Cobb

The New Security

This morning I sent out an invoice to one of my customers - an Adobe PDF file. Since GMail wasn't working, a periodic annoyance, I used my old Eudora client. As the mail went out, I noticed that there was a lack of an outbound virus scan. Usually when I send out a large document, it takes several extra seconds as Norton AV checks to make sure I'm not poisoning my email recipient unintentionally. This time, the little window didn't pop up.

Is Norton turned off? Yes, but only for outbound mail. Now I remember. When my buddy made his debut as a bassist in a reggae band, I spammed several hundred people on his behalf. In order to accomplish that, I turned off the outbound scanner.

It has been about 20 years since I first started using anti-virus software. I was getting McAfee updates even before Mitnick's famous worm. Back in those days, the threat level was nowhere near as consistent as it is today. Viruses are much more sophisticated, but ironically, they tend to be a lot less deadly. Back in those days, many virues just erased hard drives - they were just plain destructive. Today virus hackers seem to be more interested in owning fully functional machines. It's more like brainwashing than killing. We are a nation of potential Manchurian Candidates for today's crackers. I'm fairly safe however, but my safety has more to do with my own awareness than what any tools do for me. It was the fact that I know my outbound mail should be scanned rather that the fact that Norton does it for me, that adds to my security.

What I'm particularly pleased about this morning is that this consciousness is embedded in me after all these years. It doesn't hurt using it. I think about surgeons that I know, they'll drink themselves under a table, but they won't touch cigarettes. When you understand what the bad guys can do to you, it's not paranoia any longer, and after you've been practiced the safe regime for a long enough time, it starts to feel more like common sence than 'preparedness'.

I bring up this notion because I know that it's important for the future of our country, in the face of terrorism, that we all begin preparing ourselves. For what it's worth, I think people are getting accustomed to airport security. Whenever I have to go through a terminal, I know to wear my Oakleys. They come off in a second, they pop on in a second.

But I also know that, as a civil libertarian, I am particularly sensitive to this boiling frog effect on our important freedoms. The important thing to know is that once your security conciousness becomes elevated - when you begin to understand more about the threat against you, so does your understanding of the value of the tools in place (or not) to protect you. Again, it is the consciousness that is your strength, not the tool. Because as time goes forward, the nature of the threat will change in terms of its manifestations. Terrorists might want to blow up hard drives now, but next season they may want to brainwash us. The point is not to get overly dependent on one defensive tactic. We'll then have the options to trade-off. Maybe we want to spam for the sake of our friends, so we'll turn something off for a while. Maybe we'll want to encourage American students to study abroad, so we'll lift exit visa restrictions for a while.

In order for us to accomplish this kind of preparedness consciousness, we need to have some transparency from our government. Way back in the day, when I first loaded McAfee (or was it Norton?), I remember that the virus definitions all had names and descriptions. It gave me a great deal of comfort to know that any day I could look up the name of one of xhundred viruses and their variants to understand what kind of damage they might do and how likely it was that I would be infected by it. They still provide services like this today, even though I don't use them, I'm glad to know that they are there.

Twenty years ago, most Americans didn't even have PCs much less any knowledge of viruses or how to defend against them. But the fact that companies like McAffee and the Norton guys (who have been owned by several different entities) have been open about virus threat assessment and detection let a sizeable group of Americans operate securely. We've been able to internalize and maintain our preparedness consciousness because of that transparency. Now we would no more likely leave our machines unprotected than a cardiologist would smoke or an AIDS worker sleep around. But we know average Americans are not always so informed and disciplined.

When it comes to Homeland Security, some of us are going to know what's behind the big Orange Light, but most of us don't. Somebody somewhere is going to have to be our Surgeon General and start spreading some details and transparency. Even if she's going to be frank about masturbation like our old friend from Arkansas, Dr. Elders. Better safe and embarrassed than smug and in danger.

I'll vote for a president who does that.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

This is one of the most critical litmus tests I have on America. If you can't understand this picture, I'm really out to slap you around. I put up with the shame and embarrassment of people dissing Moe Greene four years ago and I really am not having it any more. I wasn't having it then, but I'm also putting people on notice because the subtle subjects have pointed me in this direction again.

We have just been discussing 'Race: Public Dialog vs Single Combat' in the context of Dr. F's comment about blacks and Japanese vis a vis white respect. Here's cutting to the chase for you: When you see this picture, you need to shut up and salute. If there is anything in you that finds it difficult to accept that these Americans are the absolute best in the world at what they do and deserving of your unconditional support and respect, you need to get a sharp knife and cut it out. He who wins the gold makes the rules. So this is what it looks like. And if you can't respect that, then it's civil war.

Obviously, I get very exercised about this particular issue, because I think it is symbolic of the fate of African America and of America itself. I don't care who you think you might be, you cannot afford not to respect black men who triumph like this. And I might be betraying a mote of insecurity to think that there are those who don't get it, because I'm prepared to write vulgar threats. This one goes deep for me.

In my right hand is a pen. In my other hand is a CRKT M16-13Z. You don't want to know what it's like when a man like me doesn't have a country.

Spy Geekery

I'm having a paranoid moment.

What if somebody came into my house, or better yet, what if somebody were eyeballing me as I type this? They'd have to notice the DVDs next to my flat panel: {Ronin, Enemy of the State, Spy Game, Swordfish, Heist, Heat}. They'd have to notice my bookshelf {Ludlum, Bamford, Littell, Clancy}. They'd notice all my books on hacking. And as I write this I'm desparately trying to find out what a TR105 is and how I could get one.

I need to get outside.

Powell

Colin Powell says:

I think our historical position is we are a superpower that cannot be touched in this generation by anyone in terms of military power, economic power, the strength of our political system and our values system. What we would like to see is a greater understanding of power, of the democratic system, the open market economic system, the rights of men and women to achieve their destiny as God has directed them to do if they are willing to work for it. And we really do not wish to go to war with people. But, by God, we will have the strongest military around. And that's not a bad thing to have. It encourages and champions our friends that are weak and it chills the ambitions of the evil.

Sorta makes you feel good, huh? Wait until you read the whole thing. I kick Bush for muzzling this man. When I say that the White House is not open enough, it's because I expect a good long press conference at least once a month. But every time I hear GW, it's a dozen mumbling words. Just listen to this interview and compare it with what we generally hear out of the White House, and you'll understand my frustration.

Outreach

The Charlie Levy Story

Charlie Levy won the President's Award at Xerox 18 or so years ago. He was the software architect who finally figured out how to sell the Xerox workstation. Everybody acknowledged that the machine was a work of genius but nobody could think of an application for it. Besides, it and a printer together cost 12 grand. Charlie called it the Documentor, put together a nice software package and enabled Xerox to sell thousands of them. He got a seven figure bonus and went to retire at a windsurfing commune in Hawaii. True Story.

I met Charlie in his waning days at Xerox at a rooftop party in Manhattan Beach back in '88. He told me two things that I'll never forget, and up until this moment never really questioned. The first thing he said was: "Brains are a cheap commodity." He meant it. The other thing he said was that all the Computer Science PhDs in Silicon Valley are wasting their time. Microsoft owned their future.

In those days, rights to UIs like Motif where heavy and contentious multi-miilion dollar licensing issues. Where Motif is today was inconceivable, even by Richard Stallman. In the eyes of men like Charlie, and those of us who idolized him, software was all owned by clumsy, brutal corporations like Xerox.
In those days, the entire software industry was an appendix to hardware manufacture, just as it was in Xerox. Its economy was directed by people who didn't understand or care about its art. It was as if Shell was a subdivision of Ford. The only exception to the rule was Microsoft, and Microsoft sucked. It made no sense to want to be a software genius because in the end you would only toil for Microsoft.

Nobody questioned that Charlie was prophetic about Silicon Valley until the Netscape IPO. Suddenly the whole planet realized that scruffy, iracsible software guys with beards and Hawaiian shirts could have million dollar paydays - that there could be entire tribes of Charlie Levys. Charlie could not have forseen such an event. Suddenly software itself could be its own business (and not be Oracle, or Microsoft) He was born too soon.

I bring up this story because it is illustrative of how circumstances can make capable people quit after a lifetime of effort, only to see their children's success humble them. You can never master what you are incapable of visualizing, and you never know how a great idea will ultimately be manifest.

Low Hanging Fruit

Interesting stuff re: Minority Business from the Negrophile

The group looked at investments in minority-owned businesses made by 24 funds from 1989 to 1995, according to UW business professor William Bradford. 11 of those funds — representing 117 investments — received an average of $1.62 million return on a $562,400 investment. The other funds' investments were too young to produce returns.

It Depends

Race: Public Dialog vs Single Combat

"One day the fellas got together.
We vowed that no one would ever
come on our block and terrorize us.
The ones that used to do it now they idolize us."-- Mohandas Dewese

This is a complicated meditation on anti-racism. I'd like to sum it up in the words of a friend of the family. He said that if blackfolks want to learn anything about race then they would learn from the example of the Japanese. The White Man did not respect Japs until Japs started killing white men. It was a scary thing to hear, and it's the kind of thing even Bill Cosby won't say in public. But as I think about it, I think that it's ultimately the last word and why public debate on the question of race is doomed.

Debra Dickerson says:

When I realized that I had internalized the world's loathing of blacks, my first response was, counterintuitively, relief. Finally, I have proof that blacks' obsession with racism isn't crazy. If I secretly think that many poor blacks are animalistic and stupid, you'll never make me believe that lots of other people don't, too. My lasting response has been chagrined amusement to realize that I hold such ridiculous, illogical notions. Most of all, acknowledging my own racism has given me a measure of compassion for how difficult it is to retain one's humanity in such a politicized and inhumane world. I'm black and I make my living thinking about race, but I still wasn't immune to the insidious bigotry in our world. How much harder it must be for those with far less time to contemplate and come to terms with these vexing social issues.

It's not bigotry per se that hamstrings us in the struggle to achieve a just society. It's our inability to talk about and think our way through our preconceptions. We have to learn how to forgive each other, and more importantly ourselves, when we're stupid.

Althought Dickerson says we ought to be all about class and not race and gives some interesting anecdotes about how (Class Three) racism is lived, she doesn't say what we ought to do about racism besides talk honestly. This kind of talk ought to annoy me because it's just talk, but it doesn't because it's just talk. In other words, I acknowledge the failure of anti-racist politics, even though anti-racist sentiment is strong. So the fact that somebody who ought to know better only recommends that we all flap our lips honestly about it, doesn't bother me any longer. I don't expect people who understand racism to do anything political about it, you'd simply have to drop too many too-white folks, and quite frankly we've learned to route around those people who are too white more efficiently than we've learned to make them pay.

Drop? Is that hiphop slang for kill? No, that's strictly political enemy talk.

Consider the recent flap over Trent Lott. If you are a true anti-racist and you want to be effective, you've got to go where the racists are and confront them don't you? If you're MLK you don't march on Ann Arbor, you go to Selma. But like I said, today's politically correct folks assume the Republican Party is chockablock with folks who (like Lott?) are hell-bent on giving white supremacists aid and comfort; so they route around it at any cost. When it comes to extracting a real price, they are unable to do more that 'speak truth to power' which is ultimately just honest talk.

While I am a Republican and expect that I'll have to play hardball of that sort sometime in the future, it's not why I'm here. I am not an infiltrating assassin or double-agent. I've always been anti-racist and everyone should know so. I hold everyone to the same standard so it really doesn't matter what party I'm in. I only assume that the racism of liberals is something different from the racism of conservatives. Don't ask, I haven't studied it that much.

The irony is, of course, that those who assume (rightly or wrongly) that the Republicans have all the racists also assume that whatever they do can't be racist because they're not acting in concert with Republicans. Hmm. Maybe that this difference. So perhaps this is the reason that as a starting point they say that everybody's racist and encourage talk so that they can distinguish themselves by degrees rather than by principle.

Conservative Blacks: What We're All About

In anticipation of the Instalaunch initiated by LaShawn and the NRO article I suppose now is a good time to re-introduce myself and my aims to a host of new readers.

As facilitator of the Conservative Brotherhood I am putting forth an effort aimed at getting a bit more traction for the wit and wisdom that we African Americans have known all of our lives. I have been writing essays and observations online for over a decade in just about all the interesting places that don't actually pay.. from the forums at Delphi to The Well to Salon's first Table Talk. The Blogosphere is another step on the way and I am hopeful that it will only get better from here forward.

Over the course of those many years I have had the good fortune to come across writers with fascinating ideas and persuasive insights on matters that confound the rest of us. I have discovered that there are clearly ways to clear up murky subjects through online discussions that are not well served by broadcast media. In this, I am not taking a stereotypical swipe as someone in the media boondocks, but acknowledging real differences in capability and capacity. I have concluded that even the most tangly issues such as race, religion and politics can be approached comprehensively and satisfyingly here in cyberspace. So it should come as no surprise that these some of my favorite subjects.

The focus here at Cobb is Culture, Politics and Thought. I'm attempting to personify who I am, a college-educated, self-employed married father of three living in the upscale (overpriced Southern California beach) suburb, who grew up in the 'hood, (nicely stereotyped by Hollywood's 'Boyz'). I want to put that simple face on the particular complexities of black politics. I am convinced that we have reached an inflection in our history and that larger numbers of African Americans in my generation are moving beyond the basic concerns of human and civil rights and focusing their political energies on issues of social power. We stand on the shoulders of MLK and Malcolm X, and on WEB DuBois and Booker T. Washington before them in an America that is more of our creation than ever before. We are not so alienated at home as our parents. The question often comes up 'What do black people want?', the answer is 'Anything that's worth having'. The ways and means of accomplishing this emergence, as informed by our heritage and inspiration, is the subject of my writing and black conservatism is the ethos.

Recent remarks by Bill Cosby have been an excellent tangent for approaching the principles of the 'Old School' as we like to call it. Although one could start by examining that group previously known and self-identified as the 'Talented Tenth', there are interesting dynamics afoot among black Americans that often defy characterization. Part of that is changing how we are perceived - yet another change from 'colored' to 'Negro' to 'black' and beyond. I say this is a measure of our ambition. All Americans, immersed as we are in racial consciousness, regionalisms and class distinctions, understand general limits assigned to The Negro. And so those who would be considered that find it in their own best interests to transcend and reclaim. That's what we're doing here.

The best way to get an understanding of conservative blacks is to read what we're saying. I wish there was a shortcut, but abstractions really don't serve us well considering our relative anonymity. However, I assure you that any subject you place in the search box will be found. Now you know where we are. Let's get on with it.

Threat Level

Mass Distribution

Olivier's Hamlet: Take One

Since I happened on the UK Google News, I've been on a little bit of a Olivier trip. Last week I purchased two of his DVDs. Hamlet and Richard III. I've discovered a neat tool that allows me to watch DVDs on my PC in the background of translucent windows. So I can read the script of Hamlet (via Gutenberg or others) and watch Olivier perform.

That got tedious - interpreting text and watching acting is a bit much, even for a multitasker like myself. So I started watching it straight. Although I fell asleep last night shortly after Hamlet's admonishments to Ophelia (that was cold-blooded) I am gathering that Olivier's Hamlet is nothing like the weasel other interpretations have floated by my ears.

If memory serves me correctly, the good prince's elaborate ruse is masterfully rendered up to the end, but that he must sacrifice his best man in a swordfight in order to reveal the duplicity of his uncle the usurper. All of his protestations at the beginning of the play are in recognition of his new sworn duty.

The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!

Loaded words for sure, and yet sets the mood for all of the rest of his action and plotting. That's the way I take it watching Olivier, who truth be told, makes wearing tights look cool. Don't tell anybody from my old 'hood that I said so though. Plus, I've got to hand it to Olivier in doing the scene where he goes through all of the expressions that Ophelia describes without overacting. Amazing.

The most fun about watching Shakespeare is hearing his phrasing which has come down to regular use in the language completely outside of the context of the play and then reconciling it in real time to the situation on stage. It's like (OK I'm going to hear it for this) Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and actually gives a new dimension to watching. But then again, Polonius is supposed to be a cagey old fool.

Anyway, that's what I'm doing this week, as well as listening to the new Modest Mouse and breaking out a few new action DVDs and XBox games.

VB, VBA, VBS, VB.Net

I thought that I would be able to get away with buying just one O'Reilly book on VB. It turns out that there are even more flavors of this stuff than I thought. Fortunately, the kind I needed was more of the same: VBA.

I shouldn't complain that at this late stage in my career that I am automating spreadsheets. After all, the pay is very good at the moment and it does keep me on my toes. But in the course of doing so I have discovered VBS, which looks to be something I actually didn't expect to find - a fairly capable scripting language for Wintel. I don't know snap about VBS except that it looks like it instantiates methods out of the big class of VB objects. That's a fairly fabulous capability to have driven from the command line. That is, if it all works.

set shell = wscript.createobject("wscript.shell")
set fs = createobject("scripting.filesystemobject")

Since my new business model is taking me on a tour of the Second World, which on days like yesterday appears more and more fascinating, I expect to be seeing a lot more of this kind of code. But it only makes me wonder even more about the 'alternatives' of Perl and PHP. How is it that small companies have overlooked the simplicity of these free alternatives to Microsoft VB? Is real programming talent that scarce? Scary.

Ed Brown at Vision Circle

Ed Brown is one of the many people I have known from many years of collaboration, conflict and correspondance over the net, but have never met face to face. I have come to respect his tenacity and probity over the years. Ed doesn't let you come incorrect and can be counted on to shock you into rapid awareness. He takes nothing for granted and suffers few fools, and so it is with great pride that I am able to bring him to a wider audience through VisionCircle.

He has hit the ground running with questions about SBA loans to black business and the illogic of partisanship. I expect that soon he'll actually introduce himself. In the meantime, be prepared for a treat and a bracing experience.

My Stamp

I never quite understand what's going on at the Diktat. The irony is so thick that I cannot often penetrate it. But there seemed to be a pretty cool blogmeme happening that I thought I'd join.

In Retrospect

Barbara Boxer asked a dumbass question this evening in her debate will Bill Jones. It went a little something like this: If you knew then what you know now about Iraq, would you have voted for War?

I didn't hear Jones' response but I know it couldn't have been as good as this:

Hell Yes!

What I Know Now:

• I now know that Saddam Hussein could be captured alive.
• I now know that Bagdad can be taken in two weeks.
• I now know that of 25 million Iraqis, we'd only get called on human rights violations against a couple dozen prisoners.
• I now know that the Baby Bin Laden theory is false.
• I now know that we could turn over sovereignty within 18 months
• I now know that we could keep the price of gas down to $2.20/gal without using the Strategic Reserve, or reconsidering ANWAR
• I now know that we can base in Iraq instead of relying totally on Israel
• I now know that we can absolutely guarantee that there are no WMDs in Iraq.
• I now know that Chalabi cannot be trusted.
• I now know that Chalabi is not necessary.
• I now know that Turkey is not a problem in Kurdistan.
• I now know that Syrian fighters don't make a difference.
• I now know a Shi'ite cleric who can be trusted in Iraq.
• I now know that the UN Oil for Food Program was corrupted.
• I now know that Libya is no longer bluffing.
• I now know the nature of Jihadist militancy on the ground.

I don't see how I would know any of those things had we only kept the No Fly Zones in operation and let yet another gaggle of inspectors poke around. Any more questions?

What's Done Is Done

I took Moms to brunch Sunday in Culver City, she asked me what I'm going to do in November, and I've been thinking about it myself. Today the answer is, most definitely abstain.

There are a number of reasons for this but the one that stares me starkly in the face is that the best thing I can imagine George W. Bush doing, he has already done. He pulled the trigger on Saddam Hussein. He put our nation on alert to deal with terrorism from 9/12 forward. He put a nice tax break in my pocket in 2003 when I needed it most. He kept Greenspan who juiced the economy basis point by basis point until it turned around (mostly). But GW Bush does not impress me as a man with a plan for the future. He is running on his record and frankly, it's just not good enough.

On all the big issues, the President did the right thing except for the budget. I look at Iraq as a ground rule double that because of his speed and single-mindedness he stretched into a triple. If he would have found the WMDs, then he could have stolen home. But now Iraq is stuck on third. All Kerry has to do is bunt to score on Iraq. The big hit has already been made.

But on the little thing, the details that make the difference between luck and polish, I could go on with a surfiet of negative quibbles and bits. I'm not satisfied that he runs an open enough White House. He's less articulate than Puff Daddy. I think he's a pretty rotten administrator. He did nothing notable on the domestic side of the house but protect steel and fire O'Neill. He didn't fess up or crack down on the Plame leak. But there are also two big mistakes. He broke the budget and he destroyed Colin Powell.

The Scariest Thing

The scariest thing about being a black Republican of my sort has to do with alienation from Old School partisans on the other side of the fence. Advocates like Faye Anderson who failed to succeed with Republicans can be de-emphasized, however women like Wilma A. Lewis must be taken more seriously. I find it difficult to believe that someone like Ms. Lewis would be a big partisan, but I find it equally difficult to believe that she might be a Republican from way back.

What if 80% of blacks in the 99th percentile were all Democrats? What if they have decided that more diversified political power is simply not worth pursuing?

Nevertheless, much of this has to do with integration. In my lifetime, the very thought that there would be black fatcat bankers or Wall Street brokers and traders seemed impossible to believe. And when I joined, with leagues of others, the corridors of Corporate America (that's what we used to call it back then), we hardly expected to find managers anywhere but in Personnel. Line managers with signing authority and huge budgets were still considered in league with The Man. They were the guys who kept "last hired, first fired" alive in the self-defeating ghetto mentality many of us used to share. That has changed, as has the attitude of line managers towards blacks, whether or not they themselves are black.

So while it's reasonable to expect that blacks in the big fat powerful law firms might mostly be of the dyed in the wool Democratic and Civil Rights defender variety, I look forward to the day when other sorts will be just as easily found. In the meantime, my elitist suckup senses are quivering. What if it's just Don King?

Jesus, Revolutionary

I think Jesus was a populist. I think what was revolutionary about the nature of Jesus as a prophet as distinct from all other prophets was his populism. If Jesus was around today, I think he would be saying 'All Power to the People'. He was an enemy of the State.

I say this with the Gospel of Thomas in mind. Thomas says that Jesus would say that he was the Son of Man and that God exists in all mankind. Consider the following uttered in the time of the Roman Empire:

(03) Jesus says: (1) "If those who lead you say to you: ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky!’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. (2) If they say to you: ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fishes will precede you. (3) Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and outside of you." (4) "When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father. (5) But if you do not come to know yourselves, then you exist in poverty, and you are poverty."

This idea that the people are one with the Kingdom of God, that the Son of Man suggests where two or three gather together in prayer that they are in the presence of God flies in the face of hierarchical intervention.

Jesus was a democratizer of the Jewish faith. He took the role of intercession away from the priesthood. His parable of the Good Samaritan undermined their authority. That's radical.

I don't think there is a simple way to say whether Jesus was a 'liberal' or a 'conservative'. He was Jesus and that's all he had to be. We won't be the first or the last to claim him, but I think this essential nature of his politics cannot be ignored or denied. He defied the state and said he needn't be a king to do so. He opened the gates of ultimate redemption to the individual, independent of all the established churches, kingdoms and authorities of the day. In that, as Luther finally reminded us, was the whole point.

I think Thomas' take slams the point home, and it doesn't surprise me that any church establishment would strike such notions from an official Bible. Thomas' interpretation of Jesus' message destroys authoritarianism. It locates divinity within and around us and demonstrates Jesus knows this and spreads the good news to everyone. Not from the top down, but from within the people outwards. Why else would Jesus work through ordinary men as his disciples? Why else would he wear the same kinds of clothes? Why would the 12 have no hierarchy?

What these things mean to me transcend silly political labels. We all have something to learn. But then again what's the point of writing as an advocate if one doesn't advance a claim? Mine is simply this, something I think stands to reason. The message of Reformation by re-establishing the connection between the individual and the divine enabled democracy. The concept of the divine spark within us, that all legitimate authority arises from the cooperation of individuals sounds like Christianity to me. It also sounds like Bhuddism to me. From my perspective, Thomas is the link between the two and that Jesus and Bhudda were saying the same thing - both by wandering the countryside.

As soon as I solve the problem of ascetism, I think I will have achieved a higher plane.

When Time Allows My Mind to Sleep

Rick James is dead.

In his day, Rick was the most revolutionary dude in music. I attended his concert in Long Beach when he was at his peak. 7th row Motown comp tickets. I have never seen before or since a huge crowd of blackfolk on their feet screaming for a white guitarist, but for the dude in Rick's band, it was done. There was no question. Rick James was the king of Funk & Roll.

The Stone City Band, broke us out of L 7, and Rick James, more than anyone short of George Clinton got under your skin and into your mind. He wore the braids and the tight pants. He sung straight out about Mary Jane. He dared us to be different and pushed us to the edge. He was a funker, a rocker and a balladeer. He crossed over without selling out.

I can't imagine that anybody who really loved Rick James' music would say that Super Freak was what he was all about. If you ask me, his greatest song was his duet with diva Teena Marie - 'Fire and Desire'. As I listen to it, it brings tears to my eyes, and memories of my old girl Tracy. Behind that would be 'Dream Maker' and 'Bustin' Out'.

Rick James in jail made a lot of people happy. In the Jack & Jill world I used to hang around, simply dancing to a Rick James song was frowned on, and the very thought of wearing African braids was just too much. I enjoyed the tension he brought to such parties. But when Super Freak came out, I started to wonder if this was the same man. I knew he was, but I smelled blaxploitation. Sure white radio stations would play Super Freak, but they wouldn't play 'Mr. Policeman' or 'Ghetto Life'. When it came to socially conscious songs Rick James was right behind Stevie Wonder. Rick James was too honest.

Hey Rick, you were the man. I'm Just a Sucker for your music. Still.

More Cobb around Rick James

• People of the Dons
  
• Charlie Murphy
  
• Rick James, Bitch
  

Mad Army

I am writing this post to remind all concerned that I still bust out laughing whenever I hear that American Forces slaughtered Al Sadr's militiamen by the hodload. I know it doesn't gain me any points with the Great Spirit, but I must assume that if we are made in the image of God, then God must have a sense of the absurdly funny.

What else can one do in the face of the futility of illiterates who pick up their pitchforks to do battle with the battle hardened Marines, but laugh? Somehow, someway the lesson may get over to me in my electronic ghetto, but I still say that Sadr's militia defies all dimensions of reason and exists only to prove that martyrdom for it's own sake is what Iraqi boys have to look forward to. They are doing exactly what it is they want to do, die for their cause. And who are we to begrudge them the honor?

If I had the power, I'd get a giant vacuum cleaner and suck up all of the human debris from Najaf and empty the bag on the Bikini Atoll. At least they'd have the opportunity there to watch each other die slowly. They might have a chance to congratulate each other on their bravery and fidelity for the sake of that big wanker Moqtada Al Sadr. They could sit around the campfire and trade stories of their brave battles against the beater bar and suction vortex. They could revel in tales about their dusty captivity on the other side of the Great Satan's HEPA filter. They could marvel about how they survived the Emptying of the Bag and give thanks to Allah for what awaits them as their hair falls out.

I just thought you should know.

White Male Bashing

The LA Weekly reviews 'What's Wrong With Kansas' and bashes white male conservative bloggers for being who they are. There's nothing wrong with bashing white males, but there's something a little weird about bashing white males for being wrong when you don't highlight what's right about those who are not. It all seems a bit essentialist to me.

I can't say that I read enough of Lileks, Sullivan and Taranto to know if they are indeed pontificating tightwads as author Thomas Frank suggests. But I don't understand what's so white about that. Perhaps the following is a clue:

Frank can explain them, these entitled but curiously persecuted Tucker Carlsons of the paramedia, because he might have been one himself. Having grown up in Mission Hills, Kansas, a tidy suburb just over the border from Kansas City, Missouri, Frank admits he had been lulled into the notion of a classless society by play dates with millionaires’ children. He spent his adolescent years as “a bitter self-made man” in training, constructing debate-team “dis-ads” against liberalism (“any argument worth its salt had to end with the other team’s plan somehow precipitating a nuclear war”), and classifying businessmen as working-class because, after all, they worked for a living. When one of his fellow debaters announced he planned to pursue a political future as a Democrat because “that was the party of the working class,” Frank took it hard.

“I remember the moment he said this with the perfect frozen clarity that the brain reserves for great shocks: Pearl Harbor, 9/11 . . . Class conflict between workers and businessmen?”

It wasn’t until college that Frank finally got religion: While his peers landed sweet summer jobs in their dads’ friends’ banks, Frank, a workingman’s son, was consigned to dreary summer temp work “designed to show me the round of boredom and frustration that is most people’s lot in life.” Other boys went off to Ivy League schools; Frank had to settle for Kansas University, where even the fraternities — reserved for young men from “a dominant class with its middle finger in the air to the world” — didn’t want anyone so low on the social ladder. In time, he was disabused of his classless fantasies and “did a very un-Kansas thing: I started voting Democratic.”

Sounds like a personal problem to me. Not having enough privilege to satisfy his own ambition, he attacks the idea of privilege. Not very sporting of him. But I suppose if you want to lay underemployment at the feet of The Man you will have a lot of company. Not exactly an orginal idea. Hell, I'm underemployed and I know it's The Man's fault. Why oh why aren't wealthy people making me rich? The story of my life. But what exactly does this have to do with the blogosphere? That's where I lose the thread.

Chalk it up to another jab at Ann Coulter. Lord only knows why she's worth mentioning. I mean it's not as if she couldn't be abducted from Conservatism and videotaped in bondage. I think some creative and gutsy people might like to ransom her in exchange for a troop withdrawl of the VRWC. No? Well, then if it's not that deep, then we ignore.

The other day, I was informed that a blog with only 300 hits a day was considered tiny. Hell, I thought I was a Large Mammal. But that informant may be right after all. This has got to change. We non-whitemale bloggers need more attention.

100 Questions

School is just one month away. If you have kids in elementary school as I do, you know that they are going to have to do book reports and term papers. Yeah, term papers in elementary school, we're the leaders of the free world remember? Anyway, here is a useful guide to help your kids decide what to put into their papers. It worked for us.

Download file

Threes for Keyes

Alan Keyes has decided to run against Barack Obama in the Illinois Senate Race. I have several comments which happen to work out to three word phrases.

• Glutton for punishment.
• Desparate for attention.
• Three time loser.
• Ditka was right.
• Stay in Maryland.

Perhaps I'll figure out a more charitable way of thinking about this development. One can honestly say, for example, that the GOP is attempting to put a black candidate in a highly visible race, and lord knows that Keyes is going to start whipping his ideological horses. It doesn't get more visible than that. But if this is anybody's idea of a strategy. Yike. Obviously Keyes is thick skinned - the question is whether or not people will consider him smart or foolish for fighting what seems to be an inevitable losing battle. It depends entirely on what he says during the campaign.

But here is one sentence you thought you might never hear. Yesterday's decision makes it inevitable that there will be a black Senator elected by Illinois this fall, Democrat or Republican.

The Wisdom of Crowds

Note in passing the following commentary vis a vis the potential for facilitation of collaborative judgements in XR. Drezner recommends James Suroweicki.

What was missing from the intelligence community, though, was any real means of aggregating not just information but also judgments. In other words, there was no mechanism to tap into the collective wisdom of National Security Agency nerds, CIA spooks, and FBI agents. There was decentralization but no aggregation and therefore no organization. [Senator] Richard Shelby's solution to the problem -- creating a truly central intelligence agency -- would solve the organization problem, and would make it easier for at least one agency to be in charge of all the information. But it would also forgo all of the enefits -- diversity, llocal knowledge, independence -- that decentralization brings. Shelby was right that information needed to be shared. But he assumed that someone -- or a small group of someones -- needed to be at the center, sifting through the information, figuring out what was important and what was not. But everything we know about cognition suggests that a small group of people, no matter how intelligent, simply will not be smrter than the larger group.... Centralization is not the answer. But aggregation is.

This is absolutely correct. I'll be passing it on to the folks at Deme.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

The master is dead.

"Henri Cartier-Bresson" were the first French words I ever learned. My father insisted repeatedly that my pronunciation could be improved. He wasn't satisfied until I got it right, and so I learned to respect a man I had never heard of before and have rarely heard about since.

Cartier-Bresson was a great inspiration to Pops, who began Wellington House Photographics in the 70s. In reviewing the Frenchman's work today at the NYT I can see his influence. I've long had a great fondness for photojournalism and pored over Time Life books as a kid. There can be such truth in a photograph. It is a subtle art which is underappreciated in our country. And yet serious photographers and photography persists. Every once in a while a great photo captures the public imagination such as the one of the Abu Ghraib prisoner.

As an inspiration, Cartier-Bresson was peerless, and yet somehow I think it was lost on most of us. His portraiture is startlingly honest without being obsessive or perverse like that of Arbus or glossy and artsy like that of Mapplethorpe, or devoid of intellectual challenge like that of Wegman. I think it says a great deal about the way our culture chooses to look at people that defines much of what photography is, and Cartier-Bresson shows us what we are missing.

His tenderness with subjects and lack of finickiness with the process (unlike Adams) reveal as much about the character behind the camera as the subject in front of the lens. Finally, it is the eye behind the camera we admire for allowing us to see and feel sympathy for those captured on film.

Merci Henri.

Equilibrium vs Equality

I brought up the concept of 'cultural equilibrium' in my recent review of Affirmative Action. It's a tricky thing to establish formally but important nonetheless. The point of thinking of cultural equilibrium has to do with fine tuning the political demand and priority into a set of expectations that can be reasonably well-served by elected officials.

Affirmative Action is a good place to start thinking about equilibria. I do so because I was involved as a programmer in the Manpower Planning systems established by Xerox in the mid 80s, when Republicans like Bob Dole had regular meetings with blacks like Vernon Jordan in the context of the Business Roundtable. During those years, the Business Roundtable would contribute to the shaping of corporate management by awarding companies who had demonstrated leadership in integration.

Much of my perspective on Affirmative Action was shaped by the days when men like Vernon Jordan exemplified what it was all about. I don't know if I've written much about it here, but my experience at Xerox was quite instructive. Although there weren't large numbers, there were black managers at just about every level of that multinational corporation all the way up to Jordan who was on the board of directors. Other notable blackfolks at Xerox included the late Guy Dobbs, my personal role model and President of Xerox' Special Information Systems - the closest thing they had to a military wing. Just to give you an idea of what kind of man Dobbs was, I'll just say that I personally met one of the scientists on this page who was typical of the class of individual who worked at XSIS. Also notable was the black man (whose name I forget at the moment) who managed XVMS, the Xerox unit that essentially invented digital voice mail and of course A. Barry Rand who famously went on to become the CEO of Avis.

During my stint in Personnel Systems (back in the days before the concept of the IC, the precursor to today's IT), I wrote software code for several of the mangers, on of whom was the Affirmative Action Compliance Officer. Xerox' policy was based on the 'Balanced Workforce Model' of Affirmative Action. The short description of it is that it identified underpromotion, and overpromotion, by race and gender, established metrics and goals for promotion and RIF in a self-correcting model. It worked in the context of a grading system similar to the GS system used by the Federal Government and the Armed Forces. In my many years of (boohabian) discussion of race on the internet I have met few people who understood that Affirmative Action could be so logical, precise and fair. Once upon a time, the American Management Association used to run courses and certify managers in Succession Planning and Balanced Workforce. I don't think they do any longer.

The beauty of the BWF model was that you could immediately see how many individuals who were eligble for promotion to the next level by race and gender. And you could see the race and gender composition of the level into which they would be promoted. What we could very clearly see in the model back in 1986 was where the glass cielings were, by department all over the Group. (I didn't have access to the corporate wide model). This objective data, along with the subjective understanding personnel managers had, gave a very clear picture of what was possible and what was not. It was this encounter with the facts and the feelings that gave me my first true glimpse at the strengths and weaknesses of an Affirmative Action program, which was according to the Business Roundtable, the most successful in the nation. I should also mention that David Kearns, the CEO of Xerox at the time made it abundantly clear that he wanted black executives in his company - his program was a top down get your ass in gear directive. The best of all possible worlds.

What we discovered, among many other things was that women and minorities were not doing as well as one would hope in several of the technical areas of the company. At the lower and entry levels, there was a big spike in 'protected classes' who were eligible for promotion. But at the mid management level there were only a few who sat below the cieling. So while one could look at the overall mix of minorities and women and see a big gap, the future was bright. There was also a reversal of this in other departments. There were places where blacks in particular had made big strides into upper levels of management, but at the lower levels there were no young bucks queuing up. So they typical gripe you hear today about whites losing their grip on power was the case for these black managers.

The predicament of the 'endangered' black managers proved to be an interesting dilemma. Within the parameters of the system all had fought tooth and nail to establish, they found themselves on the bubble. So the controversy of the day became what to do on the margins. Xerox had proven itself to be operating in good faith by implementing BWF which illustrated the defacto racial discrimination proven by the glass cielings. But nothing could be done within the context of that system to get more blacks into this, the best of all systems. As a proportional representation argument looking strictly at the inside of the corporation, there was little that could be done to change the process. So black managers looked outside, and in doing so illustrated the problem of equilibrium vs equality (and equity).

Inside the company, BWF was policy. There were no secret glass cielings - we knew where they were. We objectively saw progress over time. The system worked and was at equilibrium.

The Black Manager's Office

(from the archives - june 1998)

The black manager's office has an 8x10 phote of five black children
dressed in denim and brightly colored shirts.

Who are they, say passers-by.

One of them is me, says I. The others are my brothers and my sister.

Oh. They say. Very few can determine which I am.

How old were you?

Guess, I say.

Almost none try. I was 14.

I am the one on the far right with the beanie and jean jacket. The
picture was taken at the Pacific Missle Test Center at Pt. Mugu. We
stand in front of a large blue sign which says "Systems Effectiveness".
I am gesturing to the sign with a knowing smirk on my face.

Hmm. They leave.

I am guilty of entrapment. I confess.
----

The black manager recalls other black manager's offices. The corporate
counsel for the division had red black and green pillows on the credenza
behind his large wood desk. His Omega Psi Phi shingle hangs besides his
J.D. his resentment of judge bork was one of his only comments on the
black internal e-mail list. he was a model of restraint. he said that
bork lacked restraint and such a radical should not be on the nation's
highest court.

the affirmative action manager's office had nothing memorable. but the
man himself was a bull. he was from army airborne. nobody liked him.
his reports were systematically ignored and his requirements were
evaded. he once made an unforgettable comment at a business lunch.
another personnel manager (about whom it was well know to those privy
to such information) who made more money and had not
attended college made some comment to which the aaction officer replied
'in airborne we used to kill people we didn't like' he pointed to the
variety of forks, pencils and straws at the table and said 'i could
kill you with any of these things in a matter of seconds, but i am
just an affirmative action officer and you can ignore my memos forever'.
we ate norweigian food in silence for a while, somebody told a joke,
finally.

the corporate technology consultant had papers everywhere. he wore strictly
polyester suits and drove a red ferrari 308. his afro was at least 4
inches tall and he almost never combed it. he was partner in a chain of
computerland stores, peppered his language with obscenities and took
the job 'for spending cash'. he had done two tours in vietnam, and was
once one of dec's top salesmen. he called himself a 'nouveau nigger' and
often liked to stump people in embarrassing ways. i recall him making
a joke with one of the top manufacturing engineers at the expense of
a white woman in the strategy department about the ability of non-engineers
to make business decisions about product development. it was basically
one of those smart ass questions like derive maxwell's equations from
the following premise. he did shit like that. he often talked about
personally financing a college scholarship for leaders of the crips. he
expressed anxiety about the fact that he might turn 40 without having made
his first million dollars. he was only 75% there and he had 3 years to go.

Pub Tagged

Silly me. I've been pub-tagged by PsychoDad.

I have a box on the web that I've kept a few ports open on in order to have a nice way to access files at home. I opened up the FTP port in order to handle a 3gig file I had to get from a customer site. Ordinarily I would just use one of my hosted domains for that kind of stuff, but I obviuosly didn't have 3 gig sitting around...

The symptoms are easy to spot. A whole tree of undeletable directories. MS can be somewhat helpful, and I've used solution number 3, to a certain extent. But I want to know exactly what my vulnerability is.

Of course there are utilities from people who are ready and willing to help me, for a fee. But I'm going to read the little doc on it and work my way out of the mess I stumbled into.

Beware.

Orange Huff Duff

Tom Ridge declared an Orange Alert today. Some people think that was stupid.

One of the extraordinary premises of 'Cryptonomicon' the historical fiction which rocked the geek world a few years back was that information theory, not superior firepower and 'greatest generation' courage, won WW2. Part of that was due to the development of 'HF/DF'.

HF/DF stands for something I am too lazy to walk over to my shelf and find out. Suffice it to say that it was the precursor to radar, and it sorta worked. In 'Huff Duff', the Allies had a secret weapon. While everyone was focused on whether or not the Enigma code was broken or not, Huff Duff stations were sensing where ships at sea were physically. With a little bit of calculated estimations and extrapolations, the Allies were able to figure out where enemy ships might go by plotting their possible movements rather than intercepting their communications. So they could be where the enemy was before the enemy was there.

Now half the trick of having a secret weapon is not to use it so as to tip your hand to the enemy. If I've been reading your mail, I don't want to act as though I know too much, otherwise you'll become suspicious that I've read your mail. One way of using, but not using your secret weapon is to mask your offense, another way is to randomize your defense.

Defense randomization makes your assets more difficult to attack because your enemy, if he is surveying you for targets, cannot accurately predict when you might be most vulnerable. If you have a regular changing of the guard and staffing levels for Sunday morning are predictably low, then your enemy would be most likely to attact on Sunday. But if you suddenly have your guard up on the Sunday of the attack, then your enemy will be suspicious that you have read his mail. If you have read their mail and you randomize your defense, and you are suddenly ready for the Sunday attack, your enemy is likely to blame dumb luck.

Offense masking throws your enemy off track by making your attack look like dumb luck. For example. Let's say your asset is a bank. You place a little old lady in front of your bank on Sunday and she just happens to suddenly twist her ankle and flags down a car which just 'happens' to have an off-duty officer. Dumb luck right?

In either case of Offense Masking or Defense Randomization you make yourself appear more stupid and vulnerable to your enemy than you actually are. Every time I hear the phrase 'intelligence failure', I take comfort that our agencies have a hundred tricks like this at their disposal.

Earthlink.biz

Somebody sure does hate Earthlink.

Spammers have created an ever more sophisticated set of ruses to get people to send them credit card information. They have been fairly sloppy enough in the past to leave the URLs in their new forms pointing to their bogus domains.

But today, they seem to have gotten control of Earthlink.biz and somehow a redirection for tr.earthlink.net. It didn't fool me because I'm in security awareness mode this week, but this latest was a pretty good spoof.

Be alert.

A Conservative Review of Affirmative Action

LaShawn is boiling up the pot with a new flap over Affirmative Action, which she opposes. There's a fairly decent debate over the old, spider-web covered issue linked to and attending her post.

Now that I am out of the closet as a conservative and Republican, I'd imagine that people would expect me to oppose Affirmative Action for a new reason. And while I have 'seen the light' and adopted some conservative litmus positions (with nuance of course) I can't say that my position on Affirmative Action has changed much, although I am a bit more inclined to say the hell with it all. It sort of reminds me of an odd position I had against Reagan's Constructive Engagement, which was to support it because the more people hated America's involvement in South Africa, the more attention it would bring to the problem - not that the policy itself was effective.

I primarily support Affirmative Action for two reasons. The first has to do with the principle of racial integration. Affirmative Action mixes people. Anything that does so is good. Period. The second reason is that Affirmative Action exists as a peaceful concession to a militant political demand. It was a deal struck between the leaders of two separate and unequal worlds - a treaty which kept the peace in America. It was an honorable deal that we should honor.

The soundest criticism I hear about Affirmative Action is that it essentially fights fire with fire. That it establishes a racial preference and that this sort of discrimination is flatly wrong. I accept that criticism, but only in the case of integrated applicants. A black kid from the integrated 'burbs doesn't need to be integrated again. A kid from a segregated neighborhood is defacto discriminated against on the basis of race (which established the ghetto in the first place) and that needs to be countered. This is important point. I'll return to it.

On balance, however, I still support Affirmative Action. It's still a good idea and it's still useful. However I don't think it is as important an issue as many folks make it out to be. It's not as important, for example, as school vouchers which would affect a great deal more people. It is not as important as the minimum wage. It is not as important as amnesty for illegal immigrants, tax reform, health care reform or (of course) our occupation of Iraq and War on Terror. It's not as important as the continuing debate over abortion rights, civil liberties vis a vis Homeland Security, police abuse, the drug problems, HIV/AIDS or the sepration of powers.

It is more important than 'under God'.

Affirmative Action addresses a social power issue. At its best, Affirmative Action increases the social mobility of the previously land-locked. Further it keeps alive the notion of social mobility and prepares all of us to deal with it. A nation with a continuing program of Affirmative Action is more pluralistic - it gooses the dream along. But Affirmative Action is not a question of justice or rights. And in this regard, its defenders are often too shrill for their own good.

Today, I think the legitimate basis for discussion about Affirmative action has to do with its resonance as a matter of social power. Therefore I put proponents for 'Diversity' on the same footing as those who complain of 'Stigma'. While I recognize these, I happen to devalue both arguments. This is because my defenses of Affirmative Action originated when such programs were more important and less controversial than they are now. I am conceding that the second generation of beneficiaries are less significant than the first in carrying the water for the continuing political & social support for racial integration. In other words, role-medeling is over.

What this means is the following. While it is clear to me that today's individual beneficiary gains as much from Affirmative Action as yesterday's, society does not gain as much. Like it or not, we have reached a point of cultural equilibrium which diminishes the marginal social value of each new black or brown face integrated into the mainstream. Yes we still need to goose the dream along, but for most Americans, the very idea of the integration Affirmative Action creates has already been created.

So we have a case of perception vs reality. Therefore we take it down to economic cases.

One: Is all the Affirmative Action in America going to change the gap in unemployment between blacks and whites? No. For one thing, it's not a zero-sum game. For another thing the pool is simply too small.

Two: Is Affirmative Action going to changes the pattern of employment for blacks? I think it already has, but still has a little juice left. I think the demand for Affirmative Action is static and is not bringing blacks into many new areas but largely replicating the demand of the first generation. It's still doctors and lawyers, not concert violinists and architects.

Understand that this cuts both ways. Whites on the whole are not losing anything concrete when it comes to the benefits of Affirmative Action, nor does Affirmative Action raise the race of blacks and browns. Given those two facts which were not the case a generation ago, Affirmative Action is not as important to society as it once was. However, it is just as important to individuals as it ever was, which is the point I made up top and want to emphasize.

So here is the curveball. Since I think 'Diversity' is a sham, always have always will, and because I think 'Stigma' is an argument which barely hides racial resentment, I think it is entirely reasonable to substitute some socio-economic criteria for race.

Loyalty

College Did Not Prepare Me

College didn't prepare me for life.

I wonder how many graduates are willing to say so. I think it's something they all know to be true, but are loathe to admit outside of their own little circles. If this little secret got out, I think a significant part of American society would collapse.

This is a pro-Affirmative Action argument. Think about it. Well, actually it's more of an anti-standardized test argument which can be used as an pro-Affirmtive Action argument.

I'm reflecting on the entire deal surrounding the two dudes who wrote the musical comedy 'Avenue Q' as they were interviewed by Terri Gross today. How is it that one becomes an English major without the understanding that life sucks? How naive are our college grads today, and what does that say about the difference between a 1100 and a 1250 on the SAT?

Second world, man.

BTW, I don't generally do hat tips. But I've got to give props to G for hipping me to a blogger who's transcribing the experiences of a friend who's checking out China.

Scientific Animism

Scientific Animism is a term I coined about 16 years ago when I first started reading Ishmael Reed. It gave me a hedge against rationalists who said I was weirding out by accepting polytheism. Part of what I was trying to understand was the rationality of religion itself, which is a tough thing to do when one is surrounded by engineers of the skeptic variety. I noted that such engineers were, to a man (and I do mean man) always predisposed to have a fondness for Hobbits.

The term itself describes the willingness of people to believe the pseudoscientific, or even the scientific, without applying the scientific method. Animism is, of course, the belief that spirits inhabit animals and that animals should be respected or revered for their possession of these spirits which, properly interpreted, add value to human life and understanding. I think that most of us are, in fact, Scientific Animists. We trust that certain materials possess magical qualities depending on what those we deem scientifically authoritative tell us, but we don't test with our own senses. My classic example was that of cholesterol.

How many of us who 'watch our cholesterol' could actually identify a molecule of cholesterol under a microscope? When we eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast, we are told that it contains 20g of cholesterol. How can we be sure? When we run up the stairs and we reach the top panting, we think perhaps we have too much cholesterol in us. If I saw my doctor and he took my blood and sent it to a lab to have the amount of cholesterol checked, how is this materially different from having a witch doctor read our palms? To the extent that we trust, it is not. Scientists are high priests. They speak in terms incomprehensible to the average Joe and make pronouncements that are, in the words of the great writer, indistinguishable from magic.

Today's news is that scientists are themselves animist.

The dismal statistics presented on the science literacy level of scientists and science educators by Showers (1993) argued against a rapid increase in science literacy. Scientists and science educators (1) have high levels of paranormal and pseudoscientific belief, (2) do not use their scientific knowledge when voting, (3) use nonscientific approaches in personal and social decision-making, and (4) do not have high levels of science content knowledge outside of their specific disciplines. How can we expect nonscientists to think and act scientifically if scientists and science educators do not? If we decide to mount a concerted program to disabuse the public of paranormal and pseudoscientific beliefs, we must first ask if cultures can survive without paranormal beliefs.

I think the answer is no. We cannot survive without credulity. It is a fundamental part of our sociability. We need people to tell us things we don't know, and we need to believe them.

Obama

Betrayal