Perversions and Perverts

The perversions of Amerikans frustrates me. Today there was a story on CNN (see link) referring to a “swinger” group that coerced children into having sex.

Rampant sexuality scares people; definitions are definitely in order!

  • Swinging is between consenting adults. Pedophilia is adults on children.
  • Swinging involves consenting adults. Children, by definition, cannot consent.
  • Swinging is between singles and couples. Pedophilia is sexual assault on a child.

Please, don’t anyone think I approve of swinging personally. IMHO, marriage is between consenting adults, for the purpose of entering into a long-term relationship with a loved one. Or several. And “swinging” is for fornication with (sometimes randomly selected) people with whom there isn’t such a relationship. Morally, ethically (and, if there are kids involved, as a parent) I object.

But swinging is not pedophilia. And trying to mix the two together perverts, a very basic level, grownup decisions, however misguided, with violent sexual assault on children.

The case is before the courts is about the rape, pedophilia and illegal acts committed by the Mineola Swinger’s Club, which clearly consists not of consenting adults, but sick child rapists. But the media, not making the distinction between ‘swingers’ and ‘pedophiles,’ commits a grave sin of omission. It’s the media’s sacred responsibility to tell the truth, even if it’s not socially or conventionally convenient. Swingers, open marriages, gays, lesbians, polyamous couples and others all exist in the real world. We might not all agree or believe in their legitimacy, but it’s a cruel punishment to besmirth a societally unpopular label with the grotesque tar of rape.

Shame, shame, shame!

May His Name be Blessed

I generally regard ‘News Fleas’ as being replaceable and generally irrelevant, but Tim Russert’s untimely death has thrown a wrench into my asinine assumption.

Each generation has its cadre of honest, blunt, frank and otherwise weatherbeaten tellers of truth. Tim was one of them, and, especially in this charged election year, he will be missed. Perhaps more than in decades past, where the differences between candidates were accented, rather than blurred, Mr. Russert was a speaker to power, and an honest reflection of the vaunted and villified ‘man on the street.’ He asked the questions we would never be able to phrase, given candidate management systems and infrastrutures build specifically to keep their lauded ‘chosen one’ from having to respond to the direct spear thrust of the honest question.

Tim spoke truth to power, and, like the Jewish “Ethics of the Fathers,” was the one who asked the blatant questions where others feared to go. We need more like him, even more now that he is gone.

Baruch Dayan Emet. And may God help us see the truth from the lies this fall.

2B, or not 2B: Work permits are the question

H-1B visas, which permit foreign professionals of various ilks to work legally in the US, were all issued by late winter. H-2B visas, essentially created for migrant farm laborers, were sunset when Congress let a key provision lapse.

Let’s consider the implications:

  • We have national shortages of doctors, nurses and all manner of technical professionals. For example, HMOs have squashed the profitability out of these careers. $60,000 is a lot of money, but for the work a nurse must do for years to reach that lofty number, it’s almost better to get into sales, or something equally less messy and regimented. $60k for someone from the Philipines or Pakistan is a huge boon: for people with a work ethic, this means they can support entire extended families back home. That’s not a slam: even accounting for the weak dollar, the standard of living in these countries is much lower than for the United States.
  • Picking grapes or tomatoes is back-breaking work. For the extremely low pay proffered, only people who can’t flip burgers, greet people at Wal*Mart, or wrangle carts at the grocery story would apply. To say nothing of the gas bill they’d incur just getting to and from the farms.

Americans are supposed to have choices, and our alleged free market system currently gives more choices to people in hedge funds, finance and arcane niche careers. For the millions worried about their chances of enjoying their old age, the current economic climate does not, to say the least, bode well.

Refunds and Recipients

Let’s do a little math, shall we? Uncle Sam, in the name of “economic stimulation,” is giving each of us $600, plus $300 per child, of our own money back, to help pull our economy back from the brink.

Let’s see where that goes…

Eighteen months ago gas prices in, oh, say Baltimore, were low. about $2.12 a gallon. That’s about the time agribusiness started spooling up for the great ethanol ripoff.

Price now: $3.55. So, assuming 12,000 miles a year, that’s 18,000 miles times. At an average of 21.9 MPG, that’s $1,060.27 more for the next 18 months, assuming (LOL) that the price of gas won’t rise any more.

That’s the big gorilla. For those of you not afflicted with a car, here’s a small one:

Got Milk? Got Money? According to a NY Daily News article in January, milk prices are up 36% year-to-year. So what was $3.18 is now $4.41. I guess it’s a good thing we’re using less of it, since cows are eating corn that would otherwise be used for ethanol.

Makes a great case for breastfeeding and leaving it at that, only the cost of soybeans has also risen, due to the diversion of acreage to growing corn for ethanol instead of food. But these are trivial rises.

Bottom line: the $1,800 a family of four (with two cars) would receive from the government’s economic stimulus package melts, just opposite the $2,120 in additional cost just from gas increases, not to mention all the other food and essential goods increases.

So if someone wants to stimulate the economy, I have the following suggestions:

  1. Stop making ethanol from corn. It’s increasing food prices all over the world, and competing with feed corn for livestock and milk production.
  2. Put negative price pressure on the cost of a barrel of oil. Price increases are a function of purchase of oil on the spot market; refineries and distributors peg their increases to them.
  3. Oil companies are engaging in profiteering. While Libertarians might rejoice in this exercise of the free market at work, it puts an incredible burden on those of us who depend on this liquid for our lives. Trucks, trains, planes, automobiles, generators… you know, civilization as Americans like it? If an electric trading company decided it wanted to play with the cost of electricity… oh, wait: Enron! Anyone seeing this? ExxonMobil’s excessive profits are at the cost of the entire US economy, and if the government really wants to loosen the pressure on it’s citizenry, getting prices audited and under control is a big deal. (And before anyone talks about price control, realize that cutting Strategic Reserves oil stocks loose is a direct form of price control as well.)

Well? What are you doing sitting around? Go and tell people!

Teen Sex Here!

The blogosphere and the press, even the former Grey Lady, are atwitter with pictures of Hannah Montana’s naked back on Vanity Fair. And references to her wearing a green bra that was visible under her shirt. Compare this to the ability for the public — anyone in the public — to see girls or women with backs naked but for a single strand of fabric for the back of a bikini top. This isn’t even about sexy — except in the way in which visual innuendo inflames minds.

I’m not sure what disturbs me more: parents that give their children up to be sexualized and prostituted by the mass media, or the corporations that pimp out underaged children and then, mortified by their sexualization, make even more money on the rebound.

The Spears’ clan? Multiple children.

Compare this to the way the Jackson Five were “exploited.” Or the Partridge Family. How did the child cast of “Sound of Music” work their teenage lives?

Sure, kids in the spotlight have been around since well before Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. And child actors have self-destructed because of the glare of the limelight — or the demons lurking in the shadows. But the machinery and money around children, along with the dual fascination for sexy tweens and concurrent prurience around sex, make for a toxic environment for children with the lethal combination of talent and good — or at least well marketed — looks.

The Golden Compass Can’t Find North

As a firm disbeliever in anything dogmatic, and one who rarely takes things “on faith,” I initially snorted at the Catholic League’s well-reasoned denouncement of The Golden Compass. (Okay, the trailer, with a sinuous Nicole Kidman and very impressive graphics also more than held my interest.)

I read the first book, then saw the movie. Then read the other two books.

Cinematically, the movie of the first book in the Dark Matter trilogy is badly reminiscent of the Harry Potter movies. If you haven’t read the book, the movie barely skitters across the time alloted, and does not do the book (or the author) justice. It was clear that, aside from any well-publicized crises of angst by the director, that Hollywood definitely bent the book. Almost severed it (that’s an inside phrase, and a spoiler).

The second and third books of the Dark Matter trilogy definitely bear out the worries of those representing dogmatic, doctrinal religion. I can’t see Unitarians griping about it, but hierarchical religions should definitely see this as an attack not only of their system of governance, but on theism itself.

I have more objections to this series, aimed at children, than the Narnia books (to be fair, I’ve only read the first two in the series). In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one can choose to ignore the Christian references in the book: it’s a lion, pretty vs. ugly is a Hollywood prejudice, who cares how many days the lion lies injured/tortured… It’s not much different from Starman, which is much more the prototypical Christian story than even Narnia. But greatest stories ever told (whether the “original” was fiction or not) are common movie riffs.

In the Dark Matter trilogy, Pullman makes a cogent case against theism. It’s not just calling for deicide (killing of god) — it brings in negative stereotypes like the almost successful pederast priest and the essential evil of those charged with teaching morals. It mocks angels, portraying them as gentle, delicate, homosexual lovers.

There are many reasons to poke fun at religion, to question it, to question one religion over another. But Pullman’s books take the dark matter of theologic dogma to the edge — and then distastefully over it, to the level of ‘discourse’ similar to portraying Islam’s Mohammad with porcine qualities.

My only hope is that Hollywood manages to as effectively neuter the second and third movies as “well” as they did the first, since clearly this first movie was only a portent of things to come, and not a work that stands on its own — unlike even the least of the Harry Potter movies.

Teheran Victory and NIE Assumptions

Training Iraqi insurgents? Check.
Providing military hardware? Check.
Giving cover to Shi’ite extremists when folks come a’knockin’ at their door? Yup.
Nuke-u-lar bomb makers? Sez who?

The National Intelligence Estimate, released yesterday, provided fodder for almost every point of view in the Iran discussion. Almost all these compass points, however, are belaboring under self-imposed delusions.

The President and his sycophants showcased it as a success of their pressure, even though National Intelligence Estimate dates Iran’s cessation of activities to 2003, when the biggest threat was not a direct one to Iran, but a ‘flinch,’ in all probability, to the invasion of Iraq. I guess technically Bush is correct — but we can’t be in a constant state of war with Iran’s neighbors to expect good behavior from them.

Iran, of course, heralded this as a victory against the United States. But they probably heralded the insane Omaha mall killer as a strike against fascist Amerika, so his pronouncements are probably not worth heralding. This is also a great coup for them on the military front, since it deflects, in the fickle, ADD media world, Iran’s huge investment in destabilizing Afghanistan and arming and training Iraqi militants. So long as it’s not nuclear, it doesn’t count!

Bloggers, always keen to have fun, have added this to the list of reasons not to live in America. Silly, but accurate as far as it goes. America is imponderably puzzling to non-residents; it’s local, State and Federal laws ebbing, flowing and conflicting in an amazing, unpredictable rhythm.

Serious analysts have bemoaned America’s foreign policy towards Iran since before the uprising against the Shah. They are right in their plaints; Iran has been interfered with as long as every other country in the Middle East: since the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Infidel British.

The reality is that Iran is playing the spoiler in many fronts: Lebanon, Israel, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Where it can’t win, it can disrupt. Where it can’t disrupt, it can foment. And it will not change its stripes until the people, heretofore subdued, subjugated and scared into silence, raise their democratic voices and bring reason and logic, for which Persians have been known for millenia, back to their part of the Middle East.

More of the Same (when will it end?)

On one hand, Hizb’Allah rearms. Syria gets Russian missile systems so new even the Russian Army hasn’t received them for deployment. Hamas continues its pacification of the Gaza Strip, creating the path-of-no-return that American advisor Karl Rove so wanted to make, and failed, for his party.

On the other hand Israeli ministers continue to be put under criminal investigation for abuse of power, removing PLO terrorists from their wanted lists to appease the weak moderates in the West Bank, and continuing to pay a bare lip service in reining back Israeli fanatic ultra-nationalists, who get away with abuse and assault on Israeli soldiers and police at best, and foment insurrection within the ranks of the military at worst.

It’s true that the West has never learned how to truly deal with the Middle East (it’s much easier to work with a despot than a democracy in that part of the world). But Israel, with a population steeped in all the world’s cultures, has shown not to be the ‘light to the nations’ as it was charged in the bible, but yet another corrupt and in many cases morally bankrupt entity.

Perhaps. But Israel has not stooped to commit the evils proclaimed by many of its neighbors (and carried out by them). And Israeli’s as a people, have never stopped striving to embrace the idea that fixing the world is a core belief. Even if that requires overcoming the internal inertia that is modern Israel.

Copyright © 2005-2006 DaShlom. All Rights Reserved. Contact the author at dashlom (at) gmail dot com for reprinting and republishing or site linking requests.

British Counting Schemes

I’ll be the first to say, as a veteran of the first Intifada, that the Israeli Defense Forces have a problem no less pervasive than America’s Los Angeles or New York City’s police departments in terms of how they treat Palestinians. (I mention these two as those US departments manage populations of civilians larger than Israel does the West Bank, only with better trained officers.) This does not eliminate reporters (seems that this is my theme of the week) from reporting factual information.

For the information of any reporters, a squad is five-eleven soldiers. 3 squads to a platoon. 3 platoons to a company.

The BBC believes (apparently in consultation with J.K. Rowling, their military correspondent) that a company of soldiers fits in a taxi. To set the record straight, neither Israelis, nor Palestinians, have managed to magick vehicles to seat the minimum of 35 or so soldiers necessary to be involved in the reported incident, where an apparently innocent Palestinian was shot by Israeli troops.

No, I’m not making apologies for illegal actions: any Israeli soldier using lethal force against a civilian should be held criminally liable. And if more than one soldier is involved, then conspiracy charges and the appropriate investigation should be launched.

Of course, this presumes that there’s some kind of reality to the BBC’s claims. No Israeli news or government sites, at the time of this writing, point to this issue at all.

Copyright © 2005-2006 DaShlom. All Rights Reserved. Contact the author at dashlom (at) gmail dot com for reprinting and republishing or site linking requests.

The New Medical Privacy

I did a pre-employment drug test recently for a new position — my first drug test in my multi-decade career. I was past the indignance of my previous decade and the puzzlement I might have experienced the decade before that. After all, for all my ‘interesting’ background, drug use has been anathematic to my life. Not that it was anyone’s business but my own.

The company — Concerna — had an oozy enough name that I was somewhat tense coming in the door. Inside were over a dozen people. Some waiting for pre-employment drug screening, others for OSHA-injury analysis. Behind the counter was a highly proceduralized crew of people that reminded me of all those late-night “you too can be a medical industry professional” advertisements. Lots of on-the-spot training, scrubs on people that clearly didn’t use them, and a sense of grime all about the place. I didn’t sit in any of the rows of chairs. I guy in a 3-piece suit (very out of place in this part of the country) kept walking in and out of the back office area. Smug, with a little soul patch/landing strip kind of beard.

Clearly, I went in seeing baggage. I filled out the forms, then waited as they input them (asking me for the spelling of every field, as reading didn’t seem to be the clerk’s strong suite). Then they gave me some forms to sign. One of them read (paraphrased here), in large letters “Signing this cover letter means have read and accepted the terms of our privacy agreement.” I shuffled papers — didn’t see anything like that. I asked the person behind the counter where it was.

“Um, we have one if you’d like to read it.”

“Of course I want to read it,” I said, “you’re asking me to sign that I read it.”

She fought the filing cabinet for a couple of minutes, then came up with a form. “Here it is,” she said (mechanically) brightly.

“Do you often have people ask for the form?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, “all the time.”

If so, I’d guess she probably didn’t give it to ’em often. She didn’t know where it was.

I read the form. At no point did it mention the HIPAA acronym. Don’t get me wrong, HIPAA doesn’t mean your or my privacy is ensured. But at least there’s a nod to the processes and procedures involved.

I called the number for the privacy officer and got immediately bumped to voicemail. Pressed zero, then asked for the Concerna’s Privacy Officer. That led to a different voice mail. I left a message.

To Concerna’s credit (and this is a good thing), she did call me back within ten minutes.

“So, I had a question,” I said. “Are you HIPAA compliant?”

“What’s on the form details our privacy statement,” she said.

“Um, yeah, but are you HIPAA compliant?”

She paused. “We are reasonably compliant with HIPAA,” she said.

Knowing when to fold, as Kenny Rogers pointed it, is a good thing. The woman was upset that the lab didn’t give me the paper, or wanted me to sign without seeing it. She took down the number and location of the lab (“we have so many; I don’t know all of them,” she said) and promised a training update to get them up to speed.


There’s no point in trying to reason with ‘jack in the box’ medical labs. They sell a commodity service to employers, and location and price are the determinants. But to employers, caring about whether their employee information is private should be a priority. And “Concentra is reasonably compliant with HIPAA…and privacy regulations” (quote from their web site) is not, in my professional opinion, good enough.

HIPAA compliance either is or isn’t. It’s like 2/3 pregnant — comply with regulations, or fall short. My social security number, birth date and drivers license number are in the hands of a company that might or might not comply with Federally mandated regulations (pathetic, in light of identity theft).

Employers have a duty to ensure that their subcontractors and vendors adhere to at least the level of privacy that their customers expect from them.