation
 To be trusted
4. Needs for self
 To be recognized by others
 To be self-dependent
 To be confident of self
 To be responsible for own work
5. Needs for self realization
 To be creative
 To show own capability
 To realize hidden ability

As a graduate of Brooklyn Technical High School, I add the following:

Adrian’s Hierarchy of Contributors
• Six Stages of Human Generosity
1. Gives to one’s self only
a. Sociopaths and criminals
2. Gives to one’s family only
a. Can’t trust anyone else
b. People who live in an unstable political/social environment
3. Gives to one’s ethnic, tribal and/or religious equals only
a. Used by Totalitarian Demagagues seeking power and wealth
b. People who live in an cohesive group surrounded by enemies
4. Gives other peoples resources to those in need
a. Used by Social Democratic Demagogues seeking power
b. Caps the needy at Mazlow’s level 3
5. Gives own resources to those in need
a. True generosity
b. Caps the needy in Mazlow’s level 3
6. Supports those in need to marshall their own resources to meet their own needs
a. True wisdom
b. Supports the needy’s achievement of Mazlow’s levels 4 and 5

A Brief History of Politics

A Brief History of Politics

The coming impact of developments in technology, particularly biotechnology, that I see, makes me ponder what effects they will have on our politics. So, with your indulgence, I will attempt to trace my understanding of the evolution of politics in our species over the past several million years, and then project what I see in the future. I say the evolution of politics because I believe that all things evolve through some selection process, and that evolution never stops.

Human Politics Stage 1 – The politics of, by far, the longest period of our existence as a species is about the same as the politics of the apes that preceded us which is about the same as the gorillas and chimpanzees of today. All our ancestors lived in BANDS (of a few dozen individuals or less) of hunter-gatherers until about ten thousand years ago. These bands of relatives shared tasks equally (categorized by gender), had very few (portable) possessions and had no leaders. EVERYONE had to participate in food acquisition. Dispute resolution (as all important decisions) was a family affair and no other process was needed. Relations with other bands tended to be very violent so all men needed to be competent warriors if their group was to survive.

Human Politics Stage 2 – The first villages, made possible by agriculture, could include hundreds of people made up of several families (clans). These TRIBES approached or just passed the limits of a society where everyone would know everyone else and their families and were thus also very egalitarian. A larger polis needed a bit more leadership and slightly more evolved dispute resolution mechanisms. While still a society of equals, a BIG MAN would emerge as a result of everyone’s respect for him stemming from his strength, fairness and wisdom. Specialist craftspeople also first appeared to manufacture in a more professional manner the worldly goods of this culture. Barter first appeared and all men still needed to be warriors.

Human Politics Stage 3 – As agriculture advanced, several villages would associate as a CHIEFTANSHIP to manage the livestock, crops and lands and to provide for the common defense. Craftsmen became full time professionals and a standing police force/army became necessary to enforce the Hereditary Chiefs policies of land management, dispute resolution and defense. Under chiefs with military as well as general responsibilities and varied privileges made up the first human aristocracies.

Human Politics Stage 4 – As Chieftainships became larger, more populous, richer and more potent militarily, the first hereditary KINGDOMS came into being. A large bureaucracy of aristocrats oversaw the administration of the Kings realm and scribes developed writing (about 5,400 years ago) to keep accounts of the Kings properties, payables and receipts. Priests administered the state religion as a tool of the Kings policies. Standing armies of professional warriors capable of conquest as well as defense relieved many men of their military responsibility. Navies came into being; horses and chariots were put to military use. Slaves were taken to do all the hard work (Aristotle believed no city could contain more than 100,000 people because, everyone knew, that each citizen required 5 slaves). Astronomers were needed to plan the crops, architects and engineers were needed to glorify the city and capture other cities. Technologies of all kinds became possible and then necessary. Trade and commerce flourished over huge geographic areas driven by the desires of the aristocracies and military protection of the Kings. The first coins (money) appeared in the Kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor about 650 BC.

Human Politics Stage 5 – Thus far, each polis had its own language. Militarily powerful kings conquered other kingdoms and the first EMPIRES appeared made up of subject peoples and slaves who spoke many languages. Control of the empires subjects through the enthusiastic application of religious, military and police powers had become absolute. THE STORY OF HUMAN PROGRESS TO THIS POINT REQUIRED A STEADY AND DRAMATIC REDUCTION IN INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM.

Adrian

Thank God, it's about time

Spammer Sentenced to 7 Years in Prison


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040528/D82RIUHO0.html

May 28, 8:23 AM (ET)

By CAROLYN THOMPSON

(AP) Howard Carmack is escorted from the courtroom after being sentenced to 3 1/2 to 7 years in prison...
Full Image

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - A man who sent 850 million junk e-mails through accounts he opened with stolen identities was sentenced to up to seven years in prison on Thursday.

Atlanta-based Internet service provider Earthlink Inc. said it hoped the sentence and an earlier $16.4 million civil judgment against Howard Carmack will deter other spammers.

"Before spammers send one more spam e-mail, we think they should remember that what happened to Howard Carmack can happen to them," said Karen Casion, Earthlink's assistant general counsel.

Jurors sentenced Carmack to seven years for convictions in March of forgery, identity theft and falsifying business records. He must serve a minimum 3 1/2 years.

Earthlink said Carmack ran 343 illegal e-mail accounts under false names from 2002 until his arrest last May, using them to send unsolicited e-mail ads for things like get-rich-quick schemes and sexual enhancers.

Carmack told the judge he believed the case against him was overblown, saying there were no victims. "I obviously regret this whole involvement," he said.

Carmack was convicted of defrauding EarthLink and eight men from New York, Ohio and Washington, D.C. Last May, the company won a $16.4 million civil judgment against Carmack.