The Dead I Know

When I was six years old, I was playing Hide and Seek with my friends. Friends from my neighborhood. It was on Whittier street in Idaho Falls, Idaho, I remember that much.

At some point, my mother called me home, for what, I don't remember. Lunch, probably. So I left my friends to their game and went home, and I forgot about them.

Some time later, an hour maybe, I came back outside, and there were police cars out there. Something was happening, I didn't know what. Police cars everywhere. But playing with my friends was not in my future. The police were playing with my friends.

They had found a chest freezer. This is in the 1970's, so chest freezers were a little different. They had a latch, and if you got inside of them and closed the lid, you would suffocate, with no possibility of getting out. More effective than a fly trap, you were stuck and caught, and there was just no way to get out.

So, the memory is dim to me now, some thirty-plus years later. But I know that three of my friends died that day. At least that's what they tell me.

And there, but for the grace of God, go I. Called home for lunch, and Death walked the street where I played with my friends. Three of them in a dark freezer in a garage. I was eating tuna fish sandwiches and drinking Kool-Aid, and three houses down on the other side of the street, the Reaper was collecting his due.

A couple of years later, a friend, maybe more of an acquaintance, was digging a cave in the side of a hill of damp sand. His name was Clay, I believe. It's been a long time, I can't be sure. But he did not survive the collapse of that damp sand cave.

Was he seven, eight, nine years old? That is as old as he ever got. His whole life, maybe nine years, and that was it. The story, for him, was told. The End.

I've worked for one company for ten years now. Longer than his whole life.

What does that mean?

When I was fifteen or sixteen, a group of friends and I were driving, somewhere, in rural Idaho. I don't remember where we were going. In the car I was in I occupied the back seat. Randy and Greg were in the front. In another car were some friends, three of them. Friends of Randy more than me. I believe her name was Monica. She was in the passenger seat. As it happened, we were behind them, so I saw it all.

We weren't drinking or high, or even acting irresponsibly. Just teenagers driving on a country road, and I don't even remember where we were going. But that was all it took, to be put into that little moment of history, a small place where doom prevailed, a pocket of fate where families were ruined forever. Where fathers and mothers were left to wonder how it all went wrong.

I was looking out the front window, and suddenly there was dust, I remember, a great cloud of dust. And I saw this person's car, the bottom of it, falling away from me, forward, down that Idaho country road.

The driver had run a stop sign. Apparently he had not seen it. I still remember that after it all, when I had a chance to talk to one of the passengers, the person in the back seat, the one who survived, he quoted the driver as saying "Am I supposed to stop here?'."

He was broadsided by a pickup truck. The two in the truck survived. As I recall, it was a man and his daughter on that country road in Idaho, driving along and minding their own business. Do you remember the last time you drove through an intersection, where the opposing traffic was supposed to stop? That was his position that day, and they survived.

Three people in the car. The one in the back seat was ejected through the back window. When I came upon the scene he was sitting in the dirt, dazed, stunned. Sitting there like he was waiting for someone, but staring ahead, looking away from us, into an unseeable future that only the doomed and the near-doomed can see.

I don't remember his name, he wasn't a friend of mine. He was sitting in the dirt, staring, and twenty feet away, upended in a ditch, was a car, the car he had been riding in two minutes earlier, the car whose rear window he had seen from both sides. There was that car, upside-down, with two dead fifteen-year-old children in it.

"Am I supposed to stop here?"

Randy still has that car, I'm told. Twenty five years later and he still has that brown Plymouth Roadrunner that we were in that day, witnesses to doom.

That's six people, six deaths, before I became an adult. Were they real friends? Acquaintances? People known to me? Maybe, I don't know. My memory is not so good about things that happened so long ago.

In college, I knew a man briefly, but I remember his full name. It was Brian Emsminger. He was driving his Volkswagen Scirocco, white, on Cat Canyon Road, near Santa Maria, California. He went off the road, nobody knows why.

He had dated a girl that I had dated, her name was Rhonda. Before I knew that he had gone, I had been jealous of him, even disliked him, a man I barely knew. I had talked to him briefly at a party. And then one night, on Cat Canyon Road, he drove his car off a cliff, was gone.

And now, I just think that I am so much more fortunate than him. Rhonda went on to marry someone with an airline, I was told. I don't know where she is now. But Brian is at the bottom of that Canyon, still. It's 1988, and he is in a canyon in a Scirroco, white.

Alone.

A little correction, a turn of the wheel, a slipping of tires on a dark road, and that is all there is to say. That is the history of Brian Emsminger.

"Am I supposed to stop here?"

They died, and their memory, except for their families, is distant and faded. They don't show up in search engines. They died before the Information Age, and so what happened to them is lost. Maybe that's why I need to tell you. Maybe I need to write it down and commit it to the memory of the Internet. Maybe in this small corner, this insignificant little blot of text, I need to tell their story, so somebody knows what happened.

Maybe you'll stop and think of those two teenagers, that nine-year-old boy, those three children who died in darkness in a garage in Idaho. Maybe you'll see a little bit of meaning, maybe they will teach you something about your life, maybe.

Maybe it's a new world, where information is not husbanded, where these gateways and fateways don't exist any more, and if people want to say something they just say it, and maybe nobody is listening but it gets said anyway. Information is free, freely distributable, and thus, there is an infinite amount of it.

You just have to listen extra hard to hear the important parts.

What does it all mean? How many of us saw six people die before we hit sixteen? I am forty two years old and I am looking back on Clay and Monica and Brian Emsminger, and I don't know what it means, and I wish I did.

I don't know what to make of it.

I don't know what to make of any of it.

"Am I supposed to stop here?"

God, Save Us From the Intelligent People

I just came across an article by a super smart brainiac in a Yale publication on how Detroit was failing, and why. His answer: because they weren't building enough fuel efficient cars. Detroit had to be forced to do the smart thing by smart politicians, or they would stupidly build the wrong cars and those cars would never sell.

He had, in other words, looked at a few months of sales data, ignored decades of data, assumed that Toyota was thriving because of a car that made up a small percentage of its sales, and assumed that government could fix it because he knew the future, and the future was hybrids.

A few choice quotes:

With much fanfare, the Clinton Administration in 1993 launched the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, challenging Detroit’s size-obsessed Big Three to come up with 80-mile-per-gallon vehicles.... versions of them could have hit the market in time to give the Japanese hybrids – Toyota’s Prius and Honda’s Insight – some real competition. Instead, Detroit’s automakers abandoned their hybrids and plowed their research and development money back into the trucks and SUVs that were making them steady profits.

Ooh, there it is, the big bad "P" word - profit! Bane of companies all over America! Making them build the cars people want instead of the cars the Big Brain People know they should buy!

America’s auto industry is drifting toward unprecedented disaster, and its resistance to change is at the heart of the problem. Lawmakers rejecting a $25 billion industry bailout have been understandably skeptical that auto executives, many of whom had flown to the congressional hearings in private planes, had learned the proper lessons, not just about austerity but also about increasing consumer demand for fuel-efficient, low-emission vehicles.

“Their board rooms in my view have been devoid of vision,” said Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT). “The Big Three turned a blind eye to opportunities. They have promoted and often driven the demand for inefficient, gas-guzzling vehicles, and dismissed the threat of global warming.”

As Washington weighs whether to provide some form of assistance, some of the best ideas for saving Detroit are coming from environmental groups that would like to see any bailout or loan package coupled with a green realignment of the industry. Although the Big Three may regard that as a poison pill, it has the virtue of actually putting the automakers in line with the emerging market.

No mention of crushing union obligations there, just a prediction from Brain Man, that Americans are increasingly demanding more fuel efficient cars (and would continue to do so), I would like to refer you to a story I saw today. Mr. Intellect must be gleeful by now, to see that hybrids have grown into such popular and critical vehicles. Let's not even go into the fact that the American car companies already market hybrids - let's just believe, as he apparently believes, that American car companies are so stupid that they never even bothered to develop and market them. And now they are paying for their foolish slavery to their precious (*spit*) profits.

Hybrid car sales go from 60 to 0 at breakneck speed.

Just one quote here:

Last month, only 15,144 hybrids sold nationwide, down almost two-thirds from April, when the segment's sales peaked and gas averaged $3.57 a gallon. That's far larger than the drop in industry sales for the period and scarcely a better showing than January, when hybrid sales were at their lowest since early 2005.

God help us if we ever end up in the hands of these smart people.

Schadenfreude for the Leftist Media

What amazes me about the media is that they do not seem to understand what is going on at all. In fact when they need to become less biased, they believe the solution is to become more biased. When they should be making efforts to appeal to both sides and make amends, many actually just get a lot more biased. The New York Times, for example, is just a leftist rag now. Before it had a bias, but at least it had credibility.

Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported on big circulation declines at most newspapers. The only two to remain steady have reputations for being centrist and unbiased: The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.

One might think that dropping all pretense and just openly serving one side is a good business decision, but it is absolutely not, because there are way too many media orgs that choose to serve that one side. There are only so many liberal eyeballs, and they have dozens of news orgs to choose from. The amount of news they consume is limited by how much time there is in the day.

The decline of the newspapers is not solely due to bias, and maybe not even primarily - their big problem is the internet - but it has an effect. When things are tough, it's a lot harder to stay alive when you not only have the Internet Problem, but you also have a reputation for untrustworthy reporting. The decline of the big 3 (ABC, CBS, NBC) is in some ways due to the advance of cable TV, but not all of it. MSNBC's problems are mostly due to their embarrassing bias, I think.

Another thing that is so damned entertaining: seeing these reporters' morale collapse. These guys didn't get paid worth crap to start with. Now they're going to end up looking for a job outside of the media because the demand for "professional" reporters has tanked, and with failing news orgs and the democratization of news generation on the web, supply is huge. So there go there livelihoods. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of sleazeballs.

Some news orgs have taken the effort to appear less biased by employing conservative commentators, or having some commentators appeal to conservative causes. CNN is a good example with Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs. I suspect CNN is going ok in the ratings now. Not that I think that gives them a pass for their actual reporting, but at least they understand that a reputation for bias is going to kill them. For the NYT, there seems to be no such illumination.

So it is funny, like a starving man, their bodies have begun to feed on themselves. The NYT is selling part of its building to stay alive. Time and Newsweek are at death's door, I don't think either will survive through 2009. And yet they accelerate in the wrong direction. It is just amazing.

The Religion of Global Warming becomes more evident

When Bjorn Lomborg published The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press - 2001) he must not have been prepared for the onslaught of comment, both personal and professional, that has erupted in the popular and scientific press (see www.lomborg.com ). Whereas the popular media have generally reported positively on the 500-plus page analysis of the global environment, the scientific press in North America has been negative to the point of personal insult. It is very clear that extreme environmentalists are deeply threatened by the breath of fresh air Lomborg brings to the debate.

Among the most scathing of the attacks on Lomborg was an 11-page editorial in the January 2002 edition of Scientific American. With the rather high-handed title "Science Defends itself Against the Skeptical Environmentalist" the editorial declared the book a "failure" and invited four prominent environmentalists to do their worst to discredit Lomborg and his analysis.

Scientific American did not give Lomborg any opportunity to respond to his critics, even though they gave him a copy of the editorial before it went to press. They said they would give Lomborg one page in a future edition to reply to 11 pages of full-on attack. Lomborg's response was to publish the text of the Scientific American article on his own website and to intersperse it with a detailed response to every point raised by his critics. Scientific American then threatened to sue Lomborg over copyright. In response to my complaint Scientific American wrote "This is an infringement of our copyright and interferes with our business of selling the article." Does Scientific American really think that they will lose readership because Lomborg has posted a response to a publication that is already off the newsstands? I believe they acted out of political motivation and are purposefully stifling Lomborg's efforts to defend himself. And I don't blame Lomborg for giving in to such a huge organization when threatened with legal action. (If you go to Lomborg's website www.lomborg.com and look under Critiques you will find he has removed the offending text, thus gutting the effectiveness of his response.)

I think we should defy Scientific American's blatant attempt to muzzle Lomborg. Anyone who reads his response to the Scientific American attack will have to agree that it is thoughtful and thorough. Here is a link to the entire response complete with Lomborg's comments.

LINK TO LOMBORG'S REPLY TO SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (.PDF Acrobat File)

I call on all scientists, organizations, and citizens to publish this document on their websites. I do not believe Scientific American can prevent this legitimate right of free speech. The entire editorial was an attack on Bjorn Lomborg. Surely he has a perfect right to defend himself on his own website. I am willing to bring this to the test. Please help with this effort. If you do not have a website then send the document to someone who does.

You can build a link to Lomborg's original article by referring to www.greenspirit.com or you can retrieve the Acrobat .pdf file from the Link to Lomborg's Reply above and publish the document directly on your site.

The Atlantic's Absurd China Article

I'm reading an article from The Atlantic about China. What I really want to do, more than anything, is pick this detestable piece of crap apart in detail, but I just don't have the energy. If I dismantled every unfit piece of journalism in this country I would never do anything else.

But I will make two points about this odious article by James Fallows. The first should be evident from the first sentence:

"AS CHINA PREPARES to take its place as the world’s dominant power, it faces confounding obstacles: its insularity and sheer stupidity in delivering the genuine good news about its own progress."

As China "prepares to take its place as the world's dominant power"? I'm actually glad this is the first sentence, because it does exactly what the first sentence in an article is supposed to do: It tells you what the article is about. Except in this case, it also tells you that the article is total shit.

Under what definition of "power" can this sentence be true? Is China about to exceed the USA in economic activity? Scientific discovery? Military power? No. It is not. In fact it is not even close in any of those three categories.

China's per capita GDP is woefully behind ours - $5,300 - vs. $45,700. The middle class in China is far below the poverty level of the United States. Their total GDP is 3.3 trillion dollars, vs. America's GDP at 13.8 trillion dollars. In no way, shape or form can China be said to even be in the same league as the United States economically.

And lest you think that America's recent economic troubles have given China a leg up on us, China is suffering more than we are. The Hong Kong stock market is down from its highs more than ours is, having fallen 57% versus America's 40%.

Militarily, the Chinese have a bigger army than we do, but they always have. They have a very land-centric, infantry-centric army, because that is one of China's strengths: It just has an ungodly shitload of people. It can field a 5-million man infantry army because rifles are cheap and in China, so is human life. Tanks and airplanes are expensive.

China does not have a blue water navy. America has twelve aircraft carriers and the Carrier Strike Group ships to support it. This means that with six Carrier Strike Groups at sea at all times, within days, the US Navy can be operating 100 aircraft off of any shore in the world, and they can double, triple or quadruple that number within weeks. China has no carriers.

China has 77 blue water ships like frigates and destroyers, no cruisers, no carriers, and a gaggle of local, littoral combat ships like missile patrol boats, and 800 aircraft. The US Navy has 283 ocean-going, blue water ships. and 3700 aircraft.

The People's Liberation army Air Force has 2,300 aircraft. The US Air Force has 5,700 manned aircraft, and the US Army operates hundreds more aircraft (mostly helicopters) , and the Marines operate hundreds more again.

In the coastal waters of China, China's navy is capable. Beyond Japan and Taiwan, it is no match for the US Navy.

In the ability to project force, China does not even come close to the US. We support military forces all over the world, and in addition, America solely has the ability to put 150,000 troops into Iraq, a country on the other side of the planet, and support them indefinitely. Nobody has this ability besides us, and certainly not China.

So I must ask the Atlantic, what the hell are you talking about? Where is China beating the US? Where is it even matching the US? Where is it even close?, that you would say it is about to become the "dominant world power"?

Secondly, the entire paper addresses a very disturbing premise: that China is, sadly, not very good at telling the world how awesome it is, despite the fac that they control their media and no significant criticism of the government is tolerated. I must point out here that this journalist, who lives in a free country with a free press, is eager to help China expend its power as a brutal dictatorship by teaching it the fine art of PR.

And I bet the irony of it is totally lost on him.

The News

I've come to the realization that my bugaboo is the press. I think it's a good bugaboo to have, though, because it is critically important to the functioning of a democracy, and our press is falling to pieces on multiple fronts.

First, they are entirely unable to reign in their bias. In fact it seems to be getting worse. This last election was a rapid acceleration of the press' plunge into untrustworthiness.

Second, when they're not being biased, they're wasting your time. I assume you're aware of this case with the little girl named Caylee who was, presumably, killed by her own mother. It's a tragic case, but you know what? It has nothing to do with me. It is not news. News is something that is of importance to you on some level. This story is not of any importance to me, period. I don't know these people, I don't live in their town, I don't live within 2,000 miles of them. Whatever happens here has no bearing on me, at all, so it is not news. This story's newsworthiness is limited at best to the city that they live in. Probably not even that.

But it is national story. That doesn't sound right, does it? But I can't call it news. So maybe we need a new word. This is national storypulp. There, that's better. That's my word for "news" that is not fit to be called news.

I could call it entertainment, but it's not entertaining at all, it's a God damned tragedy. So here, I need yet a new word, which brings me to my point. What do you call a story like this, that is not news and is not entertainment?

This is the dissemination of tragedy to people to fulfill some sick inner desire to share in the misery of people that are otherwise of no importance or meaning to us. It has no socially redeeming value. No benefit is made when people are attracted, for whatever sad and pathetic reason, to follow this story. It is porn without the sex, but with the tragedy. What do you call that? How about:

Tragedy Porn.

Fighting Back in the Culture Wars

My question today is, when are conservatives going to actually, you know, put up a fight?

As you probably know, dating site eharmony.com has now been forced to create a gay dating site, because apparently offering a site that does straight dating and not gay dating services is discriminatory.

So, conservatives, what are you doing? You're sitting around on your ass. You're whining and moaning and complaining, and doing nothing else. That's why you're going to lose.

There are many, many gay dating sites that do not provide straight dating services. Just look up "gay dating" on any search engine. Why are they not all being sued today?

Why is conservative America refusing to fight? I don't understand it. You're going to lose over and over, year after year, and what you value and love will all be destroyed by your enemies, and you will be sitting around miserably whining about it, and yet doing nothing.

Sue these sites. They are discriminating. Throw the ridiculous arguments right back at them, only tenfold, a hundredfold. Sue every gay dating site in the country for discrimination.

Start fighting, for God's sake. I'm not a lawyer, but if someone wants to tell me how to go about it, I'll do it myself.