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Thursday, September 8, 2016

The Disappearance of Tara Grinstead: The Glove


On the weekend of October 22, 2005, a school teacher and former beauty queen named Tara Grinstead disappeared from the small town of Ocilla, Georgia, and she has never been found. I graduated from high school in Ocilla, grew up 10 miles away, and I have covered her story as a newspaper reporter since the week of her disappearance. This is my examination of one particular clue in the case: A latex glove found in her yard. For more information on the case, links are provided at the bottom of the story.

Since the Up and Vanished podcast about Tara Grinstead began I feel like I learn something new about the disappearance of the Irwin County school teacher almost every day from both the podcast and the conversations the podcast has spurred in the Ocilla community. In the most recent episode, forensic investigator Dr. Maurice Godwin said that he believes there is a 50-50 chance the latex glove found in Tara's front yard was planted there.

Recently, I've put a lot of thought into that glove, and I respectfully and politely disagree, although the glove certainly could have been planted from what we know.

Here is what we know about the glove: On Monday, Oct. 24, 2005, shortly after she was discovered to be missing, a latex glove was found within a few feet of Tara's doorstep at her home in residential Ocilla, a town of about 3,000 people. Law enforcement officials have told me male DNA was found in the glove, and Godwin stated on Up and Vanished that it was white, male DNA and that about 200 men have submitted to DNA tests. I think it is a safe assumption that no match has been found.

Now let's examine the possibilities of the glove logically, examining what is probable or likely, and what is improbable or unlikely, as best we can.

First there are three basic options with the glove:

1. The glove had nothing to do with Tara's disappearance, such as that it was left there by someone doing yard work, or the wind blew it into her yard. This seems like too great a coincidence, and I consider this the least likely scenario.

2. The glove was planted, presumably by the person who abducted or killed her. This too seems unlikely because of a variety of reasons. First, someone would have to think of the idea to plant a glove to distract from their crime, which is, to my knowledge, unheard of. This is the sort of move one would expect from a villain in an Agatha Christie novel, not in real life. If the glove was planted, then the crime was almost certainly premeditated, because people don't just drive around with gloves containing other people's DNA. They must have deliberately found or saved some glove to use for this express purpose, which again seems unlikely.

And in that scenario, whoever the DNA actually belongs to might point in the direction of the actual culprit. If someone was found to be a DNA match, but did not make sense as a suspect, the gloves might point to someone else who made better sense as a suspect who also had access to the other person's latex gloves or their DNA.

Usually the most obvious answer is the most likely to be true, and in this case that is:

3. The glove was used in the disappearance of Tara Grinstead. In fact, the presence of the glove is one of the strongest indicators that something malevolent happened to Tara or that someone covered up what happened to her on that weekend in 2005. Whether a murder or abduction occurred or the gloves were worn to cover up an accidental death, it seems likely the gloves were used for something illegal.

The presence of DNA probably indicates the gloves were already worn. Unless the gloves were used to hide fingerprints at another location, such as a second site where a murder took place, it seems most likely that they were dropped as someone was leaving Tara's property.

If someone wore the gloves at a previous location, and they took them off and put them in their pocket for instance, it seems like a big coincidence that the glove randomly fell out of their pocket near her doorstep. Most likely the glove was found not due to some random drop from a pocket but during some sort of motion, such as taking the glove off or putting it in a pocket.

If the culprit meant to put the gloves on to hide their fingerprints as they entered Tara's home, and they acted to put the gloves on, they would have noticed that they dropped a glove and probably would have found and retrieved it, assuming it was not too dark. However, if they were leaving and taking the gloves off, someone might very well move to put the gloves in their pocket and not notice that one fell to the ground.

Considering all those factors, it seems most likely that the glove was dropped by someone who had finished using the gloves for whatever purpose they used the gloves for and that the gloves were used to hide the person's fingerprints which otherwise would have been left at Tara's home or on her car.

Still accepting that anything is possible, but trying to find the most likely scenario, I think we have narrowed down to one of two most likely scenarios, and I believe either one or the other, or a combination of the two, is the most probable explanation for the glove found in Tara's yard.

1. For years, I believed that the glove was probably used by someone who drove her car that weekend, and this still may be the most likely scenario. The sports car was found parked in her carport when Tara was reported missing.

One of the often discussed possible clues is that the driver's seat of her car was moved back, as if it was driven by someone taller than Tara, who was only slightly taller than 5 feet. A law enforcement officer familiar with the case has told me that this might be a false clue though, because the seat may have been moved back by a law enforcement officer processing the car for clues. Processing was not definitely the cause of the seat being moved back though, so it is still possible that someone taller drove the car. Of course, most men would be taller.

A friend of Tara's told me that Tara would not let anyone drive her car, which lends to the idea that if someone taller did drive it, that they were involved in her disappearance. The friend also told me that the car was very muddy at the time of the disappearance, which indicates the car was driven somewhere other than the paved streets of Ocilla or neighboring Fitzgerald.

I've also heard that someone had her car washed after it was processed, but I've also heard that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation confiscated the car and still has it in storage. Both could be true, I suppose, if the car was impounded after it was washed, but I don't understand why the GBI would allow it to be washed, if that is even true.

For years, based on these apparent clues, I found it most likely that someone wore latex gloves to drive the car back from some location and they dropped the glove when walking away from the car, probably toward the road. I've asked a law enforcement officer familiar with the scene and the location of the glove, and he said that scenario is possible.

The implications of this scenario are interesting, however. If someone drove the car back to Tara's house, they had to leave somehow. This indicates that if the person left with Tara, this person's car was left at Tara's home, such as the black truck that was reported, or they lived within walking distance of Tara's home. Otherwise, at least two people were involved in her disappearance, because someone had to be there to pick up the person that drove her car home.

If two people were involved, this might explain why a DNA match has never been found, assuming no DNA match has been found. The person who drove the car and who dropped the glove might be an accomplice with no obvious connection to Tara, while the person who picked them up might have a more obvious connection. There is a slight improbability about this scenario though, as we would assume that the person with the stronger connection is the likely killer or abductor, and why would the accomplice take on the riskier assignment of driving the car back to her home? This is not a strong improbability though, as it might be simply explained that the murderer or abductor had his own vehicle at the scene and thus preferred to drive it, or that neither of those involved was more or less involved in the crime than the other.

Another point of interest about the possibility that someone used gloves to drive the car back is why they would have hidden their fingerprints at all. It seems likely that the person was someone whose fingerprints should not have appeared in the car at all or it was someone who knew that Tara did not allow anyone else to drive her car so they believed they should hide their fingerprints. Of course, it is possible that someone just obliviously thought that if they were committing a crime they should wear gloves.

This entire car-glove connection scenario is predicated on the idea that whatever happened to Tara happened away from her home and that the car was driven back to her home. Presumably, in this scenario, if the car was left at its previous location it would have indicated something more about the case, such as what happened to her and where.

This separate location might have been the home of the culprit, which may add improbability that the culprit was someone who lived within walking distance of Tara's home.

There is also a possibility that Tara was abducted or killed at her home and the culprit used her own car to transport Tara to another location and then brought the car back. This is possible, but less likely than other options because someone would have likely had their own vehicle there, unless they lived within walking distance, which several men connected to the case did, but they all presumably were DNA tested and were not a match.

Furthermore, many men drive trucks which would probably be better suited for whatever purposes an abductor or killer would need a vehicle for, and if the culprit had options, they would have likely chosen their own vehicle rather than Tara's sports car simply because being caught in it would have been extremely suspicious.

So, if the glove is connected to the car and assuming that murder is what most likely happened, this is the most likely scenario:

One or more people murdered Tara Grinstead somewhere muddy or only accessible by a muddy road, and one of them, a taller white male, wore latex gloves to drive her car back to her home in Ocilla where he either retrieved his own vehicle or was picked up by an accomplice.

Of course, those are actually two scenarios, one with an accomplice and one without. If I had to choose, I would choose the one with the accomplice as the most likely because it would best explain the use of latex gloves to hide fingerprints and would best explain why a DNA match has not been found. But I consider either scenario nearly equally possible.
But there is another possible, even probable, explanation of the glove.

2. As I said, for years I thought the car-glove connection was the most likely explanation for the latex glove. Then, several weeks ago, I watched the British television show "The Fall," in which the star of "50 Shades of Grey," Jamie Dornan, plays a slightly less creepy role as a serial killer. In the show, there is a scene where he leaves a woman's house after burglarizing it, and after he shuts her door, he immediately starts to take his gloves off.

Chills ran down my spine like tremors down a fault line.

Yes. Absolutely someone who had just finished illegally entering a home and doing illegal things inside might take off their gloves as they exited if they were finished with whatever nefarious purposes they were up to inside. Outside, they would not want to be caught in suspicious gloves, so they would probably immediately take them off. They would likely stuff the gloves into a pocket, nervously, and in their anxiety they might not notice as one of those gloves fell to the ground. The scenario seems so likely that it is in fact rather obvious. It does not negate the car-glove connection, and in fact, someone who exited her home could also have driven her car, but dropping the glove after leaving the front door seems even more likely than dropping it leaving a car, at least on the surface, if for no other reason, the close proximity of the door to the glove.

I presented this idea to a friend, and they argued that someone would wait to take off the gloves until they reached their own car. It's possible, but not likely. If you were in the midst of committing a crime, you would not want to be caught with gloves on outside as that would be extremely suspicious. My friend said the person could have stuffed their hands into their pockets, and that is true, but that also seems a bit suspicious. If someone saw a person leaving Tara Grinstead's with their hands stuffed in their pockets that weekend that person would have probably already been arrested because it would look highly suspicious. Furthermore, if the person taking off the gloves risked running into someone as they walked back to their car, they might have had to shake hands with someone or might have even been obliged to wave. Remember that we do not know what time the glove was left in the yard. Taking off the gloves and slipping them into a pocket immediately would be the safest course.

Also, it's just natural, I believe, to take off gloves once you are done using them, at least that's my experience when I clean my bathroom. Once I am done cleaning, I want to immediately take them off, but this may just be a personal preference as I find gloves unwieldy and uncomfortable. I would be interested to hear some feedback on how others treat wearing gloves.

Furthermore, the simple fact that someone left a glove in the yard is highly indicative that someone did in fact take the glove off. Assuming the glove was not a plant, if they had stuffed their hands in their pockets, I would not be writing this because we would know nothing about a glove.

I picture someone closing the front door and using their body to shield themselves as they pull their gloves off and then they casually walk down the steps and push the gloves into their pocket, but one falls to the ground, or the glove falls after a second because it was not pushed deeply enough into the pocket. It certainly could have happened that way.

But why would someone wear gloves and take them off at all? Probability and logic are a bit limited here, as we need to use our imaginations more than with other scenarios because we know little about what happened inside the house.

Could there have been a struggle inside? I am a bit confused about the evidence as the facts have mixed with hearsay over the years. I've heard a lamp or clock was turned over. I've heard a bed's headboard was damaged. I've recently heard a necklace was found on the floor? I've heard that a very small amount of blood was found though I've also heard that might be explained through shaving or a household accident. None of that may be true.

The truth is, I don't know what was found in the house. I wasn't there, and I doubt law enforcement investigators have revealed everything that was found or that wasn't.

And what wasn't found may be more of a clue than what was, as I find it highly likely that if the glove was left when exiting the home that whoever dropped it was either covering up or removing some sort of evidence. I say this because someone who was abducting Tara would not have taken off the gloves while toting or otherwise moving her to a vehicle. They might have placed her in a vehicle and then went back to clean something up or remove some evidence, and then taken off the gloves, but they would not take the gloves off in the midst of moving her.

Since it is so improbable that someone took off the gloves while moving her there must have been some reason for them to go inside her home or to go back inside. To me it seems like the reason must have either been to cover up evidence at her home or remove evidence from it. Let us examine those two possibilities, although it certainly could be both. Someone might have cleaned up a blood stain and removed a murder weapon, for instance.

1. Covering up evidence: This, most likely, would be hiding signs of a crime. The culprit might have simply straightened up some overturned objects, although based on the clues I'm unsure about, there might have still been some overturned items that he missed.
He might have been cleaning a blood stain, but this seems unlikely for a few reasons. I think the GBI would have found some evidence that chemicals were used to clean up blood, and even though they might not have revealed that evidence to the public, that evidence would have changed the nature of the initial investigation. The case would have probably been announced as a murder investigation from early on, rather than a missing person case. The fact that it was a missing person investigation also makes it probable that there were no obvious signs of a struggle.

If an abduction or murder happened at her home, it seems likely that it was either bloodless, easily cleanable or was cleaned by someone who knew how to clean it properly. That last option of course suggests the possibility of someone with law enforcement knowledge, but I don't even find it all that probable that someone was even there to clean up the scene.

It would be a large risk to go back to the scene of the crime to clean up the scene, and probably not worth it considering that after she was gone a few days people would start assuming something criminal happened to her, which is exactly what happened. Now, someone might go back to remove evidence that pointed to them, so I find the second option at least somewhat more probable.

2. Removing evidence: If someone went inside Tara's home to remove evidence, then we can only speculate what was removed. I think the only safe assumption would be that whatever was removed would have somehow identified the culprit. For instance, it could have been a weapon with fingerprints, a glass that the culprit used when visiting her home, or evidence of a sexual encounter. It might have been a love letter, but although it was not as prevalent in 2005 as now, the use of digital communication was rising, so a physical love letter seems like a stretch. Most likely the thing or things removed would be something that contained DNA or fingerprint evidence.

But this brings us back to something discussed earlier in the car-glove connection scenarios. Why would someone whose DNA or fingerprints would be expected to be found inside Grinstead's home try to hide their DNA or fingerprints? Why would a boyfriend, a neighbor or a childhood friend we know was inside her home at some time in 2005 try to hide their fingerprints or DNA when they would likely be found inside the home anyway?
Of course, we assume that people would behave rationally, but that is only an assumption. Often people act far from rationally, especially in high pressure situations.

But assuming that the culprit or culprits were behaving rationally, if they were using gloves and if they were removing evidence, then they very well might not be someone that is an obvious suspect. Again, this is an assumption, but this would explain why no DNA match has been found to the glove.

I began writing this expecting that the glove-left-while-exiting-the-home scenario would be as probable as the car-glove connection, but I've convinced myself otherwise. I still believe the car-glove connection is more probable because it best fits the circumstances and any reason for someone to go inside the home seems improbable without further evidence. For instance, if a knife was found to be wiped down of prints that would highly indicate that someone went back inside the home, but no such evidence exists. Without corroborating evidence, all reasons for going inside the home are only speculation while the car-glove connection links to several clues or possible clues such as the car seat and the mud on the car.

This does not negate exiting the home scenarios, but it makes the car connection seem somewhat more likely. Nearly anything is possible, of course, but I still believe the most probable scenarios are those previously mentioned:

One or more people murdered Tara Grinstead somewhere muddy or only accessible by a muddy road, and one of them, a taller white male, wore latex gloves to drive her car back to her home in Ocilla where he either retrieved his own vehicle or was picked up by an accomplice.

Of course, many people already believe that is exactly what happened without attempting to analyze every detail. And it could be a combination in which someone drove the car and went inside. They could have covered up evidence and removed evidence. They could have driven the car to a place on a paved street or there could be six culprits rather than one or two.

A few points that I have not previously mentioned should be put forward. The presence of the latex glove does make the idea that whatever happened was a premeditated crime seem more likely, but if it was not premeditated, then it is more probable that the culprit was someone who had easy access to latex gloves, which would include people in law enforcement or medical professions, which includes several white males connected to Tara Grinstead. Of course, anyone can buy latex gloves, so this is not definitely true. For all we know, Tara could have died on Saturday night/Sunday morning and someone could have purchased latex gloves on Sunday and went back to clean up the scene.

I may later write a couple of similar examinations of other aspects of the case.

I would like to analyze what most likely happened to Tara Grinstead. I think most people believe she was murdered, and that is the most likely scenario, but the more I learn the more I think that suicide is a possibility, but I think someone covered it up if she did killer herself, probably because they were scared it would look like murder. And there are several other possibilities as well.

Assuming she was murdered, an examination of possible motives might prove interesting, but they would be less about probability and purely about speculation. Of course, this is all speculation to some extent.

I could say something is 30 percent probable or 90 percent probable, but the truth is, each scenario is either 100 percent probable because it is exactly what happened or it is 0 percent probable because it didn't happen that way at all. We simply don't know, so all this is just barely informed speculation measured by a modicum of logic, but hopefully someone will read this and will think of something I've missed or an investigator with more knowledge about the case will make a connection because of what I've written.

Maybe this will help solve whatever happened on that mysterious weekend in October 2005. I certainly hope it does.

For more information on the Disappearance of Tara Grinstead:

The Up and Vanished Podcast by Payne Lindsey.

The Web Sleuths Tara Grinstead forums.

Dr. Maurice Godwin's Tara Grinstead blog.

An award-winning Ocilla Star article I wrote on the fifth anniversary of Tara's disappearance.

An Ocilla Star article in which I interviewed friends of Tara Grinstead about who she was as a person.

An Ocilla Star article I wrote on the 10th anniversary that features a timeline of events.

The Wikipedia entry.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Lex Luthor for President


Imagine a world in which Lex Luthor ran for president of earth against Wonder Woman. Would it be that different than what is happening in America today?

CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO SEE A LARGER VERSION.

[gallery ids="206,207,208,209,210,211,212,213,214,215,216,217" type="columns"]

Also, if you haven't heard it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQxTAmBHcJM

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Going ape over a gorilla


Sometimes a tragedy is just a tragedy.
This past weekend, a three-year old boy at a zoo in Cincinnati fell into a gorilla habitat and was dramatically dragged by the leg by a 450-pound gorilla. In order to protect the child, the zoo staff fatally shot the endangered primate. The boy escaped without serious injury.
I’ve been astounded by the angry reactions of people.
The most ridiculous reaction is from those who think the ape should not have been shot. Although the gorilla had not greatly harmed and in some ways acted protectively toward the boy, the great beast could have killed the child by accident or on a whim. You cannot reason with a gorilla or predict its behavior in a unique situation.
What’s really ridiculous is that some are angry because they feel like the gorilla should not have been shot, as if this 3-year-old boy deserved his fate because it was his fault he fell into the pit where he did not belong. Thankfully, this opinion seems to be rare.
People’s lives are more important than animal’s. If a snake, a dog or a gorilla threatens a child, you shoot the animal. You don’t sit by and hope for the best. I wonder how the people who protest react when they are bitten by a mosquito?
What isn’t rare is the instant vitriol aimed at the boy’s mother. “How dare she allow her child to fall into the pit!” they say. “She should face criminal charges!” they say. “I would never allow that to happen to my child!” they say.
What planet are these people from? How can they be that unaware of just how easy it is for kids to have an accident or get into trouble? I don’t have kids, and even I know.
Unless you watch your child hawkishly, every single second, which you could not possibly do if you have more than one child unless they were somehow tied together, your child could have an accident or get into trouble. If they were determined enough and it was physically possible, they could fall into a pit with a wild animal at a zoo.
In the past year, I’ve gone to two events with my sister and her two kids to zoo environments and my No. 1 concern was keeping track of those two kids. It was impossible to do so 100 percent of the time. That was with two adults and four eyes. These were field trips, so teachers and chaperones were watching literally dozens of kids and they were vastly outnumbered, so think of that.
At the Jacksonville Zoo, we were standing near the lion environment and my nephew was hanging on the wall, which was maybe chest high on me. I made him stop, but I thought then that if he wanted to climb over, he physically could. How long would that take? Maybe 4 seconds? Maybe 6?
At Okefenokee Swamp Park, there are no walls. The only thing keeping children away from the jaws of the many alligators there are the gators’ disinterest and the child’s natural fearful respect of the beasts. How long would it take a child to trip and fall and land right in front of an alligator?
But if one bit a child, these same people blaming the gorilla mom would be blaming the alligator mom.
So only if you watch your child every second can you honestly say that this mother is to blame, and even watching every second is not a guarantee.
But you can’t watch a child every second. Not even every minute. No one watches their child so obsessively, and if they did, just imagine the psychological damage it would do to that over-protected child.
If you’ve ever had a child fall and break a bone or hit their head and needed stitches and you weren’t watching them at the time, then you are basically in the same situation as this mother, at least as far as we know. And that’s OK, because sometimes stuff just happens.
Every day you’re driving down the road and putting your child in more danger than if you take your eyes off your child for a minute or two at a zoo. Wrecks happen all the time but I’ve heard of maybe two children ever falling into an animal habitat at a zoo.
Now, having said all this, I’m not saying the mother was being responsible as a parent. For all I know, she could have been texting on her cell phone for several minutes while paying little attention to her son.
But from what I’ve read, we don’t know exactly what she was doing immediately before her son fell into the pit, and based on what little information we do have, there is no reason to judge her.
Too often, people rush to judge and condemn people on little information and when there is a child involved the judgment seems to be more harsh, which I suppose is understandable. Often these condemnations are based on news stories that are told in a sensationalized manner, and I’ve learned there’s a lot of danger in that.
So the next time you read about a cop shooting a suspect or a child dying in a hot car or a child endangered at a zoo, hold off on judging. Wait until the whole story comes out, and then, well, you probably shouldn’t judge then either, unless you’re on a jury.
But then again, who am I to judge you?

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

America is Sick, Part IV: Paying to be Brainwashed


So far I have examined the way people think through examining cognitive dissonance. I've also broached two of the problems contributing to America's sickness: Tribal mentality and incessant arguing, though I probably understated the pervasiveness of arguing in our society. It reaches all aspects of our lives, from politics to home.

And it will continue. Why? Because there's profit in it.

When it comes to government, I am no extremist. I believe that the best government is a balance of opposites. A good economy needs mostly-free market capitalism to provide competition and incentive to invest and grow, but it also needs strong regulation to prevent the abuses of power inherent when power accumulates, as it necessarily will do with capitalism. Unless you believe that sweat shops, wage slavery and child labor are acceptable, you don't fully endorse capitalism. Unless you believe state control, extreme poverty and famine are acceptable, you don't fully endorse communism.

And most modern industrialized nations are a balance, even America, though the US leans far too heavily to the right, at least compared to the rest of the world.
But still, we need capitalism, but there are aspects of capitalism we do not need. And these three things are the main points of this whole essay, and you should dedicate your political energy to eradicating these three things: Lobbying legislators, political contributions by corporations, and unregulated advertising.

All three of these things could be summed up as "organizational free speech." It's what the famous Citizens United Supreme Court case granted to, in particular, corporations. Corporations have the rights of people in the US, but corporations and other organizations are not people. They have more power and less liability than people, and by giving them free speech, among other freedoms, we give them near unlimited power.

Already now I fear that they have too much power. That we will never be able to put the power back in the people's hands. What if all the corporations decided to move from America? It would be disaster. But aren't we already being extorted by that very threat?

I hope it's not too late.

Obviously, corporations control America. Of this, there is no doubt. President Jimmy Carter has even said that America is not a democracy but "an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery," meaning that America is ruled by the rich elite, not the people.

And until our government is ruled by the people and not the rich elite, then no other issue matters. Your opinion on guns or prayer in school or abortion or transgenders in bathrooms does not matter at all. You don't matter at all.

No matter how loud you shout, you will only have a voice if you vote for a candidate that says he will end Citizens United, who pledges to take control from the corporations and put it back in the hands of the people. It will take a Constitutional amendment and it's only the start, but corporations should not be considered humans.

Only one candidate in the current presidential election even spoke about ending Citizens United, Bernie Sanders, and he will probably not win because, in part, the powers that be do not want him to win. This means we will probably have to wait at least 4 more years before we can make significant changes, but this is a war, not a battle.

And we need to maintain focus. Something we sorely lack. Why do we lack it?

Because we're all brainwashed.

Everyone is brainwashed by something: Whether it's their religion, their school, their friends or their company. If you're reading this, you're brainwashed by a lot of things.
You are brainwashed by social media, the internet, cereal boxes, soda cans, and condiment manufacturers, pill companies who want you to notice you're sick not to get you well but to feed you their pills. You are brainwashed by your doctor, the laws, your significant other and the English language, because not all brainwashing is bad. You are brainwashed to hate people different of you, because a lot of brainwashing is.

Even if you're some Appalachian wild man who just happened to look at this screen on some tablet he found in the foothills and has never purchased or sold, talked to anyone since childhood or watched a television, even he has his parents to blame. And I'm trying to actively brainwash him now.

But chances are very good that you are much more brainwashed than that.

You may be sitting there, stewing in your cognitive dissonance produced from your pre-existing romantic belief that you are a person entirely determined by your own free will. And then your stomach growls, and you walk into a grocery store. Or maybe I should say supermarket, because you don't realize all the "psychic" knowledge stores have about you.

You open the door, and invariably, you will find fruit or flowers. Color and freshness overwhelm you. You feel like you've just walked into the Garden of Eden. (Maybe that's why the Bible starts with it, too).

The items the store wants you to buy the most are put at just the right eye level to catch your attention. Maybe you have a bit more freedom if you're drastically under or over average height, but they find other ways to snare you. The supermarket uses in-aisle gondolas or end caps at the end of the aisle to bait you with a succulent bargain that actually isn't. You pay more and feel empowered by finding a "deal."

The supermarket knows you will spend more the longer you are inside, and it knows you move more slowly the slower the pace of the music, so you won't be listening to punk or speed metal as you shop. You'll be listening to nice, somnolent easy listening that lulls you into a borderline hypnotic drone.

Items will not be alphabetized, because supermarkets know that if you find what you're looking for right off, you might convince yourself you don't actually need it. If you have to search a little, then you're so relieved when you find it, you won't consider passing it by. Everybody likes to win the little game.*

That's just one type of store. Think of the endless variety of advertising bombarding us constantly, and it's not just the obvious ads in television and other media. Corporate stadium sponsors. Corporate partnerships. Movie product placements. Even the news. If a disaster generates enough of the right kind of publicity it can even boost sales in the long run. Exxon, Tylenol and the Catholic Church have all survived and even flourished after well publicized disasters.

But all advertising does is raise awareness about products, right? Wrong. Advertising, by design, creates desire. The most successful combinations of advertising, timing and product design create entire markets of desire. Think of how we now need cars, planes, computers, cell phones, telephones and televisions, air conditioning units, anti-lock brakes, air bags, smoke detectors, plastic diapers, straws to drink soda at fast food restaurants. We don't need any of it, but we can't live without it.

And advertising is not only about selling products, it's also about selling political views, mostly through corporate media and political institutions, like think-tanks and groups like ALEC that design laws for legislators to pass. It's about manufacturing issues and sewing discontent. It's about selling cognitive dissonance, about manipulating the irrational and emotional, and about giving us something to argue about without accomplishing anything.

It's about everything I've written so far.

Take most hot-button political issues. Most of them are not very important. They might be important to a small group of individuals, such as transgenders using bathrooms or gay people getting married, but they aren't life or death matters like wars or health care.
Laws against transgenders using bathrooms are largely unenforceable and people could still marry without the law recognizing it, but of course, liberals like me support the rights of LGBT people because we want fairness and tolerance. And I do support their rights, but I see what's really going on, and what is going on is that the issues are crafted to keep the children arguing. We're the children, and we certainly act like it.

We should be demanding to be treated as adults, to have our votes count, but instead we are concerned about bathrooms. We should be taking back the power, but we can't follow an issue for more than a few days because corporate media constantly changes the channel.

But we have free will, right? We make our own decisions, right? While we're concerned with the latest hot-button issue. When was the last time you expressed your opinion about Occupy Wall Street or Casey Anthony or Elian Gonzalez?

Caitlyn Jenner becomes a story and within a year, politicians are passing opposing bills about transgenders and the president's administration is issuing an edict. There were transgender celebrities before and will be again, but I bet we won't be hearing as much from them once this cycle and the fire about transgenders cools down.

The media highlights black men being shot by other races, and then suddenly people are arguing about cops and Black Lives Matter on Facebook. Racism comes out of the closet, in part as a result, but the story passes by while the damage remains. Black men were being shot before and they are being shot now, so why only for a short while was it an issue? They weren't just being shot by people of other races and cops, so why are only those reported? Too much blame is cast at cops when the issue is much more broad. Black Lives do Matter, but little is being done to address the larger issues at play, like an unwinnable drug war that allows criminal organizations to support themselves and creates a predator-prey relationship between cops and poor people. Divisions are deepened, though we all want the same things: Peace, prosperity, trust.

Instead, we're at war with ourselves, and even though there are real issues in every hot news story and breaking headline, we don't remain focused long enough to have any real effect, to solve anything. It almost seems programmed, like a conspiracy, but it may just be the drive for profit, for ratings, for power and prestige thriving off of chaos and feeding itself eternally. But when groups work together to create profit or gain power, that is a conspiracy, and we call them corporations. We are the victims. And they are brainwashing us for their gain.

But the very fact that we have competition among those trying actively to brainwash us for their profit guarantees we will never have unison. So we need to find a way to shut them up.

* Most of the knowledge about supermarkets came from "Uncle John's Absolutely Absorbing Bathroom Reader" by the Bathroom Readers' Institute. Those books are fascinating at times.

When evidence is not in absence


So this is one of my biggest pet peeves, when someone will not accept the truth even when presented with evidence. Look, we're all wrong about things, probably a lot of things. But when someone shows you definite, conclusive and contradictory evidence, you should change your mind, not just go with what feels right to you. For instance, for a long time I corrected people's usage of the word "citizen." I was taught that people are citizens of a country, not of a town, so when I saw someone say "citizens of Ocilla" I changed it. Then, recently, I actually looked it up and saw that you can use citizen to refer to residents of a town, so I changed my mind. But this way of thinking is not as common as it should be. If you've ever had an argument with someone who doesn't believe in evolution, you know what I mean. If science proved God existed, I'd be like "Dang. I better figure out which religion to join." But what if science proved that God did exist, but he was the God of another religion. How many people do you think would change their religions? Feelings and faith are fine in the absence of evidence, but if they stand in the way of accepting evidence, then your way of thinking may be flawed.

Sunday, April 24, 2016

Nothing Compares 2 U: A Tribute to Prince


I was never a huge Prince fan.

By that I mean, I don't have Prince posters on my walls. I don't own all his albums. I never even once saw him in concert.

But having said all that, how can anyone not be a Prince fan? I've enjoyed every song I've ever heard by him. I would like to take time to listen to more, and now that we've lost him, I think I'll take that time to sample some of the immortality he left behind.

Like many of you, Prince has also affected my love life, though unusually, he affected mine in a mildly humorous way. When I was in high school, I dated a girl who wore a barrette in her hair. My dad used to tease me about it by calling her "Little Red Barrette." Or was it "Raspberry Barrette?" Maybe it was both.

Ironically, it was a song written by Prince, but not performed by him, that had the most effect on me: Sinead O'Connor's 1990 hit "Nothing Compares 2 U." It was my favorite song at a time when I had had few favorite songs. I remember, in those days before you could call up YouTube and listen to any song at any time, that I would listen to the radio in hopes that they would play that tune.

It is and always will be one of my favorite songs of all time.

Only a few years ago, the longest romantic relationship of my life came to an end. A few days later, I was driving home from work and "Nothing Compares 2 U" came on the radio. That song that had connected with me for so long, connected with me as it never had before. I felt the emotion in every word "like a bird without a song."

When I got home, I sent a link of the song's video to the woman I loved, and it led to us reuniting, if only for a while. In that way, Prince helped give me one of the last tender moments with someone who may end up being the love of my life. He helped me, like he has helped many of us, love.

What an extraordinary gift.

So this is my gift back to Prince Rogers Nelson, an artist without compare. This is my own rendition of the song that meant so much to me. It always will.

https://youtu.be/R8WC9xzcH5I

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Paranoia is the Dark Side of Imagination


This is a song I originally wrote and composed around January 2015. "Paranoia is the Dark Side of Imagination."

It is, if you think about it. Literally.

Essentially, the song's title is meant to illustrate a Taoist principle. "What is a good man but a bad man's teacher, what is a bad man but a good man's job?" We think of paranoia as a "bad" thing, and yet it is a natural consequence of a vivid imagination, which is considered "good."

It's neither good nor bad, but I'm glad for my paranoia.

https://youtu.be/jhkG6tKLzUA

Here are the lyrics:

everywhere I go/everybody wants to know answers/tell me what are you scared of?/hey, have you thought I may be afraid of your questions

each time that you close the lid/you just leave me cut up in sections/make me a part of your collection/dissect me like some pinned down, dying butterfly

please don't go/please don't stay/please don't go/just let me go away/cause I'm color'd by my paranoia/I am sinking, thinking all these thoughts/I'm caught in: my fault, my bad, I'm mad, it's sad, but I'm glad for my paranoia

this is just/this is just/this is just the dark side

and there's light/everywhere/imagination shades me/saves me from the dark/saves me from my broken heart/savors darkness and its arts/parts to play let's light the spark/that's just D composing/you come close/save me/in my dreams you are never far from the stars, far from the brightest, fall from the brightest, you fall from the brightest of the stars/I will climb, sliding down/staring up, I hit bottom/bottom's up, I'm up for nothin'/somethin's down, the sum of sufferin'/don't want to suffer for nothin'/so in fear I am engulfed and drown

I don't want to win/I don't want to grin/I don't want a cent/listen to these people so in hurries for a dime/too much on their minds/the only thing they'll never make again is time

tell me give a try/tell me get around/tell me get a life/I'll tell what I've found/every time I try/this is what I get/I get paranoia/and if I should cry/don't mean I'm upset/fears are sublime/tears are just wet/if you read minds/you know mine says/"this is paranoia"

everywhere I look/I'm always jumping at shadows/nothing's what I'm really
scared of/hey, maybe I'm just afriad of all my future sorrows

and when the subject's sad/I always joke and kid/deflection/everything's cracked in
reflection/feeling's my philosophy/I wonder why: why birds fly/and I wonder why they sing/do I?/and the sun rises/I wonder if it sets because it gets tired of shining all the time?

please don't go/please don't stay/please don't go/just let me go away/cause I'm collar'd by my paranoia/I am sinking, thinking all these thoughts/I'm caught in: my fault, my bad, I'm mad, it's sad, but I'm glad for my paranoia

Saturday, April 2, 2016

My Home Invasion


Let me tell you a bit about my home.

It looks very much like a tornado ran through a Dr. Pepper factory, then a Marlboro plant and afterward both places were plundered by looters who thought the place looked too tidy.

I am a slob. And it shows.

Soda cans and empty boxes, of cigarettes and otherwise, litter my floor. Dirty laundry accumulates in piles which have their own weather patterns at the peaks. Cobwebs dangle from every corner of every room though even the spiders seem too horrified to touch the floor.

It’s a wreck, my home, but I must like it that way. Some folks have considered my messes to be like living art and have taken photos of them for display. I’ve been accused of being a hoarder, though it’s really more about laziness than any fascination with collecting junk.

A few weeks ago, my mom, who owns the house where I live in Irwinville, decided she wanted to change insurance coverage. Unfortunately, this required the new insurance provider to need to come to my home and take photos of the inside.

This spurred my mom to require me to clean my home, which is only slightly less difficult than rebuilding a country after a war. She told me to do this during a particularly stressful period of time for me, due to health and internet problems, and I seriously started wondering if I would have a nervous breakdown.

I procrastinated and procrastinated, and just when the deadline was nearing for me to have my home clean, she told me she was just going to stick with the old coverage, which may cost a bit more, but I pay the insurance on the house anyway, and I was glad to pay it rather than have to undergo the rest of the ordeal of cleaning. Also, there was a bit of unease at having someone come through my house uninvited, like it was an invasion of privacy.

Well, I thought I was off the hook for having someone invade that privacy, but... fate seemed to have other plans in store for me.

I got home from work last Tuesday and set about playing video games and adding to the collection of cans on the floor. This lasted for hours, but after all that Dr. Pepper, a bladder has to give at some point. So at about 9 p.m. I pried myself from the floor and headed to the bathroom. However, before I got there, I noticed something out of place, which is difficult to do in the third-world environment of my home.

Outside my bathroom is the hallway leading to my laundry room, where there is a backdoor to my home. In the middle of one of the piles of laundry was the entire frame of my backdoor window.

“What the %@&*?!” I said aloud.

Then I noticed the door was open and ajar, the wind whipping through the curtain. Someone, it seemed, had broken into my home.

Apprehension crept through me like vines, and I backed away from the door, worried the intruder was still in my home. I backtracked through the house, keeping a vigilant eye toward every dark corner and picked up my phone to call 911, but I had slovenly left the phone off its charger and it was dead. I would need to walk to my mom’s to call.

Because I’m too fat to comfortably sit in the floor playing video games in blue jeans, I was in my boxer shorts at the time, so I needed to dress. Worried a burglar would pounce on me at any moment, I grabbed a knife to defend myself, though it was the kind of small, just-for-show knife that was more likely to cause skin irritation than an adequate defense. So, holding my knife aimed toward the back of the house, I pulled on a pair of pajama pants, backward I later learned, and some shoes and headed outside. Unfortunately, I had never gotten to chance to use the bathroom, which had, especially combined with my fear, become a rather urgent problem, so I fulfilled my biological prerogative outside as my forefathers did, trying to appear like I was about to enter my car. As the burglar could have been lingering outside, I still carried my knife, though I was careful not to circumcise myself.

Afterward, I walked down the road to my mom’s, hiding my knife from the passing cars so I didn’t look like a homicidal maniac on the loose. Then, when I knocked on the door to my mom’s and my stepdad answered, he turned on the light to look out the window of the door. Seeing the knife, I’m surprised he opened the door. I imagine he thought, “Dusty’s finally lost it.”

He returned with me to my home, as I wanted him to help me inspect the house for intruders and make sure there was no other possible explanation than burglary. He surmised that someone had stood on my back step and kicked the window in, which seemed hardly feasible to me, because if so, the burglar would have been either Spider-Man or the Karate Kid, considering the thin steps up to my backdoor. After my stepdad returned to his house to call 911, or so I thought, I installed a light bulb in my laundry room and discovered that the burglar had thrown a concrete half-sphere, something used to attach reflectors on the side of the road, through the window. So superheroes were eliminated as suspects.

Shortly later, my mom arrived because, though she called 911, they required my exact street address, which she didn’t know, in order to respond to my house. I thought I was lucky I was not being murdered at the time.

With the correct address, she called on her cell phone, and we waited for a deputy to arrive. Meanwhile, she called one of my neighbors, who as it turns out, spotted someone lurking outside my backdoor suspiciously at about 4 p.m. that afternoon, some 5 hours before I discovered the break-in. I guess the knife was not needed after all.

Deputy Bob Billotte arrived and asked, as I led him through the house, if anything was missing. I jokingly remarked, “How could I tell?” while showing him the unnatural disaster which is my home. But in truth, nothing was missing. There were probably $30 worth of dollar bills laying about my floor, all of which have since been picked up for all you prospective thieves, and none of my few valuables were taken.

However, I was a bit disappointed the burglar didn’t take the broken down television which one day I will have to remove myself. The burglar could have done me a huge favor by cleaning up a little!

Instead, maybe he was scared away by the mess. I honestly don’t know what could have caused him to not steal anything after brazenly breaking into a home on a busy highway out in the open in broad daylight.

Maybe he decided he’d find more value for less trouble digging through a real garbage dump.

Originally published in The Ocilla Star on Dec. 7, 2011. I later learned that the burglar stole a tray full of change which also included my class ring, my back-up pair of glasses and other items. He was later revealed to be one of my best friends, who pleaded guilty as a first offender. After some time, we're friends again today. Turn the cheek, y'all.

America is Sick, Part III: Tribal Mentality


(This is a continuation of an essay examining the many ills of American society, as I see them, and hopefully some solutions to them as well).

What I have done so far is to attempt to write persuasively, to attempt to sway people to see the light, at least, the light as I see it.

To attempt to persuade people, I try to appeal to their sense of reason and their empathy for other people. The problem with that tactic is that the people I want to reach often lack reason or empathy for other people.

The lack of reason, or rationality, has already been discussed when talking about cognitive dissonance (see Part I of "America is Sick"). Why people lack compassion is complicated. Like with cognitive dissonance, it's often about values: Some value their personal freedom over the well being of others, for instance. And because people seem to be psychologically inclined to believe they are "good" or on the right side, few people consciously admit or even realize they lack compassion.

And truthfully, few people are wholly good or evil, if any are. The person who gave a nice donation to the local soup kitchen might also think they are the victim of theft if they pay taxes that help feed poor children. The person who lobbies for universal healthcare might walk to the other side of the street to avoid a coughing homeless person.

In both those examples, a logical argument can be made for the "evil" that was done. In the first, someone might believe in helping people but they don't want to be coerced to do it. In the second, the person might want to help the homeless person, but he or she isn't willing to risk getting sick to do it. All of us have some point at which our selflessness ends and our selfishness begins.

But the lack of compassion and empathy in America today is disturbing, and I've put a lot of thought into understanding it. I won't claim to have a full grasp of the whole picture though. Still, it doesn't take a highly analytical mind to notice that the more people have in common the more compassionate toward each other they tend to be, and with some people, this tendency toward compassion for the similar is more pronounced.

I call it a tribal mentality. Human beings have been around for about 100,000 years at least. Only in the last few thousand years have we had civilization. When people lived in tribes and small villages or camps with no nations or broad societies, tribal mentality made perfect sense.

Tribal mentality kept us suspicious of people in other tribes, people who looked different, who dressed differently, who had different religions and customs. This suspicion made sense because each different tribe was a potential threat. Whereas shared religion and customs created loyalty to each other and kinship and ultimately a better chance of prosperity, suspicion of those who were different was a necessary evil for the sake of survival.

But in a modern day, melting pot culture such as the United States of America, tribal mentality does not make obvious sense and instead harms our society in many ways. Suspicion of those who are different than us causes us to hate and fear our neighbors. In a mixed culture, tribal mentality destroys loyalty to each other, ruins kinship and ultimately, it sabotages our chances for prosperity.

Unfortunately, because we are a melting pot, people encounter different people than them all the time. These many clashes of culture activate those old tribal feelings, the us-versus-them attitudes. In the end, and somewhat ironically, America, with the most diverse society in the world, is also the most divided, tribalistic modern society in the world as well.

Because while I call it tribal mentality, most people call it conservatism.
(If you consider yourself a conservative and you find yourself right now searching your mind for ways to argue against my assertions about tribal mentality, know that you are suffering from cognitive dissonance and it may be standing in your way of learning something. Push aside those thoughts and ask yourself instead if you agreed with me before I revealed that I was talking about conservatism. Even if not, fight against your urge to refute me and instead continue reading, please. Then, afterward, don't react. Think.)

Of course, this tribal mentality, conservatism, is not meritless. Even today, we still face threats, and frankly, if I was in a fight, I'd love to have a bunch of conservatives on my side. Conservatives are often loyal friends, reliable, hard working, brave in many ways, and pragmatic.

But most tribalistic, conservative beliefs are, unfortunately, instinctual and emotional. They are often not based on facts or a logical examination of a situation but instead on pre-existing beliefs and emotional attachments. Worse yet, because humans are wired to believe we are rational, even when we're not, cognitive dissonance drives tribalistic people to rationalize their beliefs or ignore facts that refute their beliefs. Sometimes entirely new "facts" are created in elaborate schemes to support their beliefs.

Creationism is an example. Some conservative Christians believe that the Theory of Evolution is a threat to their pre-existing beliefs. Even though, objectively, a god could have used evolution to create humanity, that is not what creationists argue. They instead argue that almost 200 years of scientific study and the beliefs of the overwhelming majority of scientists in the world are somehow fraudulent. The science didn't suit the creationists' beliefs, so they created their own version of "science."

Another example is the American College of Pediatricians. The College was founded as a protest when the American Academy of Pediatrics decided to support adoption by gay couples. The American College of Pediatricians, which sounds like a reputable source, was founded to inject its "values" into science, while ignoring the science. Whether adoption by a gay couple harms or helps children should be decided by science, not political philosophy or religion. And now with organizations like this and the creationist groups, pointless confusion about what is real and what is actual science is sewn.

And here is an example of conservatives ignoring facts because they did not suit their previous beliefs that you can try out yourself. I recently learned that the idea of "going to heaven when you die" isn't really in the Bible. I've done some research and asked around, and apparently that's true. There are references to heaven and some similar ideas, but the belief that people's spirits go to heaven when they die sprang from old Catholic teachings, not the Bible. In fact, the Bible contradicts the idea that spirits go to heaven by saying people will stay in their graves until the judgment day.

"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." - Thessalonians 4:16-17

Of course, not surprisingly, you will find Bible scholars who rationalize that verse, such as one I read which said "the spirit goes to heaven, but the body rises when Christ returns." I guess that is literally a zombie Apocalypse.

Anyway, to a person who values rationality and things making sense, it seems clear that the Bible at least contradicts the idea that people go to heaven when they die, and it would seem, in a rational world, that those who claim to base their beliefs on the Bible would change their views when they learned one of their religious beliefs was not in the Bible. But go ahead and tell people that "going to heaven when you die" isn't in the Bible and let me know how many conservatives you convince.
Of course, all of us experience cognitive dissonance, and probably all of us rationalize irrational beliefs at some point or other. Many conservatives just take it to an absurd degree because too often, their pre-existing beliefs are based on what their parents taught them, religion and other traditions. And traditions, while comfortable and accepted, are not often based on rationality and even when they are, they are often based on a situation that no longer exists.

It's like a dog that waits by the front doorstep for its owner every afternoon after work, but even after the owner dies, the dog keeps waiting by the doorstep.
And even though the average middle schooler knows more about the world than many of the authors of our ancient texts, people continue to believe everything written in their particular favorite book is true. And this staunch belief not only stands in the way of compassion, in some ways it perverts what compassion is there.

For instance, those who use the Bible's opposition to homosexuality to endorse conversion therapy, which is when people try to "pray the gay away" and force homosexuals to not be gay, even though the science tells us that doesn't work. In their minds, proponents of conversion therapy think they are saving young people from gayness. Instead, the rest of us realize they are doing great harm to young people already dealing with a psychologically difficult situation.

And sure, there are Bible verses that oppose homosexuality, but people have used the Bible to justify their wrong and hateful beliefs for centuries. The Southern Baptist Convention was formed due to a dispute with its northern brothers over slavery, which the Bible is at least permissive of. When the Ten Commandments say "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's manservant or maidservant" it's not talking about butlers and French maids. In Ephesians 6:5, Jesus apparently commands slaves to obey their masters. In the 1800s Southern land owners routinely used the Bible to justify slavery.

Morality has evolved as society has evolved. We now know that slavery is evil. We now value women as equals instead of property. We are coming to realize that two people loving each other and harming no one should be accepted in our society, but we're facing opposition from the forces of tradition and tribal instinct. Eventually, beating children with belts and paddles will be recognized as child abuse in our society, but I guarantee you, the major obstacle to that realization will be people waving the Bible and saying "spare the rod, spoil the child."

And even though this seems like I am picking on conservatives and Christians, that isn't my intention. There are great people who are conservatives. Most of my friends are Christians, and many of them are great people. Religion can bring people happiness and fulfillment and greatly benefits the world in many ways.
But conservatism, and to a large extent its connection with religion, stand as a barrier to compassion and rationality, and it keeps us constantly divided between those lobbying for progressive values of compassion and reason against those standing by traditional and religious values. To some extent this is good, because it keeps us from progressing too fast, and that is a fact we liberals should not dismiss out of hand, especially when we stand on the precipice of descending into a state that is more similar to the brutal, tribal past than the shining, Utopian future of which we all dreamed.

And why are we so close to degenerating as a society? Because there is profit to be made in deepening our natural divisions and sharpening those edges where our conflicts meet.

To be continued.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

America is Sick, Part II: An Arena for Arguments


(This is a continuation of an essay examining the many ills of American society, as I see them, and hopefully some solutions to them as well).

If you use social media, you may have noticed Facebook and other social media are often filled with arguments. Even before Facebook and Twitter and comments sections on news sites turned the internet into an arena for arguments, the rise of specialized sites allowed fringe beliefs to flourish. People were able to find like-minded racists, chem-trail conspiracy theorists, believers in ceremonial magic, or whatever. Even though finding people with common interests can be good, not all interests are good, and no interests should be allowed to dominate at the exclusion of all others.

This was a step toward division, not unison.

A brief series of attempts to correct the outlandish things that one of my oldest friends said on Facebook only led to arguments, so I stopped attempting to refute people's posts, no matter how lunatic they seemed. Only if something is factually and provably incorrect and directly contributing to the dumbing down of society will I post a link to a fact check site refuting it, and of course, no one ever thanks me for that because we like to "shoot the messenger."

In essence, I decided to no longer argue on Facebook.

As someone whose religious and political views would be well accepted in Scandinavia but not so much in the over-hanging beer belly of the Bible Belt, I tend to post some things my Facebook acquaintances have found objectionable. This has led to some rather debilitating and pointless arguments. This led me to being extremely reluctant to express myself on a format which is supposed to be ideal for expressing yourself.

It seems to me that people will say things on the internet that they would never say in person, probably stemming from when most comments were made anonymously. Civility and basic politeness and decency seem to erode on the internet, and I think that may be carrying over into the rest of society.

Imagine if elementary or high school teachers allowed their students to argue with them. It would be chaos. If we're arguing, we're not learning anything except how to argue better.

So recently, I had an idea. I decided to specifically disallow arguments on some of my posts. We all have full editorial control of our Facebook pages. If we find a response disagreeable to one of our posts, we can remove it.

So, on three of my posts now, I have asked people not to argue, and so far, people have abided by my request and I haven't had to delete one response, for which I am thankful. (In fact, since asking people not to argue on some posts, no one has argued on any posts I've made, but that may just be coincidence.)

One of the posts in which I asked for no arguments was about as inflammatory as I can imagine, and I used it as sort of a social experiment. One of my friends posted a link to an article about a scientific study that found that the more religious people are the more racist they tend to be. In the original post, at least one person argued against the study, accusing it of bias, when clearly the bias rested with the person protesting against the article and not with the objective scientific study.

But more and more I realize that no matter how convincing information is, someone will argue based on their pre-existing beliefs, and when they argue, they set themselves up in an adversarial position to the information and therefore will learn nothing from it.

And there was a lesson to be learned from the study. The study revealed that when a congregation was made of mixed races, members of the congregation tended to be less racist, although mixed race congregations were rare. A wise person might take that information and decide to take steps to end the voluntary segregation of many churches in an attempt to curtail any racist tendencies.

So, I decided to post a link to the study, and again I asked people not to argue. Remarkably, they didn't, and instead, I thought there was a fruitful, civil discussion in which new ideas were offered. I learned more, the others who commented learned more, and hopefully, even those who disagreed and did not post a response processed the information and maybe even they learned something from it.

Since then, I've seen one of my friends post about a possibly controversial subject and he asked people not to argue. The result was a fruitful, civil discussion without arguments, and personally, I shared views I might have kept to myself if he had not asked for civility, which made me feel safe to express my opinion without worry of being attacked and needing to defend myself.

I call on you to do the same. Don't be afraid to post something you know will be inflammatory, but when you do, ask people politely not to argue. You may be surprised at the results, you'll help to reinforce civility, and you may find yourself feeling more freedom to express yourself.

Arguing deepens the divisions in our society, but it is not the sole problem with the internet and social media. The overuse of memes has reduced human thought and political discourse to a war of bumper stickers.

I really wonder how many people today get their political knowledge from these one or two sentence posters people place on Facebook. Even worse, some people probably get their political information from people who get their political information from Facebook memes in a form of watered down ignorance.

I call on all Facebook users to stop posting memes related to the subjects of politics, philosophy or religion. If you want to post a funny cat photo with a caption or a meme making fun of a movie, go right ahead, but memes about serious subjects are making us stupid. Instead, post links to articles or at least videos which give a more nuanced and thorough examination of the subjects you hold dear.

And if you absolutely must post memes, make them yourself! Posting someone else's political meme is just spreading propaganda. Try having an original thought!
Facebook and other social media could be a great tool for sharing ideas and learning, but currently it is largely the opposite, but we can choose to change how we use it.

Unfortunately, much of the damage is already done. We're already at war with ourselves. As this essay continues, I'll examine who profits from the cavernous divisions in our society, and how they use those divisions against us.

Monday, March 7, 2016

America is Sick, Part I: Cognitive Dissonance


America is sick.

I mean that there is an illness in American culture. Three years ago, I was hopeful about the future and held a positive attitude about my nation. I even wrote a newspaper column refuting those who believed the times were so woeful. But over the past two years, I have seen that belief that our society was an improvement on the past completely dissolve.

There have been three main factors in my change in attitude: The often ignorant and argumentative nature of American society, the aggravated, festering status of race relations in this country, and the US presidential race which continues to embarrass us all.
I have always wanted to solve America's ills, even when I thought they were fewer. Now, that desire to fix our society borders on obsession. And in the past month, a variety of factors have led me to a greater understanding of our collective psychological disorders.

Sadly, despite this new enlightenment, I doubt I am any closer to finding an antidote to our many poisons.

How we think
I see America, people in general, in a new and fascinating light because of Cobra Commander. That may sound crazy, but it is the truth. Cobra Commander is a fictional comic book character, the leader of the Cobra organization based on the 1980s GI Joe toys. About a month ago, I read a comic in which Cobra Commander explained the concept of cognitive dissonance to a soldier he was trying to convince to betray GI Joe.
I'll admit that I didn't really understand the Commander's speech about cognitive dissonance, so I looked it up. That's when my view of human behavior really started to expand.

Cognitive dissonance is a big pair of words that essentially mean "mental discomfort." According to Wikipedia, the technical definition is "In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas or values at the same time, performs an action that is contradictory to one or more beliefs, ideas or values, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas or values."

A good example of the concept is illustrated by the Aesop fable "The Fox and the Grapes" where a fox wants to eat some grapes hanging from a tree, but he can't reach them, so he decides that he didn't want the grapes at all, even though he obviously did. In this form, resolving cognitive dissonance is a lot like rationalizing. Oddly named, rationalizing happens when we want something to be true and then create apparently rational reasons for our emotional wants to be true.

I at first thought about these ideas in terms of my own life. I had decided I was happy with my own state in life, at a low paying job with a small audience for my writing, because I had convinced myself I didn't want to be successful, as moronic as that may seem. Another example is how I had convinced myself that I don't want a relationship because my past attempts at romance had ended so disastrously. I decided I didn't want the "sour grapes" of success or romance.

But then I thought more deeply about the subject. Cognitive dissonance is when someone believes in two contradictory beliefs, and our minds unconsciously correct that imbalance by favoring one belief over the other.

In my case, on the surface, I saw that I had resolved my desire for romantic partnership and my exhaustion with being emotionally damaged by my pursuit of romantic partnership by deciding that I no longer wanted romance. But it went far deeper than that.

When I did pursue romance, I was just that: Romantic, but to a sappy, overbearing degree. I wrote poems and songs and tended to fall very deeply in love without good reason. Conversely, I was rarely overtly sexual. This too was an example of cognitive dissonance being resolved. I grew up in a sexually regressive society in the South, and due to that and my upbringing, I resolved the conflict of my "dirty" desires with my beliefs about proper behavior by channeling my sexuality into an obsessive form of sappy romanticism.

But then, don't most people do this in some form? How many teenagers and young adults "fall in love" when a more accurate description would be "fall in lust" with each other? How many marriages were started when someone convinced themselves that they loved each other due to a pregnancy? Even a mother's love might be explained as someone feeling the same protective instincts as a mother rabbit or other animal, but rationalizing those feelings into "love" because we don't like to think of ourselves as creatures so beholden to instinct.

But we are. And if you feel uncomfortable now that I seemed to suggest your mother doesn't really love you, guess what you are experiencing? Cognitive dissonance.

But don't worry, her love is real; it's just the name we give to the instincts.

In fact, the more I thought about cognitive dissonance, I realized that only fear and instinct likely motivate us more than resolving cognitive dissonance. And the ways we handle fear and instinct seem to be intimately connected with it. We rationalize our fears. We rationalize our instincts.

When we feel embarrassed when someone brags on us, that awkwardness we feel is cognitive dissonance at someone else's words not matching our own self image. The self confident are not ashamed to be bragged on because there is no conflict.

A strange aspect of cognitive dissonance studies is that often when someone asks you to do a favor, you end up liking them more. Because you did something nice for them, you rationalize your behavior and decide that you must have liked them to do them a favor.

The opposite is also true. I experienced this recently when I ordered some pizza from a local restaurant. I tried to pay with a $100 bill, but the cashier told me they didn't accept $100 bills, so I had to leave, get change and come back. When I returned, I was more than a little annoyed, and even though she was the one who inconvenienced me, I could tell the cashier had decided she didn't like me. Rather than feel guilt for doing me wrong, I believe she decided, on some level, that I deserved it.

If you're getting a picture of what cognitive dissonance is, you're starting to understand it like I believe I do. It is shame. It is guilt. It leads to love and leads to hate. Almost everything we feel and do is related to this concept.

But one thing it does not do is lead to rational beliefs and behavior. What this all means is that we are not rational creatures at all.

Why we argue
A few months ago, on Facebook, I posted a video link of the famous evolutionary biologist Dr. Richard Dawkins explaining why creationist arguments against evolution are invalid. I now realize the resulting backlash was predictable, but it took me completely off-guard.

I spent the better part of a day arguing with people about the theory of evolution. I was shocked that people could so readily presume that their obviously emotion- and faith-based opinions superseded almost 200 years of scientific research by some of the most intelligent people to ever walk our planet.

The arguments left me disillusioned to some extent with society, and damaged my opinion of humanity as a whole. That wound in large part led to my angst and deepened desire to fix society. That too is a form of cognitive dissonance, the conflict of my idea that society should be rational with the simple fact that it isn't.

Have you ever corrected someone who said something factually incorrect? Or been corrected yourself? In a rational world we would thank someone for correcting us, but instead we want to "shoot the messenger" don't we?

If we were rational, people would be much easier to convince with facts. Because facts often create cognitive dissonance with pre-existing beliefs, it is usually only those who place value in being rational, in things making sense, that facts will convince.
Evolution is an example. Evolution is considered by the overwhelming majority of scientists to be scientific fact, but many religious people see evolution as a threat to their faith, so they desperately seek justification for their religious beliefs, because that faith is more important to them than rationality.

But it is not limited to religious beliefs. Politics is rife with cognitive dissonance-related rationalization, too.Often people like a candidate and then they find justification for their support, rather than deciding which candidate to support based on the facts. Many political beliefs are wholly irrational and I've recently learned that is to some extent by design, but that is a subject for later chapters.

People will refuse to believe their loved one committed a crime or that their husband cheated on them. People will convince themselves their lottery ticket is a winner. People allow themselves to be conned by con artists or that a psychic can see their future. All these things are evidence that many, maybe even most people value emotion over reason.

Obviously, this has a great deal to do with people's tendency to be argumentative, but let's go deeper. Even those who value reason over emotion start fights. We see something we disagree with posted on Facebook, and whether we give into the temptation or not, we want to correct people. That temptation, perhaps all temptation, is a form of cognitive dissonance.

We believe something and we see that someone else believes the opposite. Those conflicting ideas must be resolved, and though much cognitive dissonance resolution occurs internally, it often becomes externalized when we see someone else as a threat to our pre-existing beliefs. We try to convince them of what we see as the truth, and failing that, we often try to belittle our debate opponents. Sometimes it even turns to violence.

But because people tend to favor their pre-existing beliefs, argument is usually fruitless. Even people like me who value rationality, perhaps to a fault, will often resist being convinced in the midst of the argument only to later process and sometimes accept the ideas of the person with whom I was arguing.

In fact, arguments and debates I think actually increase the chance that someone will not accept someone's ideas. People see an arguer as a threat, and they become more entrenched in their own ideas. And sometimes someone arguing with you will lead you to disagree with beliefs you once agreed with. For instance, I was once sympathetic to Libertarian views until I was attacked and called a "statist" on Facebook by Libertarians for my own views, and I now see them as the type of people who say that government doesn't produce anything worthwhile on the internet created by the government.

Of course, due to specialized web sites, comments sections and social media the internet is a major problematic factor with the argumentative nature of modern society, but I will address that later.

Going back to how hard it is to convince someone, think about how hard it is to get someone to like something. Have you ever tried to introduce someone to a band or a TV show you like and encountered resistance? Only when someone wants to impress you do they readily accept suggestions for things to like, I believe.

This is some instinctual form of suspicion, I believe, and we activate that same form of defense when we argue with others. People like to "discover" things for themselves, and when they do, I think something similar happens as when someone likes someone who asked them to do them a favor. If they discover something on their own, such as someone picking up a book on evolution perhaps, they more readily accept its points because they rationalize that they must agree with its points or else why would they be reading it.

We tend to avoid reading things we know we disagree with for similar reasons, I believe, and frankly, I'm surprised you've reached this point in this essay. But there's much more to come.

To be continued.

Friday, March 4, 2016

Trump's Tower


March 4, 2016.

I wish I was a stand-up comedian today.

I don't know if you heard, but last night, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump assured the crowd at a nationally televised debate that his "little fella" wasn't so little at all. That means the Donald Jr. was probably the fifth biggest dick on the stage last night.

Already twice this week, Trump has backtracked on things he's said. First, he had to announce that he doesn't support the Ku Klux Klan. Then, he changed his mind about torture and killing the families of terrorists. How long till he's saying his junk isn't as jumbo as he had us believe?

Obviously, this guy has some issues with the size of his manhood, which would explain why he wants to put his name on so many skyscrapers. Is this someone we really want in charge of nuclear missiles?

Imagine a general walking in and telling him, "Mr. President, Kim Jong Un said you have snubby fingers." "Oh yeah?" (*whistling sound and then a big explosion*)

I never thought the size of someone's manhood was a qualification for president, although that might explain some of America's voting record, and also why we elected folks named Johnson, Dick and Jimmy all in a row.

Seriously, by his reasoning, porn stars are more qualified than Trump to be president.

Then again, porn stars are more qualified than Trump to be president.

Now, if you found any of this vulgar, remember that last night the front-runner for president of the United States talked about these subjects in front of millions of people. I don't think I'm the one who crossed the line.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Musings


These are some of the musings I've made in the past few years (actually mostly from the past year):

  • "I've always believed in fighting for the rights of minorities, but I never knew that "sensible people" would be a minority whose rights I would need to fight for."

  • In response to a blizzard hitting the east coast: "Most of the east coast looks like that scene from Star Wars Episode VIII where Finn slices open the tauntaun on the snow planet."

  • "Those who need to learn the most are those who want to learn the least."

  • "My life is like a word search puzzle where I look for Happiness and all I find is Pines."

  • "If right now the world was as good as it possibly can get Facebook would still be full of complaints."

  • In response to the 2015 refugee crisis and Georgia's initial reaction: "Our governor just announced that no one in the state will be allowed to own pets until we can prove that none of them are rabid. He also announced that only people who can prove they are responsible gun owners can own guns... wait, no he didn't."

  • "Conservatives are traditionalists, so they tend to be drawn to the prevailing religion of their community and culture. In this country, there are conservatives who choose Christianity for this reason. I call them conservative first. Then there are those who are Christians who are attracted to conservative politics because conservative politicians tend to wrap themselves in the beliefs of the prevailing religion. Here, I call them Christian first. But there are times, many of them actually but rarely as obvious as now, when conservatism is at odds with the beliefs of the prevailing religion, and that is when you see whether someone is a Christian first or a conservative first. So here's the test: If you think that turning away desperate middle eastern people fleeing from horrible circumstances is the Christian thing to do, then congratulations, you are a conservative first."

  • "When are people going to stop being offended by people being offended all the time?"

  • "Now starting for the Atlanta Braves: No one you've ever heard of."

  • "If you hear a politician say he isn't a politician then not only is he a politician but he is actively being a politician as he says it."

  • "When someone defeats you, don't make them your enemy; make them your teacher."

  • "I love conspiracy theories. They're very entertaining. Unfortunately, they're usually not true. For instance, if the government was as slick as conspiracy theorists seem to think, we would have found WMDs in Iraq."

  • "My favorite character on the Walking Dead is the gritty survivor who doesn't talk much."

  • "Be careful when you build a wall. The wall you build to keep others out may be the wall that keeps you imprisoned."

  • "Sadness is coming home at 11 p.m. and realizing you never ate supper, you're out of food and all the stores are closed. Happiness is realizing, after an hour of hungering, that you have an unopened bag of chips and dip that you forgot about."

  • In response to the Trump vs. Fox News war: "On the bright side, at least Trump is turning a lot of people against Fox News. There is hope for the future!"

  • "For those of you who oppose political correctness, I'm wondering what it is you would like to say that you feel society is keeping you from saying."

  • "Where do all these memes come from? I only see them on Facebook. Are there people who search sites all day for them? How are you ever going to have an original thought if you're treating wisdom as something you can print on a T-shirt?" (while I say things that are about as wise as most memes that could easily be printed on a T-shirt).

  • "The term 'class warfare' gets thrown around a lot lately. When you hear it from someone telling you it is bad or speaking of it negatively, know that you are hearing propaganda. If you are telling people we need to avoid class warfare, know that you are spreading propaganda. We are already and always have been in the midst of class warfare. Here's the proof: In America, we aren't supposed to have any classes. But we do. We have aristocrats without titles and paupers who think they are kings. Until there are no classes in America, we are not only in the midst of class warfare, we're losing the battle."

  • "Chance of shark attack in the ocean: 0.0000000001 percent. Chance of shark attack on land: 0 percent. It's settled. I'm staying on land."

  • "Some people try to pour the ocean into a box. Others let the box float in the ocean."

  • Early in the 2015-2016 American presidential race: "I would like to announce my candidacy for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. I figure why not. Everyone else is doing it."

  • "I've been without the internet for two days, and it reminded me of when I quit smoking, but instead of the recurring urge to smoke, it was the recurring urge to look up useless trivia on Wikipedia."

  • This is my favorite song lyric I've ever written, from the song "Genevieve": "This little pig wants to go home with you, but no, 'cause there won't be a we." (I also like "Umbrellas, this fella, have the shelter you can hold onto" from the same song).

  • "This country has a black and white problem, and I'm not talking about skin color. I'm talking about the "you're either with us or against us" mentality. I'm talking about how we handle every issue like we're high schoolers on a debate team, taking a side and only presenting the facts which support our opinions while attacking the other side and ignoring the facts which support it. As an example, America is the country that saved Europe's butt during World War II and also the country that recently killed two innocent hostages in a drone strike. It's a great country in many ways, but it's not perfect. But instead of having rational discussions about how we can improve on our mistakes or even celebrate our victories, we have people waving flags and walking on them. I would love to vote for a candidate who speaks honestly about the benefits and drawbacks of all sides of an issue and then clearly explains why he chose his side. I would vote for him, or her, even if I disagreed. Even if I'm guilty of thinking in black and white too often myself."

  • "I was playing an online video game once, and told someone "Your ears must have been burning." They didn't understand, so I said "It must be an American thing." She said "I'm American." I said, "It must be a Southern thing." She said "I'm from the south." I said, "What state?" She said "Texas." I said, "It must be a Georgia thing" because I didn't have the heart to tell her Texas isn't included in the area I consider to be the South."

  • "Who else remembers going to presentations in school where they would warn us about Satanic cults and how the devil wanted to steal our souls through heavy metal music? I'm sure a lot of you. Remember when the folks who were in charge (aka parents, school administrators, the media and other adults) apologized to us for being hysterical morons and making us paranoid and terrified about something that was just a run-of-the-mill moral panic? Me neither."

  • "Happy Name A Day After Some Obscure Subject Day!"

  • In response to Rand Paul accusing a Today Show anchor of editorializing: "Journalists are supposed to ask tough questions. Don't let politicians trick you into being sympathetic toward them when they get questions they don't like."

  • "These are the sorts of things I think about: There is an upper limit to how large creatures on Earth on land can be. At least I think I read that somewhere. For instance, a crab the size of the Georgia Dome might collapse under its own weight (but that's just a guess). So, I thought, what if our gravity was weaker than it is, would we have larger creatures. So, what if aliens on a planet with weak gravity visited and were just enormous. Then, I thought about the opposite. What if we were visited by aliens from a planet with very strong gravity and they were all the size of squirrels. They would be small, but proportionally they would probably be much stronger and more hardy than we are. To them, they would be able to leap like we can on the moon. Imagine... hobbits with most of the powers of Spider-Man. We wouldn't stand a chance."

  • "The next time you hear someone complaining about President Obama being an America-hating socialist (which he's probably not), tell them this interesting fact: The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist. Seriously. Who could make this up?"

  • "You know what's worse than accidentally sending an e-mail to yourself? Replying to it."

  • "Those who choose to do nothing, still choose."

  • "If someone walks a mile in someone else's shoes, they should avoid the cliffs."

  • "You can't accuse someone of being pretentious without being pretentious yourself."

  • "Paranoia is the dark side of imagination."

  • "I must want to be a teacher of things no one wants to learn."

Saturday, February 20, 2016

The Contents of Facebook


To save what sanity I have left and stop being angry so often, I stopped following those people who are always complaining about people with different skin colors than theirs, those who splatter Facebook with nonsensical political memes and those who think animals have psychic powers... and now my Facebook feed is as boring as watching paint dry.
So here are the things I see people sharing on Facebook:
They share good news, their good news,  which, if they said it out loud would be called bragging. Send that stuff to the newspaper. We'll do the bragging for you.
Then there are people who ask for prayers on Facebook so they can get attention without earning it, and then there's the people who say "Prayers please, God knows the need" which really means "Send me a private message so I can share the gossip." But that's all OK. What's really bad is those who ask for prayers, then go ahead and tell everyone the gossip, when the gossip is actually about someone else who would have asked for prayers themself but they didn't want everyone in their business.
Some people post funny videos and memes, but they only make me laugh if they feature funny-faced cats or dogs. Then there are fail videos, which are collections of people failing at attempting to do things spectularly, from cliff diving to riding down hills in shopping carts. Those are funny, too, and often painful looking, but no one ever offers prayers for them.
There are constantly happy birthday wishes but that's because Facebook constantly nags us to remember so that the owners of Facebook can pretend that Facebook has any positive effect on society.
Mothers post photos of their kids, and these get an inordinate amount of likes, mostly by mothers who want other mothers to like photos of their kids. Mothers post photos of their kids doing anything, which they sometimes accurately think are cute. Fathers usually only post photos of their kids doing sports or shooting things.
Then there are the ultra-political people who post political memes or make political statements which incite arguments with other ultra-political people which causes everyone to get angry and accomplishes nothing while the non-political people they hope to convince ignore them and ask for prayers for themselves or post photos of their kids when they should be asking for prayers for all the angry political folks or making fail videos of the political folks failing at convincing others to believe what they believe.
All of these posts, especially the gossipy ones, generate dozens or hundreds of likes, by the way.
And then there are my music videos which I invested time, emotion and a great deal of thought into creating, and they get no likes at all.