What Arch Has been Doing on his Summer Vacation

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Not a whole lot, that's what.

As you might know, I do a weekly radio show on WXPI 88.5 about classical music.  This weekend's show will be a retrospective of the past year, because I have been doing this show for just exactly 52 weeks.  I have 34 shows on my hard drive, so it must mean that I have created new material for two out of every three shows.  (The others were either repeats, or shows done automatically --from my own music, but at random, and without announcement-- by the Station computer.)

It just so happens that the Station's own Birthday Bash is going to be tonight, for which we have invited Rick Smith, whose syndicated radio show is a centerpiece of the talk show offerings of WXPI 88.5.  Rick has been interviewing everyone who has anything to do with our station, while I was away in Massachusetts, helping out with my retired Uncle and Aunt, who have trouble getting about and doing the things that have to be done even by Seniors in Massachusetts, such as recycling their plastic, hauling their own trash to the dump, doing the grocery shopping, getting back the laundry from the dry cleaners, etc.

You might not have realized that my wife and I do not have TV.  In our locality, there are practically no TV stations you can get off the air, and we don't have cable, so we do not get bombarded with the usual nonsense you get on cable TV.  But my relatives in Massachusetts do, so while I'm there, I am subjected to all the propaganda that I usually manage to evade out here:  America's Got Talent, and 700 Club, and Freedom and Faith Symposium, and Pledge Week for WGBH.  Beam me up, Scotty; there's very little intelligent life out here, especially when the Federal government cuts funding for Public Radio and TV.

I have been invited for a brief interview with Rick Smith, and I'm wondering what on earth I can talk about.  On my radio program, of course, I try to avoid talking about politics, simply because so much of the talk on our station is about local politics.  It is sad that today, very few voices on the radio talk politics with much sense.  Rick Smith is one of the few people who, with Jon Stewart (who is about to retire from The Daily Show) and Rachel Maddow, who are able to give good news analysis undistracted by media disinformation and misdirection.  For ordinary people today, who do not have a very strong background in politics or international news and information (unfiltered by US media), espousing a political position is rather a matter of faith and prejudice, very much like religious belief.  The problems with people of faith, both religious faith and political faith, is that it too often degenerates into prejudice and dogma.  Once your politics become prejudice and dogma, TV commentary, even if accurate and reasonable, only tends to confirm our political beliefs.  I'm a little less succeptible to this problem, simply because I have been politically aware for forty years, and the low-budget propaganda of modern TV and the Internet is easy to see through, though, of course, what's happening out in the world outside the US is hard to know, because all the news is filtered.  It is laughable for the US to oppose censorship in foreign countries, when there is effective censorship right here in River City.  (That's a 'The Music Man' joke.)

One fascinating thing I saw on TV was the gathering somewhere in Washington D.C. I believe, where the Republican presidential hopefuls got to talk about their religious beliefs.  Most of them talked perfect nonsense, but some of them were able to sound a little more intelligent than the rest, notably Bobby Jindal of Louisiana.  But even he did not make complete sense.  Bobby Jindal railed at Mrs Michelle Obama for her views about school lunches.  He said that he (B. Jindal) would be glad to supervise how many sweets his children eat —a dig at Michelle Obama's interest in children's nutrition— if the Obamas got behind Big Energy, and allowed them to expand their operations, to provide jobs for starving millions.

Unfortunately when Big Energy is allowed to do their thing, they provide jobs only for their own folk from Texas, Louisiana, Alaska, and other states where oil drilling has historically taken place.  The total number of sustainable jobs available for Pennsylvanians has been small; you can check out an analysis here:  Has shale drilling really created Pennsylvania Jobs?   Judging from the number of Texas, Louisiana and Alaska license plates we see, fellows from those states are certainly being hired to work on Pennsylvanian gas drilling sites.

So Brother Bobby is telling his own people what they like to hear.  It will be quite another thing to persuade swing voters, without whose votes no Republican can hope to be President, that the Democrats should be criticized for not supporting Big Energy.  Even such ostriches as Lindsey Graham have conceded that climate change is occurring, and that even if humans were not responsible for bringing it upon us, humans can certainly influence the rate at which it happens.

Why are conservatives waffling about climate change?  Because nobody pays attention in science class.  People have gotten used to only paying attention to things that they like already.  Starting from kindergarten, kids take a "OK, you may wow me now, or let me entertain myself with things I like already" attitude.  Of course, there are some young people out there who are more open to new ideas and information, and are able to assess the value of these things, but they are a minority.

Another thing that worries me is that few people are able to put themselves in the place of somebody else, to see something from the point of view of someone else.  This is a very basic kind of empathy.  It is easy to imagine the feelings of someone exactly like ourselves, in some painful circumstance, and empathize.  It is much, much harder to imagine what it feels like to be black in South Africa, or to be white in Alabama (unless you are white, in Alabama, of course).  It is almost impossible to imagine what it must feel like to be a black president in the White House.  It is education that makes this sort of empathy possible, and a thousand blessings on grade school teachers who go out of their way to encourage this kind of imagination among their pupils.

This is why education in the US is so important from so many points of view, and I mean K-12 education.  Unfortunately, K-12 education in the US suffers hugely, in turn, from the weaknesses of college education, which suffers hugely from lack of government support.  As long as the employment picture is bleak, parents will naturally cling to "Education as a means to employment", in contrast to "Education as a means to relate to society."  Society needs the latter, whereas individuals need the former.  As long as conservatives sneer at "losers who can't find work," and at liberals who "stand in the way of energy independence, which is the road to increasing employment for everyone," US society will spiral into uninformed paranoia.  Remember: making energy cheaply available is not the only way to increase employment; it is the most damaging way.  Fiscal conservatives always pursue that elusive principle of "Let's ignore the environment for just 5 years, and get the economy going; once Wall Street is up and away, we can take a look at the environment, when we can do it without raising taxes on those poor Wall Street fellows."  Observe that it has been possible to increase employment significantly without handing out free gasoline.  Of course if the GOP comes in, Big Energy will jump in to lower gas prices, to encourage the illusion that Energy = Employment, and employment will temporarily improve.  Then, with luck, the GOP will lose an election, leaving the Democrats to try to deal with the environmental and economic consequences (and any wars that the GOP decides to subscribe to).  By then, of course, some of the more feeble-minded of the Democrat rank and file congressmen will be happy to be whipped into action by Big Business lobbyists, and offer pro-energy, pro-Business legislation, which will be promptly criticized by the GOP as "too little, too late," whereas, of course, it will be too much, too soon.

Our first line of attack has to be to make our own kids open to new ideas.  Then to make the kids in all our neighborhoods open to new ideas.  Bringing up kids takes a village, truly, but most of all it takes parents who know how important it is to keep the imaginations of young people open and engaged, and to train them to resist falling into easy pessimism.  Bringing up a child who is a robust, responsible citizen is very difficult today, but it is an obligation nobody, and certainly no parent, can walk away from.

Arch