Shinae Tassia in New York

Shinae in New York City looking enigmatic.   The dots on the window that look like water marks on the photograph are actually rain drops on the window of the taxicab.   Shinae is my favorite person of Korean-Sicilian descent and worked at the time for the Museum of Natural History in New York.

Shinae wore her first dress (she tells me) to the opening of the Rose Center / Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History on the fake millenium, Dec 31, 1999.   As we were walking around the museum we were suddenly circled by an older gentleman looking completely perfect in a tuxedo and his long-suffering wife/girlfriend, taking dozens of photographs of us.  He was obviously a professional photographer and as he documented Shinae,  he exclaimed "Like a flower!  Like a beautiful flower!  How Lovely!", etc.   As fast as he had appeared he started to fade into the darkness at the Museum.... I called after him and asked who he was with.

He answered from a distance fading away "I'm with the Times ...".   He was, apparently, the very well-known society photographer for the NY Times.

If a picture of Shinae had appeared in the society pages of the NY Times all the other women at the Museum would have plotzed in envy.  

No such photograph ever appeared to the best of my knowledge.

[Scott Anderson suggests that this might have been the famous Bill Cunningham, and it might have been.  I am checking with someone who knows].

SIGGRAPH 2013

SIGGRAPH 2013 is this week of course and I am desperately trying to finish a dozen things before I go.  I hope to see you all there and feel free to text me or call me at 323 833 9087 to arrange a place to meet.  Reading email will probably be hit and miss for that week.

Civics and Intelligence: Does the US Government have the Constitutional Right to Keep Secrets

It is commonly asserted that "the people have the right to know".

In other words, that if the government is keeping a secret is that by definition in violation of the law. Does the government have the right to keep certain types of secrets legally and constitutionally? What have the courts ruled on this matter? What are the precedents in American history. What did the writers of the constitution have in mind on this topic.

The following is a legal and historical analysis by John Warner. The article is reprinted from the CIA's Studies in Intelligence.

You should read this 20 page paper in order to understand the arguments that can be made for the government keeping secrets from its people and under what circumstances they may do so.

If you do not feel like reading the entire 20 pages, read the first 5 or so, which goes over some examples from American history in the very early days.

The document can be found online in several different forms at

http://research.archives.gov/description/7283238

Introduction to a Course on Civics and The Intelligence Community

My response to the Ed Snowden affair as it has played out so far is to be appalled at the level of knowledge of my friends and fellow citizens about how their government works.  So what I plan to do here is to create a very time efficient course in civics and intelligence based on documents publically available on the Internet.

Please read a few more paragraphs before you completely give up on this idea.

The course will be

    (a) select, it will be as short as possible to make as good use of your time as possible,

    (b) based on primary sources available on the Internet

    (c) focused on background, history and nuance intended to make your beliefs and arguments
    robust (see note 1)

What this course will NOT be

    (d) it is not intended to change your mind on fundamental issues, whether our government is
    moral or immoral, good or bad.  You already have your mind made up, I am pretty sure.

But it will try to help explain such things as

    (e) what do people mean when they say that Iran-Contra was illegal but what Snowden revealed

    was probably legal (even if it may merely prove to you that the laws need to be changed)?

    (f) even if what Snowden revealed was legal, in some technical sense of the word, what does it

    mean to say that we wish to challenge the constitutionality of those laws (which is one way to

    change the laws, but by no means the only way).

Furthermore, you may even understand certain nuances like the following:

    (g) whatever Snowden's motivation, he should not have had access to the wide breadth of
     information and there is something very wrong here, very wrong indeed, and people in the
     intelligence community, right or wrong, must be reeling.

Whether you like it or not, and I dont really care, (g) is going to affect our country at least as much as any of the others, so you may as well spend a few minutes trying to understand it.

Or not. Whatever you want.

Furthermore, I am going to try and explain to you some history that motivates their behavior. Now, I happen to think that if this behavior was exposed to a wider audience and not merely voted on by the elite (which is the very basis of our government, it is not a direct democracy, it is a so-called representative democracy for better or worse), then the American people might very well vote against this behavior.  I wouldn't vote against that behavior, mind you, I would support it wholeheartedly, but that is just me.

Finally I have one more important goal, and it is to try and convince you of the following:

    (h) although we may not know the details of what is happening in this world, in broad strokes
    there is quite a bit that you can know about what is going on, and this information can be
    used to inform your beliefs and what you tell your elected representatives, not that they
    care what you think because you are not rich, but that is another problem.

What I mean by that is this: you did not need Snowden to know most of this, at least the part I have read about. No shock or surprise should have been generated (except for maybe a few details, and even those I am told were already made public but I did not notice).

Thus one result of our little course is to help you not be surprised in the future.

Now that is a worthwhile goal, isnt it?

I promise to make this as concise as I can, but you will be expected to spend about 1/2 hour a week reading documents I point you to, for maybe about 10 weeks.  This course will begin, intermittently, after SIGGRAPH.  The course will last longer than 10 weeks because I will not be able to work on it every week.

Thank you, or maybe you should be thanking me.

____________________________________________

1. The classic example of this approach is the a pro-arms-control group called the Federation of American Scientists (www.fas.org) which has worked in support of treaties limiting or eliminating nuclear weapons for a very long time. Their approach is that in order to argue cogently for arms control, that you must be well-informed on the issues of nuclear and conventional arms, and thus they have (or had) one of the best web sites on the internet for researching these things. Unfortunately, the best parts of this database has been turned over for maintenance to www.globalsecurity.org, and the only problem with that is that they charge a fee to review that database for more than a few documents. If you were interested in that topic, I think it is worth their nominal fee. Those of us who are impoverished in America can not even consider it, and therefore can not participate in our democracy.  Which is intentional. 

Further Issues With Hiring More Experienced Workers (MEWs)

[updated 7/27/2013]

In a previous post (see here), we discussed issues that may become apparent when you hire a more experienced worker, or MEW as they are known in the literature, such as their tendency to fail to fall for your lies and a stupid desire to learn from experience. These are bad enough, but there are others that can be added to the list and we have some of them here.

I should first mention that not all experienced workers suffer from these character flaws, but the very possibility that they might should be enough to see that MEWs are never hired.

1. More experienced workers tend to mutter to themselves.

After all they are subjected to the most obvious and abusive ageism by your younger workers on a daily basis, they are likely to have some sort of verbal response. This is unacceptable and any MEW that mutters to themselves should immediately be fired.

2. More expereinced workers tend to exhibit diversity in opinions and ideas.

The most efficient workplace is one in which there is no dissent because the workers are cut from the same conforming cloth, everyone knows that. Unanimity should come not through discussion of the best approach, but because the worker units believe that there is only one way, their way, what they have been programmed to believe, thus they can proceed without discomfort or thought. By having more experienced workers who may know other ways or have contrary opinions based on genuine experience, you potentially open your organization to inefficient discussion and debate.

Remember, debate is weakness. Unthinking unanimity is strength!  

3. More experienced workers after being subjected to abuse might show some sign of anger at being treated like garbage.

Any who do so should be fired at once. Management should have no fear of being subjected to any penalty by government because the government supports ageism in all ways, that is obvious. Thus MEWs can be fired with impunity.

4. An MEW might be better educated than the "stupid morons" (1) companies hire as management and thus this management might suffer from insecurity which might affect their ability to be stupid.

Imagine the poor 20 or 30 something management, stupid and shallow as they are, spitting teeth in frustration if they had to deal with a MEW who might actually use a big word that our stupid management did not understand. Oh Gods! Forbid this gross unjustice !

I think we have established without doubt that our government is right in supporting ageism in all its forms and that an older and more experienced worker must never be hired.

_____________________________________

1. A "stupid moron" is an innovative personal insult and a colloquialism that is not in common usage in English, but was innovated by the author to communicate a higher degree of "moron"-icity than one might normally experience.   English is a Germanic language and it is a natural part of the language process to create new terms from existing words to extend the language.   Thus "stupid moron" is obviously a way of saying "a particularly unintelligent person of low intelligence".

Joni Mitchell and the Perception of Small Differences in Musical Performance

[being written 7/16/2013]

This will be part of the Los Angeles in the 60s, 70s, and 80s topic, when that gets organzied]

It seems to be a human capability to listen to music and perceive tiny differences in performance. We are able to do this even on music they have not heard recently and even on music of considerable length. Who has not had the experience of hearing a song they knew well on the radio and then suddenly realize that this version is slightly different, it turns out to be a different version of the song never released, or from a demo made by the band, or for the European release, perhaps a live performance somewhere.

This fabulous demonstration of signal processing and memory storage and acquisition must have a purpose, the sincere but naive Darwinist, exclaims. Perhaps. But it could also be the accidental result of some other capability or capabilities that evolved and was selected because it was useful for some other reason or reasons entirely. Perhaps it is part of how we recognize when we are home, audio being such an important sense. Perhaps it is part of the amazing "friend or foe" recognition circuitry that lets us know if someone is of the tribe or not of the tribe, or whether the ritual is being performed correctly. Whatever it is, it seems remarkable how well it works.

For whatever reason, if there is a reason, that we have this capability, I have a story about it from when I lived at the beach and worked at the RAND Corporation.

In the 1970s I lived at the ocean in a rent-controlled apartment complex called the Seacastle Apartments. The building is famous for being a well known hotel built in the 1920s (I think), then a run-down dive near the beach during the 1940s and 1950s, and finally received a million dollar grant from HUD (Housing and Urban Development) to fix it up and turn it into low-income housing in the 1960s. The owner took the $1,000,000 and went to Mexico and HUD ended up owning the building by default. This being Los Angeles, I am pretty sure they tore it down to put up something so the rich could enjoy the view and get rid of the worthless poor and middle class people who were there before.[Correction... it is still there, sortof.  It has been turned into something called blusantamonica.com, which are expensive townhouses for rich people.  They must have gutted the place to rebuild it].  I lived there in a cave, very inexpensively, and worked at RAND.

A Google Earth view of the Seacastle Apartments now turned into Townhouses for Rich People

There were apartments in the front that faced the Pacific ocean. Not fancy, and very tiny for the most part, their view was unbelievable. Very, very difficult to get one of those apartments, and when you had one you did not want to give it up. This is in Santa Monica 1/2 block south of the Santa Monica Pier and on the Promenade, the real Promenade, not the shopping center, the walk path in front of the beach.

There were many colorful stories about this building some of which might even have been true. Of course the HUD story above is one of them, but there are also stories of the period when "ladies of the night" worked the building in the 1950s, of famous surfers who had lived there, and famous musicians and writers who could not afford even the low rent, and so forth. One story was that Joni Mitchell still had an apartment there, on the 2nd floor, in the front, or perhaps a boyfriend did, or perhaps she kept a poor boyfriend there who was also a musician, a starving one. The stories differed. I never believed any of them. It was all just local color to me, worth repeating, but very little chance of being true. Or maybe it was true once, long ago, but no longer.

I don't remember why I was able to be in front of the Seacastle to watch a sunset, as I usually worked at RAND from noon to 2AM or so. So this was probably on a weekend as I had started to take one day a week off, as I noticed that seemed to help my work in the long run. Whatever the reason, I was sitting on the wall between the promenade and the beach and watching a spectacular sunset, which probably meant that the Santa Monica mountains were burning down. A fire was always good for enhancing sunsets, adding all that debris from the burned houses of Malibu millionaires would always contribute to our sunset quality. They should burn Malibu houses down regularly as it would improve our quality of life.

It is the nature of apartment buildings of this type that you can hear everything, and I could hear that someone in the front was playing music. It was a Joni Mitchell album and I could hear it in the background and I did not pay any attention. It was not very loud, you could barely hear it above the sound of the ocean. I knew her albums well and I had seen her perform live on several occassions and I was very familiar with her music.

Joni Mitchell live on the Johnny Cash Show 1969

I was watching the sunset and not paying any attention when I realized that something was wrong. The music was different somehow, not much, but different. It was definitely Joni Mitchell, and it was one of her songs, but this was a performance I had never heard before. I am not sure if it was the phrasing, or the pacing, or something about the guitar accompaniment, or what it was. Her voice was very soft in the background and the sound of the ocean intermittantly overwhelmed her singing.   Whatever this was, I thought, it was very well done, her voice sounded wonderful, completely alive, as well as I had ever heard it.

I don't recall what songs she played, but it was early Joni Mitchell and to my memory it sounded similar to this one from the premiere of the Johnny Cash Show in 1969.

The music stopped in mid-stanza. She played guitar and seemed to be talking to someone. I couldn't really hear. The music started again in mid verse, then stopped, then switched to another song and she played for a few more minutes, pretty much just playing around, and then she stopped.

Joni Mitchell was upstairs, behind me, on the 2nd floor somewhere, watching the sunset with someone and the window was open and she was just practicing or more likely just goofing off.   The reason she sounded so good, of course, was that it wasn't a recording.

I listened for a few minutes and then it stopped and I never heard her again.

So you see, sometimes the crazy stories you hear are true.

Tarkovsky Was A True Friend of Socialism! His Films Weigh Many Kilograms!

[I have had two comments from friends.  Tom Barron saw some version in 1973 as a student at CalArts thus proving that whatever I saw in 1976 was certainly not the premiere in Los Angeles, or maybe they just claimed it was as a way of selling tickets.   

[Josh Pines of Technicolor tells me that Solaris in the 3.5 hour version is a masterpiece of the cinematic form and that I do not know what I am talking about.  Well, he may be right.  Or it may be that the difference between 3.5 and 8 hours is the difference between heaven and hell.  Film editing, you know, a part of the cinematic art form?  I stand by what I saw, which was complete fucking torture to the 23 or 24 year old who saw it.  That said, I volunteer to watch it again, an approved version of some length, particularly if it is on DVD or otherwise digital so I can skip around to the good parts].

[Josh also tells me that he can find no evidence of an 8 hour version of Solaris. This is very odd, and requires more research.   I will either have to find a library with the monthly Nuart notices back to 1976 or find a film expert online, or a relevant web site to post my question.  This is not a retraction, but it is a notice that there has been some doubt expressed that an 8 hour version existed.  I think I saw it but it was a hideously painful experience of unbelievable and unrestricted boredom, and very long ago.  I do not usually misremember things, but I sometimes misunderstand what I am seeing and thus remember something that did not happen as I recall it, a subtle point.  I have been known to confuse when something happened, e.g. what year it happened.  It may take a while, but the story of whatever it is I think I saw will become clear eventually and when I find out I will update this post.  ]   

I remember hearing in college that in a socialist society, there will be no racism, sexism or poverty. Even at the tender age of 17 I had a feeling that what I was hearing was total bullshit. But had that idealist speaking at that event said that "Under socialism, and with Marxist Leninist thought, the dialectic process will result in films that are devoted to the class consciousness of the proletariat, therefore the only judgement of a film that will be possible or necessary will be a quantitative measure. The film will by definition be "good", the only question is how much good, and that can be objectively measured by its length or weight".

This is an argument that clearly has merit and we are forced to consider it.

In the world of Science Fiction cinema, for many years there were only a few films that could be taken seriously by an elitist film snob, and I promise you that did not include "It Came From Outer Space", even though that worthy 1953 film was released in 3D which as we all know is a very essential quality of any important film made today, or in *any* period of the history of the cinema.

No, there were only a handful of films that could be taken seriously by an elitist and that could also be labelled science fiction, which was and to some extent still is a ghetto devoid of "serious" art as that is judged by those who judge. For example very few, almost no films, which were science fiction could expect to be written up in Cahiers du Cinema. But first among those would be Solaris (1972) by Andrei Tarkovsky.

Was Tarkovsky inspired by the great film "It Came From Outer Space"?

Solaris (1972) was the instant darling of the intelligentsia. Anything by Tarkovsky was, of course, but Solaris was acknowledged to be a world class masterpiece by all who saw it.  Sadly, very few outside Moscow, Berlin or Paris were able to see it.   In only a few years, a very short period of time by the standard of the day, this film did show in two cities in the United States, New York and Los Angeles.  I attended what was either the Los Angeles premiere or within a few days of that in its first run at the Nuart Theatre in West Los Angeles.

And yet, I can tell you that many people who think they have seen this landmark film have not done so. They have been fooled, fed an inferior product by well-meaning but fundamentally misguided individuals who have fallen from the Sociallist path. Many who think they have seen Solaris have actually seen the George Clooney remake. Yes, the film is so fabulous that it has earned its own remake, a true Hollywood compliment.

But no, you say, you actually saw the Tarkovsky original. Perhaps. How do you know that you really saw the Tarkovsky original? Can you objectively judge whether you saw the original, or some degraded lesser form designed for the corrupt American market which is so very concerned with the number of showings they can get of the film in a day?

I am just going to walk around in a big circle until I die !

Perhaps instead of seeing the original Tarkovsky film, you instead saw the pathetic worthless 2.5 hour version. No? I am glad to hear that, it would not be possible to squeeze Tarkovsky into 2.5 hours any more than we could squeeze our consciousness into 800 polygons.

Well, then perhaps you saw the appalling travesty that was the 4 hour version that toured the United States, that center of artistic compromise? And you think you should be proud of yourself for seeing this? Don't be so proud; what you saw was a very shortened version made for the kiddie market and others of short attention span.

I see, you perhaps saw the very limited run of the 6 hour version of this ultimate masterpiece? I am sorry to break this to you, but essential, even fundamental elements of the actual film were left out, to accomodate the need for Capitalist pacing and to compete with action adventure films starring Bruce Willis.

Can you say boring?   Ok, now say boring for 8 hours.

Sadly, we must laugh at the futility of those who saw these shortened versions, for they have not truly seen Tarkovsky's vision. What those of us present in Los Angeles and New York saw was the full, complete masterwork of 8 hours, untouched, unbroken, perfect, not a single frame of film removed which would have immediately and completely destroyed the aesthetics of this Socialist masterpiece!

What an experience it was.  Yes, even though it was in 1976 I can remember every moment of it. Totally captivated by the filmmakers mastery of technique, I was spellbound in tingly anticipation that at any moment something might happen, something, anything, might happen.   Please, could something please happen?   Perhaps some wild action such as an actor making a cup of coffee?  Anything, please, I don't care, please God make something happen in this movie!  Solaris had not less than 10, perhaps as much as 15 minutes of action jam packed into those 8 hours.   Compared to Tarkovsky, I thought, an Ingmar Bergman film would seem like one mad car chase after another.

I thought I was going to die of boredom.  This is your great intellectual Science Fiction masterpiece?, I thought to myself in the lobby, slamming down bad liquid caffeine and chocolate brownie units, trying desperately to stay awake.   Give me a one-eyed slime monster any day of the week, at least it isn't pretentious, just cheap.    

In terms of quantitative social realism, although I do not have the official numbers, we can say that this 8 hour masterpiece of the proletarian dialectic was so good that it measured not less than 13,167 meters in length and weighed not less than 97.956 kilograms thus proving Tarkovsky was a true friend of socialism!

I now have the exciting news that online friends of socialism and Tarkovsky may watch this masterpiece online: 

http://www.openculture.com/2010/07/tarkovksy.html

Solaris (1972) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069293/

It Came From Outer Space (1953) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045920/

The Pakistani Independent Commission Report on the Bin Laden Raid

[revised 7/15/2013]

When the US attacked the compound in Pakistan and killed Bin Laden, it of course set off a tsunami of shit inside Pakistan.   Apparently that one 90 minute action touched on every insecurity and annoyance that the people of Pakistan have about us, the United States, and their government with its ongoing controversies between civilian and military administration.  To address some of these issues, they set up a commission made up of a senior justice and a former military officer among others, and they went around talking to people and trying to answer in written form what could be concluded about what happened and to make recommendations to see that such things did not happen again.

The last time such a commission had been formed was in the aftermath of the partition of East and West Pakistan (e.g. Bangladesh) which was understandably incredibly traumatic for Pakistan.  That this incident should even be seen in that light is itself remarkable, I think, from our point of view.  We wanted to kill Bin Laden, sure, and we had good reason to want to do so as secretly as possible given the situation, but I am sure there was no intent to spark an existential crisis, but apparently we did.

There was no time limit on their work.  They could request to talk to anyone in the country at any level of the government that they wanted to talk to.  The Commission recommended that the report be made public and issued in English and Urdu.

But when the report was finished, it was not made public nor did everyone who the Commission requested to meet for their research agree to meet with them.

But last week, Aljazeera leaked the full document in English, minus apparently one page.   It is quite long, it is somewhat comprehensive, yet it is an easy read.   By skipping around things of no interest to you, you could read it in a few hours.   It has moments of humor (I guess this depends on your point of view) and it certainly has a lot of interest to recommend it.

As part of a remedial or refresher course in modern civics for the responsible adult, this is an excellent primary source on how other people in the world, or at least one group of respected individuals acting in an official capacity of another country see us.

The document is available at www.cryptome.org, at the following link.
http://cryptome.org/2013/07/pk-obl-raid-dossier.pdf

Time Magazine has an article on the release of the report here:
http://world.time.com/2013/07/09/the-abbottabad-commission-what-pakistan-must-learn-after-the-bin-laden-raid/

Here are my notes having read most of the document but not yet the Appendices. 

1. The raid on Abbottabad seems to have been or perceived to be a humiliation for Pakistan which is far greater than it might have seemed to an American observing events.   To us, obviously, somehow Bin Laden managed to hide in plain sight in Pakistan, as we suspected all along, we found him, and we killed him.   But to them it raises issues of incompetence in civilian and military infrastructure at all sorts of levels, including their failure to find him, but also their failure to repel the Americans, the "betrayal of trust" between the two countries, and the presumption of vast penetration of the country by the CIA which is presumed to be hostile to Pakistani interests.  (1) 

2. The report seems to veer from intelligent and sober to emotional and paranoid.   At various times in the document phrases like "night of shame" serve to remind the American reader how powerfully this event shook their sense of pride.  The American raiders are referred to as "the murderers" for example, which seems a little off to me in the circumstances, and the question is asked why the army and the air force did not respond in time to kill the invaders.   Note, not stop the invaders, but kill them, outright, period.

3. Their is an implicit sense of a meltdown in Pakistan civilian administrative structure.  It is taken for granted that various elements of the local and federal civilian infrastructure failed in various ways, either through being understaffed, underfunded, insufficient training, corruption or incompetence. There is the sense that the military and intelligence arms of the government pushed the civilian law enforcement arm out of the way and that the civilian arm could not "carry out their responsibilities" and failed to respond to the event.  The report seems to indicate significant sensitivity to the issue of the competence of the civilian side of government, which makes sense in the context of what little I know about Pakistani history.

4. The report and the Commission seems to be obsessed with the assumption of "massive CIA penetration of Pakistan".    As Steven Coll's book on the history of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan refers to, there seems to have been a very clear sense of concern about outsiders in Pakistan operating legally or illegally.   What is odd about this from my obviously US point of view, is that Pakistan is porous to tribal and criminal elements.  But the idea that extra visas might have been issued and that there is an assumed "vast CIA penetration of Pakistan" seems to be of immense interest to the Commission.   One gets the impression that there is a behind the scenes and varying agreement about what the CIA is and is not allowed to do in Pakistan but that they do not tell their citizens about this agreement who quite probably would not tolerate it.

5. There is a lot of good anecdotal information about the attack that is fascinating if somewhat contradictory at times.   We get good reports from the wives of Bin Laden and the wives of one of the two brothers who were his bodyguards.   And we get an insight into the lives of Muslim women in Pakistan.   We get genuinely new and contradictory evidence about what crashed when, and whether we did put people on the roof or not, how many helicopters when, and whether we had people who cut the power to that part of town at just the right time or whether that was one of their normal blackouts.

6. The Commission report makes the strong statement, several times, that there is no basis for a strategic relationship between the United States and Pakistan, and pretending that there is just causes misunderstandings on both sides.  If this was acknowledged, and that instead it was recognized that we had limited mutual interests and made public and formal agreements to achieve those limited interests, then everyone would be much happier, they say.  

7. The Commission believes that there is no evidence that official elements of the Pakistan government were shielding Bin Laden, but they agree that they can not rule out that unofficial elements might have been.  They attribute his success at avoiding notice to an extremely low profile combined with the near total meltdown of Pakistani infrastructure (to do such things as verify identity cards, approve housing construction, etc).

8. The major theme of the report was on the relationship between the civilian and military sectors of the Pakistani government.   This is not something I would have predicted before I read the report, it seems to be of overwhelming importance to the commission.

Its definitely worth reading.


_______________________

1. In other words, even if they are correct about vast CIA presence in Pakistan, I would presume that they would be there as part of our joint Pakistan-US interests in that part of the world.   In other words, they should not apriori be assumed to be against Pakistan interests, at least not involving any of the issues we are discussing in this report or essay.  Are we not fighting a war together?  Are we not pouring in billions of dollars a year into Pakistan both directly and indirectly?  There is a whole other dynamic between the two countries and that involves Pakistan as a nuclear power.   This issue and the complicated relationship between the two countries because of this issue is never mentioned in the report.

Some Issues with Hiring More Experienced People

[in progress 7/9/2013]


I apologize.  I wanted this essay to be much more sarcastic and biting and self-deprecating, but it just has not come out that way.  It is mostly just serious and with a little sarcasm about American industry and the importance of lying to workers to motivate them.   Maybe the essay will evolve into something more vicious later, with time.


In America, ageism is everywhere.   And American industry is very ageist in its hiring policies.   But are there potentially good reasons for this discrimination?  Is there perhaps a dark side to hiring an older, more experienced worker, one with a reputation in the field, and a style and name that goes along with it?  Are there genuine good reasons to stay away from such people?

Yes, there are such reasons and we know that a priori because in America the actions of business are the leading indicators of right and wrong in our society and they are certainly ageist.

In America, the company is always right because the company is endowed with the test of efficiency in a perfectly competitive market.  Therefore if the company is ageist in their hiring practices, as nearly all of them are, then it has to be for a good reason.  Anything that the company does not want to do, e.g. hire older and more experienced workers,  must ipso facto be inefficient and lead to the destruction of America and its way of life.  It is up to us to explain why ageism is the right thing by examining the case studies provided us by industry.

Technically, ageism in hiring is against the law.  But the law is deliberately written to make this impossible to enforce and so practically there are no serious legal impediments to discrimination on the basis of age.

It is commonly said that older workers are not hired because they are more expensive.  I don't think so, I think that the older and more experienced but out of work professional will absolutely compromise on salary compensation without a moment's hesitation if it meant getting a serious position for a serious company that allowed him or her to do their work, whatever that may be.

But there *is* a dark side with hiring older, more experienced workers.   In some ways, an older worker can be like a disease that contaminates the corporate ethos, and may unconsciously or consciously undermine the esprit de corps that the corporation is working so hard to establish.

Here are some of the ways in which having an experienced worker can cause problems.  

1. Its harder to lie to a more experienced worker.

Go team, this will change the world! Burn yourself out and you will be recognzied for your achievement and establish yourself! But the older worker is living proof that this is a bad strategy.  These workers *did* burn themselves out, they did do groundbreaking work, and they didn't get shit for it, nor are they the least bit recognized for their achievements after a few years. As we say in Los Angeles, that and $3.50 will buy you a decaf espresso in this town.  Thus the older worker may act as an impediment when the time comes to lie to the workers and exploit them because that worker is a living example of what their fate may be.

2. The older worker is by their very nature a failure, and failure is hard to have around.

We want a rah, rah, don't think just do as you are told culture here. Part of that culture has to be the belief that what the worker is doing will lead to their success, ultimately. Sure they may not own any of the upside of their work, being disenfranchised workers in the classic sense, but ultimately, the story goes, this effort will lead to their fame and fortune, trust me. But the company will eventually go under, as most of them do, or be acquired and under new management, as the rest of them do, or had layoffs as all of them do. And all but a few ended up with their paycheck and that is it. People who DID good work and took care of people, and then just got fucked and discarded and had to find a job. Well that person is not only a failure in the eyes of America, but even worse, it is possible that the younger workers would realize that the career path they are on may very well lead to the same result. Well, that is not a good way to get people to mindlessly and enthusiastically do as they are told.

3. Older workers bring a history with them.

Good or bad, older workers have done things in their life.  That means they know people, and some people like them and usually some people don't.   And people are competitive, and frankly, some people are just fucking crazy.  But when you hire an older worker you also hire a person who has a network of people in the field who have made up their minds about the person you have hired.  Maybe it would be better to just hire a new person who has no history and keep things simple.

4. Older workers bring other company cultures with them.

Corporate culture is real.  Building a culture is critical to building a company.  If someone does not fit in, possibly because they have done things differently in other companies, then that person may represent an obstacle to building the culture you desire.    Better to hire someone with little background, they will be easier to indoctrinate into the company way.

5. The older worker may expect, stupidly, to be able to learn from their experience.

We are told such stupid things as we are growing up "he never made the same mistake twice". I am here to tell you today that I have been compelled to make the same mistake over and over again because I had no choice, it was either take the job or not. But the more experienced worker, innocently thinking that it is part of their life and work to be able to learn from their mistakes, may not realize that no one wants to fix the problem.  Telling your management what you have learned and about a way to proceed that you think is better, or about what the problems are with their approach is exactly the wrong thing to do.    You may never be forgiven.    It will either annoy them because their tiny ego can not stand being wrong about something, or it will annoy them because they knew that already and they want you to shut up and do it their way, or it will annoy them because they do not understand a word of what you are talking about and that scares them.

So hiring a younger worker is much better, they have no experience to mention and therefore are much more likely to comply and do as they are told, which brings us to our last issue.

6. Younger people are less of a political threat

Maybe if you hire the older worker, who is qualified to be your boss or your boss's boss, something weird will happen and they will end up with your job. Since you know that you are a worthless piece of shit that does not deserve the job you have, this is a real and practical concern.  Of course, you may also be replaced by one of the younger people you hire as well, so it is not clear what this buys you.

In conclusion, it seems clear that the younger worker will be more pliable, have less history, and won't try to tell you how to do your job.   The answer is clear.   One should hire younger workers, burn them out, then discard them so that they can go away to live the rest of their life in misery and poverty.

That is the American Way.

Where Will The Poor Go to Get Their Daily News Fix ?

As a member of the poverty stricken lower classes, I am not considered eligible to read the news of the great elite online news media. The NY Times, the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, they all permit scum like me to see a few articles a month and then we are cut off unless we pony up the big bucks. Well, ladies and gentlemen of the press, when you are on food stamps, its hard to see putting out $200-400 US per year for the NY Times, or $180 per year for the Washington Post Digital Edition, or the $275 per year for the Wall Street Journal Digital Edition.

This move to charging for Internet services greatly impacts my ability to waste time while "educating myself on the issues".

Furthermore, it removes another element of sheer time-wasting pleasure, reading the insane and fury-filled comments of the various factions on one side or another on the issues.

America supports coup ! America doesnt support coup ! America destroys freedom ! America doesnt destroy freedom ! Obama plans to force all Americans to turn in their guns and get health insurance ! Illuminati works with Jews to control media ! Online commenters throw foul insults at each other !   Proof that God exists !  Proof that God never existed !   Snarl !  Scream !  Take that ! And that !  Ouch !  You scum !  How dare you !

I am cut off from my sources of entertainment, or is that infotainment, and am forced to slink around to second rate newspapers like the LA Times in order to get my comment fix. Let me tell you right now, the comments on the LA Times are no where near as erudite or interesting or even insane as the ones on the Washington Post web site. They are far down the list.

It sucks to be poor. You can't even waste time on the Internet the way you used to be able to.

From bad to worst, the fate of the poor in America continues to sink into the morass.  They take away our comments, how much more can the poor take before they rise up in armed rebellion?