After the election, I posted the following on facebook: "This is not the America I swore to defend". Of course, when I entered the Marine Corps, I swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and the fact is that the result of this election - as distasteful as it was to me - was a Constitutional result. So my facebook post requires more explanation.

I had specific things in mind when I posted this. I did not swear to defend racism, misogyny, homophobia, religious intolerance. Those activities are excluded by the Constitution, and to the extent that truly racist, misogynous, homophobic, intolerant religious extremists voted for a candidate, I did not swear to support you. In fact, I will oppose you with every fiber of my being. But not everyone who voted based their vote on these beliefs, and I recognize that. I have to accept the outcome because that's what the Constitution requires.

The question I've posed for myself is "What now?" I've been searching for an answer, and one answer is to wait and see. The problem with that answer, for at least some of the difficulties we face, is that we really can't wait. I'm thinking specifically of climate change, but certainly inequality (in income, in race relations, in gender equality, etc.) can't wait either. I'm still searching for a good response. For now, I can simply affirm my opposition to inequality of all types.

An article in the NY Times today tells the story of an ex-Marine (truly, an EX-Marine) about the hazing he tried to endure in boot camp. This prompted me to recall my own experience in boot camp back in January, 1968, and I thought it might be worth public distribution.

I had, and still have, a lot of respect for our Drill Instructors (DI's), especially SSGT Gonzales. All of them were combat veterans and all of them knew what we were getting into and all of them wanted us to be as ready as we could be for what we were about to experience. One of the most powerful experiences I had in boot camp came when we were leaving for Infantry Training after our graduation from boot camp and SSGT Gonzalez had marched us to the buses taking us away. He stood there watching as the buses started to leave and said "You assholes take care of yourselves!" Doesn't sound like much from this distance, but I knew he meant it and he knew that none of us would ever be the same.

Did our DIs abuse us? Well, when you consider what they were trying to prepare us for, no. Did I get punched? Yes, but not in a way that made me bleed or otherwise truly hurt me. What hurt was knowing that I'd let my platoon down, and usually the platoon got punished for something I did wrong. That really makes you want to do things right because you don't want your friends to hate you and you know that if you do screw up in combat, the penalty for your friends is much more severe than a punch or extra push-ups.

That said, it does sound like some of the DIs went overboard on some recruits, and that kind of shit has to be stopped. Seems to me that what we went through was aimed at forming us into a unit rather than a bunch of individuals ditty-boping through the bush. That is critical in war; and the Marine Corps has an unblemished view of what happens to Marines in war. The view from the point of the spear is a lot different than the view from the ass-end.

I'm with her!
I hear so often that our elections boil down to the choice between "the lesser of two evils", and I have voted with that thought in mind. The only politician for whom I ever  actively campaigned was George McGovern in 1972. Since that time, I've either voted for "the lesser of two evils" or a third-party candidate.
When I voted for third party candidates, I did so because I wanted to vote "for" something rather than against the candidate I disliked the most. It seems to me that's the way we should vote, and I see folks I respect opting to do that this election. However, this election I'm actually voting FOR Hillary Clinton and not against the Donald (well, Ok - I am voting against the Donald as well).
I'm writing this blog for a number of reasons:

• Hillary Clinton is being painted as a liar - and yet according to fact checking organizations she was the most honest of all the candidates, including Bernie Sanders.
• Hillary Clinton is almost universally acknowledged by people who should know as "the best qualified candidate to EVER run for president".
• Hillary Clinton is a work horse, not a show horse. She's not fancy or an eloquent speaker, but when she goes after something, she does it with all of her heart.
• Republicans who worked with her in the Senate acknowledge her excellent work there, and her willingness to work WITH them.

The reasons for voting against Donald Trump are, to me, obvious, but I'll list a few of the most troubling characteristics of this empty suit.

• Of all the candidates, Donald Trump was the LEAST honest - by far.
• Donald Trump is universally acknowledged by people who should know as the LEAST qualified candidate to EVER run for president.
• Donald Trump doesn't work at anything except self-promotion. His ignorance of foreign affairs is astounding, and he seems unwilling to learn anything about the actual running of government.
• Donald Trump can't seem to work with anyone. It's all about "the Donald".
• He clearly couldn't pass a basic civics test. As Khizr Khan pointed out it's unlikely that Trump has ever read (and certainly not understood) the U.S. Constitution. That's the document he'll be sworn to uphold if (God forbid) he wins the election.
• Also as Mr. Khan pointed out, Trump doesn't understand the meaning of "sacrifice". As a combat veteran, I could excoriate this clown for his multiple deferments during the Viet Nam war, but I understand the resistance many people felt towards the war at that time. However, in Trump's case, his resistance seems to have arisen because being in the Army would have been an inconvenience, and his "resistance" was not based on principle. In fact, I wonder what principles this man actually holds.

What about the third party candidates? Well, the Green Party candidate is basically anti-science (see her statements on vaccination), and the Libertarian candidate (as a Libertarian should) opposes government intervention in a number of places where I think the government should be involved.
This election is shaping up as the most important of my life. My fondest wish is that Hillary Clinton will win all 50 states, and Donald Trump will crawl back into the sewers he came from, never to be heard from again.

Civil Rights

Civil rights

I grew up in the midst of the civil rights era. In general, my parents got along very well – I only heard them argue a couple of times. One of those times involved civil rights.

To set the background, you should know that my dad grew up on an oil lease in northeastern Oklahoma in what I would presume was a fairly hand-to-mouth existence. I have pictures of him dressed pretty much like Huck Finn, and I got the idea that he caught the family dinner a few times from the local ponds. His mom cooked in a restaurant for the oil rig workers. His dad worked for Gulf Oil in a middle management position.

My mom, on the other hand, had a more middle class life in southwestern Oklahoma, complete with black servants. I suspect that different experience led to the different response they each had to the civil rights movement. I only caught a part of their argument, but it had a profound effect on me. I remember my mom saying “Why can’t they just wait?” But my dad’s response was what stuck with me through the years: “They’ve been waiting for 300 years. How much longer do you want them to wait?”

How much longer do you want them to wait? And wait for what – for the simple recognition that “they” have the same rights as “us”? In the wake of the SCOTUS decision on marriage, we’ve all read and heard comments on civil rights. In the wake of the church shootings in Charleston, we’ve all read and heard comments on civil rights. It is simply beyond my comprehension how anyone could argue that “they” do not have the same rights as “us”.

What about religious liberty and free speech? Surely, some argue, “Christians” shouldn’t be forced to condone a lifestyle they find sinful. Interestingly, Christianity is far from monolithic in our society and there are plenty of Christian denominations which have no trouble with gay marriage. But some literalist branches of Christianity point to the Bible and note that homosexuality is a “sin”, leading to their opposition to gay marriage. Of course, many things in the Bible are listed as “sins” which nobody in their right mind would regard as worthy of nationwide sanction. Do you wear cloth with different kinds of fibers? Well, you shouldn’t – and there should be a national prohibition against such activity. Do you work on the Sabbath? Again, you shouldn’t, and there should be a national prohibition against that kind of thing. You get the point; why pick on homosexuality as the behavior which should be opposed at all costs?

Some would counter that one should “love the sinner, hate the sin”. I wonder if such persons have really thought through the implications of such an argument. Folks who hold such a position are passing judgement; those “sinners’ just can’t seem to control themselves and so they need our “help” to point them in the “right” direction. They should deny who they are, because we feel they are sinning. And make no mistake, by casting LBGT’s as sinners, we are asking them to deny who they are based on our selective reading of one holy text. Oh but we’re all sinners, you say. Sure enough, which makes judgmental behavior all the more suspect.

What about free speech? This has cropped up most in regard to the confederate flag, but it also has been raised as an objection to the gay marriage ruling. In either case, the main flaw with that argument is that our right to free expression has not been changed. If you oppose gay marriage, don’t perform one. If you feel you should be able to fly the confederate “stars and bars” – have at it! On the other hand, if you run a bakery and a gay couple comes to you to buy a wedding cake, on what basis would you deny them your business? It’s against your religious principles! I’ll bet smoking dope is against your religious principles as well, but you still sell to dopers, whether you know it or not. What about lying – how does that fit with your religious principles? I’ll bet you’re opposed to that as well, which means you shouldn’t be selling anyone a wedding cake. If you run a business, you automatically run the risk of doing business with folks who do things you don’t like. Why pick on this particular thing as a basis for denying services? And make no mistake, the very same “principles” were involved in the denial of service to black Americans.

Ah, but black Americans can’t choose to be black, so it’s different! Nope, sorry – it’s not different. Skin color is very malleable but it does indeed have a genetic basis and people can’t really choose what color their skin is or their ethnicity. Likewise, people who are LBGT can’t “choose” their lifestyle. The scientific evidence is convincing – sexual preference has a strong genetic component. Most folks who are gay know it very early in their development, before puberty and sexual activity ever happens. That’s why when we pass judgement and “love the sinner, hate the sin” we’re asking them to deny who they are. And that’s just plain wrong.

Peg didn't want me to wear this shirt today because she didn't want me to dis my service. And the shirt might be interpreted that way - the Viet Nam war was not a game and the idea that we came in second place is undoubtedly troubling. But I'm an educator and it seems to me that the shirt provides an opportunity for education.

What lessons could this shirt teach? I think the primary lesson is - don't send us to fight a war that isn't justified (and Just). A corollary to that lesson is don't send us to fight a war that we don't intend to win. I might say don't send us to fight a war that can't be won, but sometimes a lost cause is worth fighting for. Truth be told, I'm not sure what "winning" looks like anyway.

I gave a talk about my time in Viet Nam at a local nursing home yesterday, during which I stated that one of the reasons I enlisted in the Marine Corps was to help the South Vietnamese, because I thought they wanted and needed our help. My first patrol showed me otherwise. Perhaps I should have realized that before, from all the news and opinion that was flying around in 1967. In fact, one of my friends said something along those lines, referencing Frances FitzGerald's excellent book Fire in the Lake. Only problem is - that book was published in 1971. I don't think the nature of that war was as clear to the average U.S. citizen as it should have been to the policy makers who sent us there.

I suppose that's another lesson from my shirt: keep a close eye on the people who are making the policies that result in wars like Viet Nam (are you listening, George W. Bush?).

I'm often asked how I feel about people who protested against the Viet Nam war, and I think most people who ask that question expect me to say that I despise those people. I don't. One of the freedoms we were supposed to be fighting for (perhaps the most important reason) is freedom of expression - freedom to criticize your government. That freedom means nothing unless people actually use it. I think that's another lesson from my shirt - and I think I'll spend some time in my classes today talking about those lessons.

"Boots on the ground"

There are certain phrases that rub me the wrong way, and this is one of them. Right now, we're in the midst of dealing with fundamentalist Muslims in the form of ISIS, and the concern expressed by almost everyone is "Are we going to have to have boots on the ground in Iraq again?" CEO's use the term as a way of showing that they "understand" what the average worker does in their companies, and I've heard it in lots of other contexts ever since the phrase cropped up. It pisses me off no end.

Here's why: there are people in those boots, and they are the ones getting blown up, or grievously wounded, or experiencing terror the likes of which no one should have to deal with. They'll live with that for the rest of their lives. "Boots on the ground" implies all this is just a bunch of footwear; it dehumanizes every person alluded to by that phrase.

We have a tendency to do that with any unpleasant reality. "Collateral damage" was a big one in my day - and it still is; implying that the use of military force *might* lead to some buildings being damaged somewhere that - oh shucks - we didn't mean to do that but it's the price of "doing business". Of course, what's hidden by that phrase are the people killed and injured because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We're pretty good at disguising what we really mean with language.

While we're at it, the contention that the US isn't committing combat forces against ISIS at this stage denigrates the hazards the airmen doing the current bombing are facing. As a former "grunt" (now there's a euphemism that really does capture reality) I admit to some scorn for the flyboys because they don't necessarily see the reality of what they do; but they're in hazard's way like grunts and if that isn't combat, I don't know what is.

Sustainability and miracles

The latests Science arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Usually I'm too busy to read much of it, but this morning I decided to take a break and look it over. There's lots of good stuff in there, but the two things that caught my eye were sustainability and miracles.

Sustainability first. An editorial in this issue praised Pope Francis for his concern about the poor around the world and how environmental degradation affects those people, who have arguably had the least input in producing major problems such as climate change. A second article pointed out how religious institutions can have a dramatic favorable impact on these problems. In an earlier blog (a week ago, in fact - see Evolution Dreams) I argued that folks like Richard Dawkins, who contend that religion is a cancer and science is the only valid way of approaching the problems we face, were misguided at best. We need the moral authority of people like Pope Francis to help us make the best choices.

The second article might seem diametrically opposed to what I just wrote, as it's about an evolutionary biologist and linguist who has been investigating the origin and spread of human language and animal cognition. Russell Gray of the University of Auckland has a pet phrase - no miracles - which he uses when addressing what were previously regarded as questions beyond the reach of scientific investigation. He's using modern evolutionary analysis tools to address questions of the origin of human languages and the origin of "intelligence" in non-human animals.

The "no miracles" part is guaranteed to rub some religious folks the wrong way, but in context what he's saying makes sense. In fact, that's how science makes progress; previously unsolvable (by scientific means) problems become tractable when a clever scientist comes along and figures out a way to address them.

What about religious miracles? Well, science can't really help us there. Was Jesus divine? Sorry, no help. However, I'm in the racket I'm in because I regard life as "miraculous".

Evolution dreams

I woke up this morning after a dream about me teaching evolution and inciting a riot. Well, I do teach evolution and so far I haven't incited a riot - keep your fingers crossed! But my dream actually turned out ok; I managed to calm down the two gentlemen who were breaking windows and throwing things and I got the rest of the town to come in and settle down so we could talk about it. I really wish that could happen in real life, but I don't see any obvious signs that it will.

I think fear drives the opposition to evolution, as well as the reaction of hard-core evolutionists like Richard Dawkins. I think those who oppose evolution fear moral decline and consigning people to hell. Those who react so strongly against anti-evolutionists fear a world where science is reviled and society degenerates into a "dark age".

I'm not sure what to make of such fears. I don't believe in a sort of hell where bad people or non-believers "go" when they die (though I certainly believe in the kind of hell we humans inflict on one another - I've experienced it) and I don't believe that evolution leads inevitably to moral decline (it may even explain where our moral sense comes from - an even more frightening consequence for anti-evolutionists). But I don't know how to convince those who oppose evolution that neither hell nor moral decline are consequences of teaching evolution.

As for the Richard Dawkins of the world, I feel that if science loses its place in modern society, it will be the fault of those who believe that science is the only valid way to learn things. Einstein is often quoted in this regard: "... science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." and many folks have raised that quote to support their view (a view I share) that the two spheres of human thought are both necessary. Jerry Coyne (who might be a "Dawkinsian") wrote an article disputing this view here.

Having read Coyne's book (Why Evolution is True), where this article comes from, I have to say I think Coyne is wrong. Science cannot possibly address what is good or bad, and we definitely need help in doing that. It seems to me that religion and philosophy are the only two spheres of human thought making an effort to help us discern "good" from "evil", and that there's no more important work for us to do than that.

Will machines take over the Earth?

I was looking at Crisis News Network (motto: We print all the trivial news about celebrities and none about stuff that matters) and there was an article posing the idea that "Terminators" could be real. I read it and found it was by a researcher at Oxford regarding artificial intelligence and the possibility that machines would soon outstrip human intelligence, possibly with a bad outcome for us. What caught my eye, and the reason I'm writing about this, is the author's reference to evolutionary intelligence.

The article was in some ways simply a promo piece for a book the author wrote (the author is Nick Bostrom - you can look it up on Amazon), but the notion of evolutionary intelligence is worth considering. The book I'm using in my "Evolution for Everyone" class notes that computer scientists are using evolutionary algorithms to develop programs much faster than they could do so by "hand" - and the programs so developed are often better than those written by a human programmer. The fear expressed by Bostrom is that such programs could reach a tipping point where the machines writing the programs would begin to alter the environment in a way that suits them and not us. The idea that we need to impart wisdom to computers rather than simply "intelligence" struck me as worthy.

His book received positive reviews, so I may check it out. The theme that we often develop technologies that seem "good" and then turn out to have some major downsides is not new, but it becomes increasingly dangerous as those technologies become more powerful. Evolution is the most powerful organic force we know of, and we tinker with it without having the wisdom to handle it wisely.

God help me, I'm about to teach about "protists" in zoology! Molecular methods have taught us that "protists" is a term without meaning in the evolutionary scheme of things, but the term won't die since it's a "convenient" way to talk about everything that isn't a plant, an animal or a fungus. But it leads to all kinds of confusion so I personally doubt the educational value of such a term.

For example, the text I'm using insists on calling Opisthokonts a "phylum" (opisthokonts include animals and fungi) and then turns around and calls the animals a "kingdom"! You can't have a "kingdom" as a group contained within a "phylum". Furthermore, in a couple of places unicellular critters with no close connection to animals are called "animals". There's something about zoologists that doesn't let them give up critters that used to be thought of as "animal-like", but clearly aren't. Maybe it's the collection mentality.

Speaking of the collection mentality, a group I'm associated with is arguing about moves to have the Monarch butterfly declared a threatened species. Beyond the difficulty of determining what "threatened" means, I'm sure part of the disagreement stems from collectors who fear another encroachment on their ability to collect. Already in many European countries one cannot collect moths and butterflies without some sort of permit from the government, and those permits are often quite difficult to obtain.

I find myself torn on this issue. I applaud the drive to preserve nature, and I think collectors can be unconscious about the impact of their activities, but really? Banning a kid from picking up a net and collecting some common butterflies or moths helps conservation efforts how?

A new academic year

Well, the big news is that we now have a new academic building, named after the principle donor, Dr. Sanders. I taught with Dick the whole time he was at Eureka College, mostly in western civilization and culture. If any alums are reading this, and you were in that course "back in the day", you know what I'm talking about.

In those days, the course was basically a history course, so Dick took the lion's share of the lectures, which was quite a job. Whenever one of the other team members did a lecture, he always took the time to write a note thanking that person for her/his efforts. Pretty thoughtful, and I'm embarrassed to say that I never did the same.

The big biological news is the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, which has killed at least 50% of the people who contract the disease. This may be one of the worst diseases (in terms of mortality rate) in the whole world. However, it's not easy to become infected; one needs contact with an infected individual's bodily fluids. If the disease ever became infective via aerosol, we'd be up a creek without a paddle. We have vaccines which protect us against some viruses, but for the most part we're helpless against viral infections. Many people believe that antibiotics also kill viruses, but that is not true (otherwise, we'd be shipping tons of antibiotics to west Africa right now).

And speaking of vaccines, the idea that vaccination "causes" autism still won't die. A recent report, since removed, indicated a higher risk of autism for African American male children who had been vaccinated with MMR. You can imagine how the anti-vaccine crowd responded to that! Here's the deal: nothing is ever proven in science. So while the bulk of evidence supports the idea that vaccination does not "cause" autism, the question must forever remain open. Science tells us that our best avenue to avoid crippling and potentially fatal viral illnesses is to vaccinate our children; the risk of autism from such vaccinations is vanishingly small. Which certainly doesn't help a parent who has a child with autism and wonders what could have been done to prevent it.

To Kill A Mockingbird

Well, I actually didn't kill a Mockingbird, but I'm reminded of this film (and book) because we have a pair of finches who have nested on the light by our garage. They've raised one brood and are nearing the end of raising a second brood in the same nest. I feel I should name them: Atticus, Scout, Jem and Dill - but of course there are more finches than names.

Peg and I attended a natural history writing workshop last week and the leader suggested we start each entry with a Haiku (loosely defined - basically just a 3-line poem). Mine was

The finches are trying for a second brood

The first offspring left 2 weeks ago, leaving behind a perfectly good nest

Why not fill it with life again?

So, anyway, the finches have been on my mind and I've been taking pictures virtually every day to chronicle their development. I've posted a couple of these photos chronicling the second brood below:

This is the time that many birds are raising their young. So far, I've seen White-breasted nuthatches, American Robins and Grackles either visiting their nests or feeding fledglings. In some cases, I've seen parent/offspring conflict. Briefly, the fledglings might "like" the parents to keep feeding them for a long time, while the parents might "like" to have the fledglings fend for themselves as soon as they are able. I've often seen fledglings chasing their parents begging for food while the parents try to get as far away as possible!

I've gotten a lot of nice pictures of critters at the Lake over the last couple of weeks, though my quest to film an Oriole has so far failed (the darn things sing from the top of the trees, hidden by lots of leaves). And I did my first butterfly Pollard walk for the Illinois Butterfly Monitoring Network. More later! Until then, get out and enjoy our natural riches!

SPIDERS!!!

Yesterday, while doing a bit of yard work, I noticed a largish jumping spider (family Salticidae) on the door of the sun room. I ran and got my camera and took a couple of close-ups. Shortly thereafter, a different (smaller) species showed up on the opposite door, so I took a couple of shots of that one.

I really like jumping spiders, which puts me at odds with all other members of my family. After all, who could like a spider that jumps? Well, I do, because jumping spiders have a bit of personality. When I wiggle my finger at one, it will turn and look at me, almost like a pet dog. Sometimes, I can get them to jump onto my finger.

One reason they're so responsive is that they have pretty good vision. Most species have eight eyes, some of them quite large, and those eyes are capable of image formation, like ours. It's an important adaptation for these spiders because they're tiny little wolves - actively tracking down their food and jumping on it rather than ambushing it or trapping it in a web. Good vision is a prerequisite for such a life; thus their attention to my wiggling finger.

Reflecting on this, I wondered why most of humanity has such a deep, innate fear of spiders. Dangerous spiders are few and far between and are responsible for very few human deaths in any particular year. In our area, I've never seen a dangerous species (black widow - several species; brown recluse - several species) though I suppose the occasional brown recluse could find it's way into a home if someone accidentally brought one with them in a move from the southern U.S. In fact, no one really has a good explanation for this exaggerated fear. One possibility is that a fear of spiders was adaptive in ancestral humans, as people who were so afraid of spiders would make every effort to avoid contact with them and thus avoid potentially deadly bites. But even in our ancestral days, encounters with deadly spiders were likely very few and far between compared with other more significant dangers and an unreasonable fear would have been maladaptive rather than adaptive. It could be a cultural thing, as many humans who live in areas with spiders far more dangerous than any we would encounter regularly catch spiders and use them for food. In any case, the only spiders around here that I kill if they get in the house are large wolf spiders.

A new beginning

I've decided to change the title of my blog from "Random thoughts about evolution, war and bugs" because the last thing on that title is what I'm most interested in. I think I went with "evolution" because there's so much controversy (in the public mind) about that subject and I thought I could get some interest by blogging about a "controversial" subject (on which I, of course, have THE answer). My experience in Viet Nam was an obvious choice for the second topic, but - let's face it - that war is long over for everyone else and I don't feel as compelled to write about it as I once was. But bugs - now there's something I've been interested in my whole life.

Bugs, of course, are but a small part of natural history, but they're the critters that led me in to my interest in that subject, so I hope by changing focus, I'll be a true blogger and make entries at least once a week instead of once every 3 or 4 months.

So, natural history. I just got off the phone with a freelance journalist writing about the decline of Monarch butterflies. Truth is, there is no simple answer to that decline. Personally, I think the reduction of the overwintering colony site is a major factor; and the continued use of "round-up ready" GMO's certainly hasn't helped. However, I did see my first Monarch of the year yesterday May 20, 2014. And the first time I saw Monarchs last year was August 1st. I take that as a hopeful sign.

We went for a walk on the south side of the lake today and heard orioles, saw lots of goslings and a batch of mallard ducklings, blue jays and a great shot of bluebirds. The finches are nesting again by our garage after successfully fledging 3 - 4 babies earlier this year. It feels like summer out there today, but the temperature is supposed to drop tonight.

Yesterday, on campus, I photographed a number of ants and a few other things, including a red-bellied woodpecker. I'll post some pictures when I get them processed.

Book review on Goodreads

Argument Without End: In Search of Answers to the Vietnam Tragedy by Robert S. McNamara
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

When In Retrospect first came out, some of the people at the college where I teach came up to me and said: "Did you hear? McNamara's published a book and he says the Viet Nam War was all a mistake!" Whoa - talk about your late-breaking news! Still, I suppose hearing those sentiments from the highest levels imparts a certain power to them that us lowly grunts could never hope to possess - but I think I recall saying "this is a big mistake" on my first patrol (I served in 'Nam in '68-'69).

The rub, of course, comes when we try to figure out WHY it was a mistake, and it is here that McNamara can give us something truly significant. That is his stated intent in this book. Does he? I think he does, but what he has to give us has been dished up many times before.

In preparation for this book, McNamara instituted a series of conferences between policy makers active during the "McNamara Years", from the U.S. and North Viet Nam. McNamara's stated goal is to search for "lost opportunities". Were there ways to avoid U.S. entanglement; or, having become entangled, were there ways for the U.S. to disengage before so many lives were lost? McNamara's idea here is to find those lost opportunities and lay them before the public.

So, it was with excitement that I read this book - maybe, finally, McNamara will come clean. And come clean he does, though not in the way he intended.

I knew I would have a different reaction to this book when I read how shocked McNamara was to learn the North Vietnamese side of the argument wanted to start in 1945 in the search for missed opportunities. McNamara's original intent was to limit discussion to the years 1961 - 1967; his years as Secretary of Defense. Here we have a sense of the man's over-arching ego; nothing important could have occurred before or after those dates. It is simply beyond my comprehension how the so-called "best and brightest" could be surprised at the date of 1945. For those of you who don't know, that's the date when the Vietnamese, under Ho Chi Minh, declared themselves independent of France, using words from the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration on the Rights of Man. That is the date that Bao Dai, the last emperor of Viet Nam, formally abdicated his throne and anointed Ho Chi Minh as his successor. That is the date when Ho Chi Minh made direct appeals to President Truman to ensure the rights of the Vietnamese were respected. It is a date that is no secret now, and wasn't then.

How, then, could the chief architect of American policy towards Viet Nam be so awesomely ignorant of such an important starting point? The answer to that question is one of the lessons one might draw from the war: U.S. policy makers had no interest in Viet Nam per se. It was merely a stage, upon which the righteous Americans would meet and defeat the forces of "the Evil Empire". The McNamaras and the Rusks and the Rostows felt no need to learn anything about their potential adversary - to our ultimate sorrow. Know Thy Enemy. That lesson is nothing new; applied to this specific war, one can find it in Fire in the Lake, Frances FitzGerald's excellent work about the war published in 1971. What is new is McNamara's bald admission that he really had no interest in learning about the Vietnamese, nor did anyone else in the American administrations.

Another interesting part of the book is McNamara's complete lack of understanding at the refusal of the North Vietnamese to negotiate while we were bombing them. Despite the numerous lessons about the failure of strategic bombing to shorten wars and "force" the enemy to the negotiating table, America pursued the continued bombing of North Viet Nam in order to accomplish those self-same goals. All of this was known to McNamara and his cronies, and yet they allowed the strategic bombing of North Viet Nam to be one of the major foci of American policy. And now, thirty years after McNamara's involvement in the war, he still doesn't get it.

I wish to touch on just one more facet of Argument Without End. It includes a chapter by Col. Herbert Schandler and McNamara, entitled "U.S. Military Victory in Vietnam: A Dangerous Illusion?" Most of the chapter was written by Schandler, who did his time in 'Nam in the infantry. The answer to the rhetorical question posed in the title is, Yes - a U.S. military victory in Viet Nam is and was a dangerous illusion. I strongly agree with that answer, and I'm glad this chapter is in the book. But, dollars to doughnuts, this chapter won't shut up those deluded folks who think "we could've won if only the military had been allowed to win". This is because Schandler never really answers those critics who contend that the military had its hands tied in Viet Nam. This is too bad, because the answer is not all that difficult to comprehend. If the military had done exactly as it pleased in Viet Nam, we still would have lost. Without the support of the people we were supposed to help, there was no hope. Herein lies another lesson from the war: if we aren't true to our democratic principles in our foreign policy, our foreign policy will fail. We pontificate at great length about "self-determination", but we sure didn't allow it in Viet Nam.

In the end, these two books show Robert Strange McNamara to be not very bright - certainly not the best. They show a man steeped in his own arrogance, and that arrogance in him and those around him cost thousands of American lives and millions of Vietnamese lives. But give the man credit, he doesn't flinch from laying it all before us - even if he doesn't completely understand exactly what it is he's telling us.

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What is the role of government in our lives?

Well, we're starting the 4th day of the government shutdown with all the attendant finger-pointing. Personally, I park this particular monkey squarely on the back of the Tea Party republicans. I get that they don't "like" the Affordable Health Care Act (at least I get that they don't like it - why they don't like it is another matter), but to make funding the operations of the government dependent on de-funding the AHCA strikes me as bordering on disloyalty to the U.S. These are the actions of petulant children, not democratically elected "leaders".

Of course, Tea Party advocates would complain about the ever-encroaching reach of government, and there is some merit to such a view. The difficulty comes from trying to discern where the reach of government has gone too far, where it's just about right, and where it hasn't gone far enough. Tea Party folks take to heart a quote that they often wrongfully attribute to Thomas Jefferson: "That government is best which governs least." - a quote that actually owes it's genesis to an article in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, and which appears in the form often used in Thoreau's Civil Disobedience. It's a thought which many find to be common sense, but in the modern world what does that mean?

What is the role of government in our lives? The most basic role is to defend our liberties, and for that we have the Armed Forces. But wait, defend our liberties (what are those) against what threats? The armed forces are particularly suited to defend our liberties against foreign powers, though one could argue that many times when the armed forces have been employed (at the direction of political leaders) they've been employed to advance the interests of a narrow sub-set of our society and not to protect our liberty. Having "done my part" during the Viet Nam war, I can state that the intent of protecting liberty is there in those that volunteer to serve, and the misuse of that intent is a crime for which they should not be blamed. Nonetheless, the armed forces are there to protect us against foreign threats, and they have done so.

The rub comes from other threats to our liberty. We have an environmental protection agency - is that there to protect our liberty? In my opinion - yes. Rampant pollution threatens not just our liberty, but our lives. We can see what happens when there is no regulation of industry in places such as China, and we've certainly seen it (and still see it) in our country. What about Health and Human Services? Again, when citizens lack access to adequate nutrition, where's their liberty? What about education? Perhaps the biggest threat to liberty is ignorance, and though I think the government has over-reached here (can you say No Child Left Behind?), it is vital for our continued existence to produce an educated public.

I could go on through the various government agencies, but you get the picture (I hope). We face a variety of threats to our liberty and our lives which we as individuals are not capable of addressing. Only the collective power of the government can defend us against those threats, and since we ARE the government, we can determine how much or how little we want government participation in that defense. But government can't do any of that if it's shut down - simply because some zealots don't like a particular act.

Universal health care

Last time, I posted an opinion piece from the NY Times about dissatisfaction in the medical profession. I thought I'd pursue the medical thread a bit more today. As I type, Sen. Cruz from Texas is performing political theater in a "non-filibuster" filibuster to push defunding Obamacare. The broader issue is the role of our government in our lives, and to hear Tea Party advocates and their cronies tell it, universal health care is an unwarranted intrusion by the government. I guess I would be more sympathetic to that argument if the people making it weren't so often the same people against gay marriage (it's ok for the government to tell you who you can or can't marry, but not ok for the government to make sure everyone has access to health care).

The narrower issue is universal health care, and here's the thing I don't understand: why is it possible for most industrialized countries to provide universal health care to their citizens at a fraction of the cost of what we pay? This includes a number of countries which are less "socialistic" than we are. The other question is this: is proper health care a universal human right? How does that fit in with our stated motto of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? Can one pursue happiness when one is ill and can't get proper care? I recommend watching "Sick around the World" to get some alternative views on this. We've got to do better, and political theater doesn't help in the least.

"It's a textbook case ..."

I'm thinking about textbooks this morning because - well, I'm a teacher who uses textbooks. Not all teachers do - my graduate school professor of medical entomology scorned textbooks and insisted we use the original literature. Each class began with a long list of references which applied to the topic of the day. That is, perhaps, the ideal way to teach, but it's impractical in public schools and in places like my college, where I teach so many courses. I'd lose my mind trying to keep up (actually, I'm pretty close to losing my mind even with the "short cut" of textbooks)!

However, the approach my grad school prof took avoids the main flaws of textbooks, which include being out of date the moment they're published and enshrining incorrect information in the minds of students. Because, let's face it, a "textbook example" is not all it's cracked up to be.

Right now, for example, there's a "debate" raging on a message board I follow about Haeckel's fraudulent drawings of vertebrate embryos. Those drawings (or rather copies of them) made regular appearances in biology textbooks until the relatively recent past. The point the textbook authors (and Haeckel) were trying to make was that the similarity of vertebrate embryos at early stages of development indicates an evolutionary relationship between broad classes of vertebrates (fish, reptiles - including birds - mammals). Haeckel, either consciously (=fraud) or unconsciously (=confirmation bias) over-emphasized that resemblance in his drawings. Creationists have a great time with this "fraud", all the while ignoring the fact that Haeckel was correct in his basic point: the resemblance of vertebrate embryos at early stages of development does indicate an evolutionary relationship. In any case, the continued use of these (copies of) drawings after the exaggerated nature of the drawings was known is but one example of "enshrining incorrect information". These days, most textbooks use actual photographs of the embryos - and guess what? - they show a close resemblance between broad classes of vertebrates indicating an evolutionary relationship between them.

Which begs the question - why did the authors of textbooks continue to use the (copies of) drawings long after their true nature was known? I think there are several reasons. One would be inertia and its cousin - laziness. Once one text author used them, and they seemed effective, all the other text authors would use them too. But effective at what? Well, in one picture students could see how closely related diverse groups of vertebrates are - a picture is worth a thousand words. It was a "good" teaching tool - and that's what textbooks are all about. And that's the second reason - text authors are most interested in teaching, and anything that helps get the point across in a simple way seems like a good idea. Text authors are faced with a big dilemma - how to get complex information across to students in as simple a way as possible? The fact that Haeckel over-emphasized what turns out to be a true phenomenon (as true as anything in science) seems like a minor detail that can be ignored in the face of what the author is trying to convey.

Let me give one more example of "enshrined information" that I think is more problematic: the treatment of Jean Baptiste de Lamarck. When I went through school, Lamarck was always taught at the guy who got it wrong. He's the guy who believed in "use and disuse" and "inheritance of acquired characteristics" and - ha, ha - what a fool! Darwin, on the other hand, didn't believe such nonsense and so we can see how the neck of the giraffe evolved according to Darwinian principles. And then I read On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection ... and - surprise, surprise - use and disuse and inheritance of acquired characteristics were all over that book. I'd been lied to!! Well, the textbook authors didn't intend to lie - they were just looking for a simple way to differentiate between Lamarck and Darwin and hit on those two things because it would be "easy" for students to see the difference. And I suspect many of the text authors didn't even know that what they were presenting was flat-out wrong. After all, they'd been taught the same thing and probably had never read On the Origin ... (many biologists never do!).

It turns out that there are some major differences between Lamarck and Darwin, but they don't include differences in their knowledge (or lack of it) of heredity. Textbooks are ever so slowly coming around to facing the complex nature of the differences between Lamarckian evolution and Darwinian evolution, and that's a good thing. But you can bet your textbook has other wrong information buried in it - not out of bad intent, but simply because the authors are trying to find the balance between presenting complexity in all its twists and turns, and conveying important information in as simple a way as possible.

More Movies!

Netflix supplied "Mr. and Mrs. Iyer" via DVD this week and we got a chance to watch it last night. An Indian film, assessing the post-911 world of conflict between Hindus and Muslims. Mrs. Iyer is riding a bus down from the highlands to go home to her husband. She has their infant son with her. By chance, she's riding with a wildlife photographer who is Muslim and who is casually asked to watch over her by Mrs. Iyer's father in law. All is normal until the bus is stopped due to an outbreak of violence between Muslims and Hindus. The story unfolds from there, raising some interesting moral dilemmas. Definitely worth a look.

Another great foreign flick is "Antonia's Line". This also won best foreign language film, and again with good reason. It's the story of a Dutch community with numerous eccentric characters, held together by a strong matron. A beautiful and moving film!

Moving to Asia, the Japanese film "Departures" is a surprising and ultimately profound movie about things we lose by ignoring tradition, and how we need to adjust to difficult circumstance. I seem to be on a "best foreign language film" kick, because this film also scored that award. When we first watched this, we wondered what we were in for, as the beginning is - shall we say - "unusual". But boy was it worth it. The protagonist takes a job preparing the dead (though he applies thinking it's working for a travel agent) for funerals. He's embarrassed to tell his partner what work he's found. We see him preparing a beautiful "woman" for her funeral - and then the surprises start. Stick with it, you won't regret it!

International movies

Some time ago, I promised I'd "review" some foreign films and it's about time I fulfilled that promise. So - here goes!

First up, perhaps my favorite movie of any type - "The Barbarian Invasions". This movie won "Best Foreign Language Film" (it's French-Canadian), and with good reason. Denys Arcand is the director, and in this film he re-visits some characters he brought to life in "The Decline of the American Empire". A father (who is quite a rake) is quite ill, and his persevering ex-wife contacts their son (a wealthy Londoner) to come to Montreal to help. The film unfolds from there; clearly the son resents his father and the way his father has tom-catted around, and the father resents the capitalistic success of his son. I have rarely seen a film which captures so many human foibles so well as this one. Don't miss it. If you don't like sub-titles, learn French! Arcand is responsible for another very worthy film "Jesus of Montreal". A group of actors puts on the passion play in an unusual manner, and the actors begin to take on the roles they're portraying. Opposition arises, and the results play out like the "real" passion.

Another great one is the Danish film "After the Wedding", directed by Susanne Bier (who has enjoyed some success as a director in the U.S.; "Things we Lost in the Fire"). A man who runs an orphanage in India must travel to Denmark to cozy up to a potentially rich patron, whose donation could drastically improve the lives of the orphans. He reluctantly does so, only to find that the patron has imposed some unusual conditions on the donation (basically - come to my daughter's wedding). This is a surprising and beautiful film, with rich characterization. Bier is also responsible for "In a Better World" and "Brothers". The latter movie was remade by Jim Sheridan in 2009, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, and Tobey Maguire. The remake pretty much sucks, but the original Danish version is excellent.

Well, darn it, gotta get ready for class. I'll try and post some more great foreign flicks in the near future.