The Tragedy of Johannes Mehserle and Oscar Grant - A Shot Heard Around the Bay

Today, Johannes Mehserle is released on parole from prison after less than a year of imprisonment. He shot Oscar Grant, a black twenty-two year old unarmed train passenger, in the back, killing him, on News Years Day, 2009, in a Bay Area Rapid Transit (B.A.R.T) train car. Mehserle was a B.A.R.T. policeman. Even with a number of cellphone videos of the event, there are arguments about what really happened. This video-news report by Channel 2 T. V. is one of the better reports on the event. Watch closely and you can see Mehserle stand up, remove his pistol and shoot, and the other B.A.R.T. police standing up, appearing to be surprised. Mehserle later claimed that he thought he was grabbing his Taser, but it appears that even a Taser wasn't really needed. Grant was down, laying flat on the floor, his hands behind his back and under the control of at least four policemen. Grant's two friends were watching, not interfering. So, how and why did this happen?

The claims, shouted from all directions, range from racist cops and police brutality to uncontrolled and excessive use of force to lack of training. Street demonstrations in Oakland's streets turned into destructive riots. There is another demonstration planned today on Mehserle's release, after serving only eleven months of a two-year sentence. I understand the frustration and belief that justice was not served when a guy who shoots and kills another person receives only a two-year sentence for the deed and then gets out after serving only eleven months. I see that point of view, but I can't say that justice was not served in regards to Mehserle in this case, or that Mehserle was the real culprit in the shooting. After all is said and done, after two years of reading investigative reports about the case and watching news reports of investigations, I think Mehserle may have been just as much a victim as Grant was. He was caught in the center of mismanagement and bad policy, procedure and training. Here's why I say that.

One aspect of the case included an investigation into B.A.R.T., its management and its police. Its management is accomplished by a nine-member board of directors elected by the citizens living in the Bay Area. These nine approve and set policy, establish procedures and budgets, including police manpower and training budgets. B.A.R.T. is consistently in debt. Watching the public hearings and director meetings, it doesn't take long to notice that the qualifications of people elected to positions of management are dubious at best. Voters simply don't know the qualifications of the people they vote for and it was glaringly obvious in B.A.R.T.'s case. For example, the board listened to, and agreed with, the B.A.R.T.'s Police Chief's claim "that his police were trained and qualified higher than California standards...." That seemed to satisfy the board. Really? Later testimony didn't satisfy me. Maybe I'm just a hard-headed skeptic.

According to reports, Mehserle had six hours of Taser training, including how not to confuse his Taser with his gun. I need to emphasize the length - six hours. One of the best police training regimens in California is the Highway Patrol Academy - 27 weeks of intense, 24/7 training including days and days of use of deadly force. Deadly force includes the use of guns and Tasers. That simple comparison is alarming to me. Six hours of training doesn't give me a rosy feeling about his qualifications to use a Taser, or even a gun for that matter, or to be able to tell them apart in a high-stress situation.

A lot of people scoff at the idea that training, or the lack of it, actually causes tragedies like Grant's, but I don't. If police training is anything like military training, then police training will save both police and civilian lives. The only other qualification Mehserle needed to become a B.A.R.T. police was 36 hours of accredited college. As I understand, all other training he received was specific to his assignment, such as pistol qualifications, jurisdiction laws, extent of authority, etc. That really doesn't tell me how many hours, days or weeks he drilled, practiced and tested his abilities or even passed exams that qualified him to be a police officer. Training for high-stress situations involves a lot of drilling and practice. The intent of training for conflict that police might face is to develop an automatic reaction and response that overrides human instinct, the instinct of survival. Instinct isn't a reliable survival technique. In fact, instinct is more likely to be an instinct to run rather than stay the course. It could also be instinct that causes some to rush into dangerous situations when more evaluation is called for. Both cases could be disastrous for the greater good.

So, I'm not impressed with Mehserle's training. I don't think he was trained to handle a high-stress situation. Mehserle said that he had "a feeling of being out numbered, overwhelmed by Grant and his friends," yet there were four policemen and only three suspects, including Grant, and Grant voluntarily lay on the floor when asked to and the other two were simply watching events unfold and not interfering. Mehserle's comment is a clear sign to me that Mehserle was panicking; his emotions were out of control and his imagination was too active. His animal instinct was paramount and in control. He was on the verge of either running or rushing in. Adrenaline had taken over. He rushed in. He wasn't thinking or evaluating. He was not seeing what was actually happening nor did he have the developed automatic responses necessary for the task.

All of that said, there was a glaring omission in all of the reports and investigations into this case, a question I didn't hear: Just how, in God's name, did the B.A.R.T. come to have a police force in the first place? Did not a single reporter or investigator think to ask that question? B.A.R.T. is a transit company. It is not a city, a county, a state or federal government, yet the B.A.R.T. police have state-wide authority to arrest, detain and act with the authority of police anywhere and anytime. Its claimed jurisdiction is limited to the trains, yet it has police cars that cruise the local communities and, from what I understand, respond to local city and county police calls. A B.A.R.T. policeman transits through the cities and counties in the Bay area without limits. Their authority appears to be limitless while their training is limited. Then, to top it all, B.A.R.T. has been running a consistent debt for years, relying on sales tax bailout year after year. It has accumulated nearly $40 million in debt and half of SamTrans sales tax revenue, around $80 million, goes to servicing the B.A.R.T. debt, paying the interest. I simply don't get the idea that B.A.R.T. needs its own police force. Nor can it afford a police force. Oakland and Alameda County can respond to incidents on B.A.R.T. trains in their areas. So can any other city or county in the area.

Maybe more answers will come out of the $24 million lawsuit filed by Grant's family. I hope it does. Personally, the lawsuit is where I think justice lies. I don't think imprisoning Mehserle will bring justice, for Grant's family or Mehserle. He will have to live with his own conscience. I think that will devastate him, probably for a lifetime.

Dave

Okay, Let's Take Her Down

This kind of Republican political bullshit ticks me off. I happen to believe that the Republicans are so far removed from reality that they are preposterous. They've blocked every plan for the recovery of America. They've spent an inordinate amount of time on the most trivial pursuits in Congress after they gained the majority in the House. They have done and are doing everything they can to make sure Obama fails and they appear to be winning. They do everything they can to cause undeserved criticism of the Obama administration, and they're winning at that too. They constantly extort their philosophy by deceptive methods, twist or misrepresent the truth and any other means to delude the people. And so it seems that we are headed for a time of severe austerity when we should be stimulating the economy, investing in America, and gradually working into the plan of more austere debt reducing policies. They remain unconvinced of their own misguided ideas and are more than willing to sink their own country for their own selfish reasons. So, go ahead with Walker, Daniels, Christie, Perry, Bachmann, Palin, Romney, Huckabee and your other heroes who are more than willing to have other, usually poorer, people pay to benefit themselves. Let's see what happens.

The people, it seems, are like drug addicts and they are ignoring the doctor's warnings, such as the warning against short-term extreme Republican austerity policies that Ben Bernanke gave in his speech on June 7th.

Okay. Since an addict will not learn or change their ways until they hit absolute bottom, let's do it. Go ahead and vote your guys in and let's test their theories to the bottom. Perhaps that will be the end of them and the nonsense when, I hope, everyone wakes up, finally, once and for all, and learns that we cannot put a self-regulated economic system above human needs, desires and rights. Perhaps, I hope, people will actually learn that not investing in their own country is actually a bullet in the head. Let's do it. It's the only way to the truth.

Personally, I can do a third-rate developing country. I can hack being poorer, no healthcare, no military pension (even though YOU promised) and begging on the street. So can my kids, although I wish they didn't have to go there. I'll live through the worst of times, God willing. It will be heart breaking, but I can watch my brother, sister, nieces and nephews and their families go through bad times when I'm unable to help. The pain inflicted will last fifty years or more, but I can hack it during my short stay here.

But, while I'm here, KNOW that I'll know WHO did it and I'll be in your face and I won't be your friend and I won't be quiet.

Dave

Expectation - The Dawn Ritual

It was a solicitor who knocked on our door yesterday that got me to thinking. She wanted a donation for a charity to clean up a huge area of the ocean where currents have brought together tons of trash stretching for miles, floating on the surface. Plastic bags and bottles, fishing lines and hooks and fishing nets for as far as the eyes can see. As far as I'm concerned, cleaning up the mess should not depend on charity. It should depend on taxes and nations should be responsible and pay the bill and to come together and send fleets of ships to clean it up. I have reason to say that...

There was always a day at sea that occurred occasionally that I considered perfect. And, had I thought about it, I might have been able to keep a record to figure out if those days came at scheduled intervals, just in time to sooth the soul. Maybe they did. But, I didn't notice. I did, however, notice that those were special days.

On those days I awoke early, like I always did, around four-thirty, showered and dressed by four-forty-five, and made my way to the galley for coffee. On those days I could walk down the passageway without bracing for the side-to-side rolling motion. I could hardly feel the ship moving at all. It felt like walking on solid, unmoving ground. There was a slight vibration from the ship's engines. Sometimes I could feel the power of the propeller pushing against the water without the slightest hesitation or interruption or shudder, unlike other days. Just a solid, continuous, harmonious push. On those days I felt a small serge of anticipation about what I would see from the main deck. I anticipated a perfect day.

Sometimes by the time I started my walk to the mess hall, I could hear others rising for the day. They, like I, knew from an inner feeling and the absence of swaying motion that the day was special. Someone would yell out, "rise and shine!" or "What are you doing? Sleeping your life away?" The few early risers gave no quarter to those night-owls who stayed up late and wanted to sleep in for just one more hour. The reply was usually, "shut the fuck up!" I heard the curse word and would think, "not today. That word is inappropriate today."

I would arrive at the galley as the coffee was in its last few perks, the color in the sight-glass perfectly dark brown to suggest better-than-usual cup coffee. It was always good coffee, but on those days it was great coffee. The cooks were already up and preparing for breakfast. The mess hall floor was littered with empty cardboard boxes just unpacked for the morning meal. Chute would be placing food on the serving counter or stirring the shit-on-the-shingle, a creamy gravy with either chipped beef or sausage, one of my favorites, or stacking the cartons of eggs beside the grill. The grill was getting hot. Someone stacked the bread next to the toaster. I picked up a few slices as I passed by. Someone else was gathering up the cardboard boxes, folding and bundling them up for trash storage for disposal at the next port. We didn't toss them overboard.

As soon as I entered the galley I'd hear Chute yell out to another cook or some guy on mess duty, "Check the milk dispenser. Set it to thirty-six degrees. I don't want to hear Clark bitch about warm milk!" He said that every morning after we became friends, and we may have became friends because of warm milk. I can't drink warm milk. In fact, I won't drink milk unless it nearly freezes my throat as it goes down and there was a time when I told Chute every chance I got that he didn't know shit about keeping milk cold. I'm sure he got tired of hearing it. "We keep it at forty degrees," he'd say. "Shit," I'd say, "that's warm." He finally turned the thermostat down and the entire crew started drinking more milk.

Those days were the reason I used a small thermos instead of using an even smaller galley cup. I didn't want to run out of coffee. I didn't want to miss the morning by having to return to refill my cup every fifteen minutes. I filled the thermos and made my way to the main deck and to a spot about one-quarter of the way down the rail from the bow, port or starboard, whichever was facing East, if at all possible. Robby, a Gunner's Mate friend, may already be there or he may be a few minutes behind me. He knew the spot too. It could have been that I learned the spot from him or perhaps he learned it from me, but we both knew where to stand. It was quieter at that spot than anyplace else. It was a point we studied and thought about. We leaned against the rail and waited, drinking our coffee and saying nothing.

Usually it was totally dark when we got there. There was just a slight shimmer, a bright thin line, on the perfect eastern horizon that told us that the Sun was coming. There was not a single sign of phosphorous light from an ocean wave, except sometimes something shot out of the water alongside the ship and quickly dove back in, causing a phosphorescent splash. Dolphins, we knew, were tracking beside us, out-pacing the ship, playing a game with us, but we couldn't see them yet. They were perfectly camouflaged in the dark, black water. Our engines were cruising nearly noiselessly. We could hear the splash of the Dolphins. We could, on some days, hear a flutter of wings, a different kind of wings than those of feather, and we saw the white phosphorous spot where something else popped out of the water. We couldn't see where it dove back into the water. These were flying fish, we knew, that rose out of the water and flew a hundred yards ahead of us, but we couldn't see them either. At least not yet. Even our ship cutting through the water caused so little disturbance in the water as to make a sound, nor could we see any sign of phosphorescent disturbance at the waterline. In spite riding on a machine that should have been making a noise, it was eerily quiet. We almost heard the Sun rising and the ocean waiting. Usually, as we drank our coffee and waited, we wondered at the power of nature that could muffle all sound as it waited for the day.

Finally the Sun would make its appearance, the dawn began to make things visible. We could see the Dolphins playing, rising to the surface, jumping and diving, and seemingly pausing to look at us standing against the rail. The flying fish breached the surface and flew farther than they did on other days. Sometimes we saw pods of killer whales farther away jumping and diving like the Dolphins. Perhaps they were following the Dolphins. Perhaps the Dolphins were close to us because the killer whales would not come closer. We sometimes saw whales breach the water and they too seemed to look at us. Once we saw a water spout and Robby and I were surprised at that sight. "How could that happen?" one of us asked, I don't recall which, on a day when there were no clouds in the sky and no apparent wind blowing and not the slightest wave on the ocean? As far as I know, it takes the same weather disturbance to create a water spout as it does a tornado, yet they appeared on the calmest day at sea. Perhaps sometimes for reasons that are beyond my understanding water can behave like dust in a dust-devil and rise and swirl around in gusts of invisible and isolated pockets of wind. Some people prefer sunrises that reflect on clouds in radiant reds, but there is no denying the beauty of a blazing sunrise in a cloudless sky over the calmest sea. In fact, the sense of power one gets from the ocean on its quietest day is greater than when it is most turbulent.

On those days the ocean was so smooth that we couldn't see even a hint of a swell. The questions in our minds was always the same, "How can the ocean be so large and this smooth? This glassy? Not a single ripple on the surface?" The Sun's reflection off the water was just as bright and blazing as the Sun itself and we couldn't look directly at either the Sun or the reflection. We watched the Dolphins or flying fish instead. Soon, a few gulls would come to fly a few feet away, intentionally picking the spot where we stood, nearly flying in formation and keeping post with us. We broke off pieces of the bread we brought from the galley and tossed them into the air and they, with perfect precision, like a jet fighter peeling off for a dive, dove and caught the pieces in mid-air. One of us usually ask, "What are these seagulls doing way out here?" or "Where do you think they sleep?" We were frequently several thousand miles from land, yet those gulls would be there. The simpleness of our questions masked a deeper feeling of awe.

Chute, on a break, would join us at around five, also carrying a cup of coffee and a few slices of bread for the gulls. He said the same thing every time on those days, "what a nice day! This is what I wait for." It was better than nice. It was perfect. Then, the three of us would toss bread to the gulls and watch the Dolphins in silence for thirty more minutes before going below to the galley for breakfast. For unexplainable reasons, we were hungrier and the eggs tasted better and the bacon crisper and Chute was a better cook than usual on those days. Robby wondered out loud if he could find some reason, an excuse, to work outside. Maybe a gun needed painting or lubricating or perhaps brass needed shining; things that Robby didn't usually do at his rank. Chute and I, who worked below decks, would find more excuses to go outside today. In fact, I noticed that on those days, there seemed to be more of the crew outside than on other days and, if you were observant, you could catch them gazing out over the ocean in a kind of daze or dream.

Robby, Chute and I were not always on the same ship together, but I believe we always attended the dawn ritual together. They, like me, wouldn't have missed those for the world. They were enchanting and addictive.

If I thought that I could see a sunrise like that, an ocean that calm and toss bread to gulls and watch dolphins play on a day during a five-day cruise to Mexico, I would book the cruise today. Earth can put on unimaginable displays of power, beauty and mystery and sometimes we should simply stand in silent reverence. Maybe the rest of the time we should do what it expects of us - take care of it.

Dave

The Prescription - I should have asked

I don't know why this stuff only happens to me. Why me, Lord? I've asked that question at one time or another my entire life. But, there you go, it happened again, this time by means of an unsightly growth, a nice word for a wart, in a most inconvenient place. If it had been in any other out-of-sight place, I wouldn't have bothered with it at all. But, it wasn't and that is my lot in life. I'm different. Things happen to me that are just barely slightly different than the same thing happening to other people. If another person had acquired an unsightly growth similar to mine, it would have been in a place just slightly off of center, perhaps only an eighth of an inch, so as not to be an irritant or noticeable at all.

Take splinters, for example. Other people get splinters just like I do, but I firmly believe that their splinters are different than mine. Mine always happen in the most inconvenient places. If I get a splinter in my thumb, I get it at the very exact spot that I continue to irritate until I take the time to dig it out, and even when I gather up the tools, the tweezers and magnifying glass to dig it out, I need help holding the glass, the tweezers and my thumb, all at the same time, at the right angle to perform the operation. And you would be surprised at how those people who happen to be available to help suddenly become so uncoordinated that they can't hold a magnifying glass at the angle needed! These things don't happen to other people. I'm convinced of that.

I went to the doctor several years ago to have the unsightly growth, okay - wart, removed. I was referred to a dermatologist who said, "Oh no! We can't remove that! That will bleed!" First off, I have to ask who in hell "we" are? Maybe he had a mouse in his pocket. It was only him and I in the room. In hindsight, I now believe that he was an overly excitable kind of person who couldn't stand the sight of blood, but I didn't insist on it being removed at the time. Also in hindsight, I have to ask myself why a person who can't stand the sight of blood became a dermatologist? But, you see? That's my lot. Out of all of the dermatologist in the world, I get the only one who faints at the sight of blood! That's what I'm talking about. If any other person had been there, they would have walked out of the hospital that day minus one unsightly growth! Whatever. So, after several years of sitting on it, I finally irritated the spot enough to inflame the area to the point of slight bleeding, and to bother the hell out of me, that I once again made an appointment to have it removed. This time, I was going to insist that I be treated just like all other patients. I was not going to be discriminated against!

I went to the appointment in somewhat of a grumpy mood, already prepared in my mind to be obstinate. My doctor said, "oh yeah. That's inflamed. Let me call a dermatologist." Five minutes later a very good looking dermatologist entered the room with her very good looking medical assistant. What? I thought. This too can only happen to me. Not only do I have to remove my drawers for a doctor, I have to remove them for a crowd! Two of which are good looking women! "Bend over," my doctor said, "they've seen behinds before."

"Oh yeah," the good looking dermatologist said, "I'll biopsy that." Notice that she didn't say "remove" it? That's just one more example of discrimination as far as I'm concerned, using a language or terminology that is vague or not understood by normal people. Just what did she mean by "biopsy?" So, I dressed and made my way to her clinic and then to an exam room where I once again removed my pants. According to her assistant, who came in to prepare me, a biopsy would remove "just a small slice" of the growth. "No," I told her, "I want the whole thing removed." "Well," she said, "we'll have to wait to see what the doctor says." Well, that statement, and all of my past discriminatory experience, sort of welled up inside of me to the point that I decided that I was going to be downright rude about the whole thing if I needed to be. At that point, I didn't give a damn what the doctor would say and I was going to say so.

But, I needn't have worried. The doctor said, after I asked her specifically what she meant, that the whole thing, the entire growth, was the biopsy. She was slicing it off at the skin level. And she did. I guess I was mollified by that fact that things, something, was finally going my way, the way I imagined that other people experienced; a happy ending. I really didn't notice or question the prescription she wrote out. "It's for a rash," she said, "around the area of the wound." "Okay," I said, a docile sheep following instructions from the most trusted profession in the world. Who do we trust the most? A doctor, of course.

It really didn't dawn on me what I felt about rashes. Frankly, I don't give them much thought. If I do anything at all, I'll get some over-the-counter cream or ointment and try to take care of it myself, such as Hydrocortisone 0.05% for dry skin. I've used that stuff frequently in the winter. So, I'll take care of it much like I take care of other ailments; if it gets to the point where it seems serious, I'll go to the doctor. Otherwise, I'll handle it. But, I trust doctors, so I accepted the prescription for Desonide Ointment 0.05% without question. I should have been alerted to a problem when this particular ointment required me to get advice from a pharmacist. How many ointments require a pharmacist's advice? "Don't put it on your eyelids," she said, "or your mouth or nose. It's intended to be used on other areas of your face." "Well," I said, "this is intended for the opposite end," in a smart-ass, joking sort of way. I should have noticed the shocked look on her face, but I didn't. Her look should have been a clue that I didn't need this particular ointment. My self-medicating history with minor ailments such as rashes should have come to mind, but it didn't. "Oh," she said, and she didn't say anything else, seemingly cutting her normal advice short.

So, I paid my share, $15 as I recall, and walked away with the tube of ointment. I put it on the counter when I got home and it's lain there since, unopened and unused. What really got me, though, was that I noticed on the receipt that I had only $232 balance left, after this prescription, on my Medicare Part D plan. What!? That lead me to ask myself just how much did this stuff cost, anyway? Well, if I paid 20%, then the whole thing cost $75. That's outrageous! That shock lead me to researching it further. The next thing I noticed was where it was made. We in the U. S. make a big deal, in fact it is illegal thanks to the Republican Congress and the Bush Administration, about getting cheap drugs from Canadian pharmacies. So, where is it made? Brampton, Ontario, Canada! And, it is distributed by the same company from Hawthorne, NY. I found a Canadian pharmacy that charges $8.79 for it! Well, sensing a conspiracy of some magnitude, and further evidence of the outright discrimination directed entirely at me, I set out to find what it is used for, and an even a bigger shock! It's used for DANDRUFF! DRY SKIN! The exact same thing that I use Hydrocortisone 0.05% at one-twentieth the cost. For crying out loud! By that time I had figured out that I had been scammed. I needed this stuff like I needed another hole in the head! Nevertheless, I had accepted it in total faith. I immediately went into a depression of that "I never learn" kind.

You know? I already use a dandruff shampoo, and it works pretty good. I don't have a single flake of dandruff on my shoulders. In fact, my barber, who I'm beginning to think knows more than my doctor, has told me that my shampoo is pretty strong and that I shouldn't use it more than once every two days. That statement meant to me that something that strong should be as good as Desonide Ointment 0.05%. And, so two weeks have passed and I've concluded that, had I been a touch more quick witted, I would have deduced relatively quickly that all you need to treat an inconvenient area of dandruff rash after a growth is removed is Selsun Blue shampoo. And, applying shampoo is a hell of a lot easier than the contortions needed to apply an ointment in that particular location, especially when trying to judge left from right through a mirror from a bent-over position that makes everything upside down. In fact, my contortionist days are long past. I can no longer turn myself into a pretzel. I'm taking the ointment back. I have other more important prescriptions to charge against my Medicare Part D plan.

Dave

This Book Explains It

In my quest for the answer to my primary question, "Why?", David Brooks' book, "The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement" says a lot. In fact, it explains the "why" to a lot of questions. Why do people believe what they believe? Why do people make the choices they make? Why do people follow an obviously faulty ideology? Why do people repeat failure? Why do they choose against their own best interests? Why are people easily led by blatant propaganda? Why isn't it obvious to everyone without exception? Brooks provides an answer, and it makes sense.

When I opened the book to the first page, I immediately formed a big question in my mind: How did Brooks get on this wagon? How did he come to write "this" book? The subject of the book is about as far from his central endeavor as you can get! He is a commentator and writer about politics and policy, not a writer about psychology, neurology and physiology or how the brain works. He's a conservative writer and commentator, but with his book, he is saying that he is not blindly following conservative ideology. He's saying that he's more than willing to find a middle ground that works for all. He's interested in the same question I have: Why? That's an important distinction.

The book is about how the brain works, how we learn, how we love, why we choose what we choose and what makes us who we are. It's about the unconscious and conscious minds and what each do. And, it makes perfect sense. Contrary to what we've been taught for at least my lifetime, the unconscious mind is not a repository of repressed sexual desires where we live Freudian dreams and hate our mother. It is instead a center of innovation, of knowledge and miraculous invention and automatic learned reaction to the outside world. Contrary to what we've been taught, the conscious mind is not in control or the center of our knowledge as we all like to think. In fact, if we rely on conscious thought, we are more likely to not know what we do and why we do it. Wow! I repeat, it makes perfect sense.

One evening about fifteen or twenty years ago we were invited to dinner at Monica's and George's, two good friends, with two other "cousins" of the family. George, Russ and I were sort of extended family, attending only through our relations to the four women cousins. One of the cousins was a teacher, and the subject came up of the so-called "new" thought at the time on teaching kids. The idea being passed around by educators was to reinvent education, and thereby improve or enhance our children's ability to enter the world of adulthood, by somehow teaching them "how to think for themselves." It was all very vague to me, but the teacher cousin seemed to understand the teaching method being sold. But, one thing bothered me, and it started an argument at the dinner table.

"Learning by rote is out," she said. "Oh no!" I said, and the argument was on. At the time I was around forty-five and it had been my experience that how good I was at all of the jobs I had had up to that point solely depended on how well I learned those jobs by rote, by constantly repeating aspects of the job. As a career Navy person, I don't recall a single duty that I did well except through repeated drills and practice until my own performance was automatic. Repeated drills and practice was our gospel. And, there was nothing more satisfying than being on a well organized and functioning battle ship fine tuned through repeated drills. When we hit our targets at ninety-five percent or better, we were happy. When we steamed into hostile situations knowing we would win, we were happy. When we earned that Battle "E" for Battle Efficiency, we were happy and proud, and we sailed into harbors with that Battle "E" painted on our stack and we lined the deck in our dress uniforms! We looked good! We WERE good! And we knew it! We knew we could take on any situation and win. We worked hard and we played hard and we won. There was nothing better. The same was true of jobs I held after the Navy. I don't care where you work, you won't learn your job through theory. You learn it by doing it over and over again. So, she was wrong, and I knew it, but I didn't know why she was wrong and why I was right. Nevertheless, the new method was the one propagated and schools began to use it to teach their students.

Looking around now days, I don't see much improvement in our education system. In fact, the new method appears to have been a disaster and if any of those students who learned under the new methods achieved anything at all, it does not appear to because of the education system. We are on our way, again, of thinking up something new to teach children; this time with charter schools that are no different, in essence, than our public schools. We're off on another tangent, and should I mention the Republican gospel, "privatization?" Yep, charter schools is simply another way of privatizing public schools - the same old mantra.

Brooks presents a different idea and brings back an old idea. He cites studies and tests performed by neurologists, psychologists and physiologists over the past forty or fifty years. Usually, a book that cites scientific studies bores me to death, but Brooks weaves those findings into a story about a family and their children as they grow and go through life. He makes it interesting, very interesting. And, on page 86, about 20% of the way into the book, sort of hidden and obscure, not highlighted in bold print, he makes a profound statement about the brain: "The human brain is built to take conscious knowledge and turn it into unconscious knowledge." Wow! That ought to be in big bold letters! He goes on, "The first time you drive a car," he says, "you have to think about every move. But after a few months or years, driving is done almost automatically. Learning consists of taking things that are strange and unnatural, such as reading and algebra, and absorbing them so steadily that they become automatic. That frees up the conscious mind to work on new things. Alfred North Whitehead saw this learning process as a principle of progress: 'Civilization advances by extending the number of operations which we can perform without thinking about them.'" Well, he's right. He's talking about "repetitive" learning, learning things by rote. He's talking about learning until it becomes automatic so we can move on to new things.

I know why Brooks took the path that eventually became this book. He was curious. He wanted to know why the political divide in this country and why so many people have been convinced to follow people like Sarah Palin, who he calls a "cancer" and a "joke" in the Republican Party, or Glenn Beck, who is absolutely bonkers. The book was an accident, and he says as much in the first few pages of the book. He didn't start out to write the book.

The book explains a lot. Why do people get so infatuated with Fox News and Bill O'Rielly or Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh to the point that they close their minds to any other idea or source of information that prove them wrong? Even to the point of denying facts that prove O'Rielly, Beck and Limbaugh to be outrageous liars and rumor mongers in many cases? Why are they so convinced that Obama was not born in the United States, even in the face of a legitimate birth certificate? Why do they call him a socialist when the facts and his own behavior show that he's an ardent capitalist? Why do they get on the band wagon of hating a Muslim Mosque, an absolute anti-Constitutional stance, when there is absolutely no evidence supporting their hatred? In fact, the hatred stemmed from the rumor-mongering-spreading, mostly over Fox Cable, of a loony conspiracy theory. How does that happen? And, by the way, why don't people know what is REALLY in the Constitution? People who repeatedly misquote and misinterpret it? Where in hell did Michele Bachmann go to school? Or, did she? She's crazy and ignorant in nearly 100% of what she says!

And then there is another question. How or why did we come to believe that capitalism is the God send to our salvation? That laissez-faire is our end-all, best for all of us, the greatest thing since apple pie for our society? The answer to all of these questions is "repetitive" learning. Propaganda, repeated over and over, through the media until we are unable to see better solutions or even the truth for ourselves. We begin to believe in myth. The fact is that capitalism is a very vicious and ruthless endeavor when it is left to its own development and unregulated. Companies do not have a conscience. In fact, psychoanalysts have analyzed company behavior to be very similar to psychotic sociopath behavior. They have no pity, empathy or sympathy. They don't care if their presence destroys a community, town or city. There is only one thing that's important to a company: profit. And, to make the profit, a company will buy and close another company, costing millions of jobs. It will exploit land and externalize costs for taxpayers to pay, such as environmental cleanup costs. They will seek out cheap labor overseas, and destroy the community they are located in. In San Francisco, Twitter blackmailed the city to accept a condition for it staying in the city only if it didn't have to pay city taxes. The San Francisco Council caved in, so Twitter is staying, working, growing, making money without having to support the community it is in by paying taxes. What a bunch of nonsense! Someone else has to pay for the streets and sidewalks, public parking, traffic control, water system, sewage system and all of the rest of the infrastructure that Twitter uses to make its executives filthy rich.

The fact is that capitalism, just like any other economic system, needs to be controlled or it will destroy the social fabric we live in. But, we learn by repetition, and we've been convinced, over and over again, and despite historical fact, that there is no other way. So, we vote for it, just like we vote for the demise of Planned Parenthood, which is nothing like the lies about it that are repeated again and again until we believe it. We vote for budget cuts, but not for Defense cuts, because we are repeatedly told to fear for our security. We vote for privatizing Medicare with vouchers, which will be paid for by the government, when in fact privatizing it will make it more costly and in the end be nothing more than handing over Medicare to a private company. We vote for tax cuts for the rich because we are repeatedly told they "make the jobs," which is not true. We vote for corporate tax cuts while the corporations send jobs out of country, because, we're told repeatedly, that "we," the "United States," must "compete with the world," when the facts show that our standard of living is going down BECAUSE we continue to believe what we are repeatedly told. In fact, taxes that support maintaining and growing our country's infrastructure insures our competitiveness in the world, not our corporate tax rates. Like anything else, including investments by companies themselves; when we invest in ourselves, we grow and prosper.

We need to relearn a few things. It's time we rebelled against the bill of goods we're being fed. Brooks is brilliant in this book and it is so well written, at least for the first 86 pages, that anyone can read and understand it. I'll even go one better. If my family and friends sign up for a free Amazon Kindle account, and download and install the free Kindle Reader on their PC or Mac, I'll loan the book to them for free! I think there is a thirty-day limit for book loans, though, so they'll have to read it fast. And I don't know if I can lend it to more than one person at a time. But, that's my offer, limited as it is, and I can do that all the way from California! What a deal!

Every parent raising a child should read this book. Every teacher should read it. Every grandparent babysitting their grandchildren should read it. Every adult contemplating a family should read it. Read it!

One more thing. Repetitive learning IS brainwashing. So, the choice is which brainwashing do we want, the good kind that teaches us facts, truths, how to make intelligent decisions and how to live well? Or, do we want nonsense? And, I have another question, now. Why didn't I already know this? Well, dammit, I was brainwashed! Isn't it obvious?

Dave

The Financial Metldown

Reference: Permanent Subcommittee for Investigations Report: “Wall Street And The Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse”

The Financial Crisis Timeline:

December 2006: Ownit Mortgage Solutions bankruptcy

February 27, 2007: Freddie Mac announces it will no longer buy the most risky subprime mortgages

March 7, 2007: FDIC issues cease & desist order against Fremont for unsafe and unsound banking

April 2, 2007: New Century bankruptcy

June 17, 2007: Two Bear Stearns subprime hedge funds collapse

July 10 and 12, 2007: Credit rating agencies issue first mass downgrades of hundreds of RMBS and CDO securities

August 6, 2007: American Home Mortgage bankruptcy

August 17, 2007: Federal Reserve: “[M]arket conditions have deteriorated…. downside risks to growth have increased appreciably.”

August 31, 2007: Ameriquest Mortgage ceases operations

December 12, 2007: Federal Reserve establishes Term Auction Facility to provide bank funding secured by collateral

January 2008: ABX Index stops issuing new subprime indices

January 11, 2008: Countrywide announces sale to Bank of America

January 30, 2008: S&P downgrades or places on credit watch over 8,000 RMBS/CDO securities

March 24, 2008: Federal Reserve Bank of New York forms Maiden Lane I to help JPMorgan Chase acquire Bear Stearns

May 29, 2008: Bear Stearns shareholders approve sale

July 11, 2008: IndyMac Bank fails and is seized by FDIC

July 15, 2008: SEC restricts naked short selling of some financial stocks

September 7, 2008: U.S. takes control of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac

September 15, 2008: Lehman Brothers bankruptcy

September 15, 2008: Merrill Lynch announces sale to Bank of America

September 16, 2008: Federal Reserve offers $85 billion credit line to AIG; Reserve Primary Money Fund NAV falls below $1

September 21, 2008: Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley convert to bank holding companies

September 25, 2008: WaMu fails, seized by FDIC, sold to JPMorgan Chase

October 3, 2008: Congress and President Bush establish TARP

October 12, 2008: Wachovia sold to Wells Fargo

October 28, 2008: U.S. uses TARP to buy $125 billion in preferred stock at 9 banks

November 25, 2008: Federal Reserve buys Fannie and Freddie assets

Dave

The Washington Mutual Case Study: How one bank nearly destroyed the FDIC

Just in case you wonder whether your bank savings and checking accounts are safe, please read the following. The following is an excerpt from the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report entitled: “Wall Street And The Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse.” It is very well written, so you don't have to worry about a lot of legalese or complicated language. It's easily understood. This quote from the report is from the Executive Summary about the subcommittee's case study of Washington Mutual Bank. Just this one bank nearly destroyed the Federal Depositary Insurance Corporation's guarantee of your $100,000 or less savings account. If you STILL think these banks should not be regulated and that regulators can be EASY on them, then you're crazy.

“ The first chapter focuses on how high risk mortgage lending contributed to the financial crisis, using as a case study Washington Mutual Bank (WaMu). At the time of its failure, WaMu was the nation’s largest thrift and sixth largest bank, with $300 billion in assets, $188 billion in deposits, 2,300 branches in 15 states, and over 43,000 employees. Beginning in 2004, it embarked upon a lending strategy to pursue higher profits by emphasizing high risk loans. By 2006, WaMu’s high risk loans began incurring high rates of delinquency and default, and in 2007, its mortgage backed securities began incurring ratings downgrades and losses. Also in 2007, the bank itself began incurring losses due to a portfolio that contained poor quality and fraudulent loans and securities. Its stock price dropped as shareholders lost confidence, and depositors began withdrawing funds, eventually causing a liquidity crisis at the bank. On September 25, 2008, WaMu was seized by its regulator, the Office of Thrift Supervision, placed in receivership with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and sold to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion. Had the sale not gone through, WaMu’s failure might have exhausted the entire $45 billion Deposit Insurance Fund. This case study focuses on how one bank’s search for increased growth and profit led to the origination and securitization of hundreds of billions of dollars in high risk, poor quality mortgages that ultimately plummeted in value, hurting investors, the bank, and the U.S. Financial system. WaMu had held itself out as a prudent lender, but in reality, the bank turned increasingly to higher risk loans. Over a four-year period, those higher risk loans grew from 19% of WaMu’s loan originations in 2003, to 55% in 2006, while its lower risk, fixed rate loans fell from 64% to 25% of its originations. At the same time, WaMu increased its securitization of subprime loans sixfold, primarily through its subprime lender, Long Beach Mortgage Corporation, increasing such loans from nearly $4.5 billion in 2003, to $29 billion in 2006.

From 2000 to 2007, WaMu and Long Beach together securitized at least $77 billion in subprime loans. WaMu also originated an increasing number of its flagship product, Option Adjustable Rate Mortgages (Option ARMs), which created high risk, negatively amortizing mortgages and, from 2003 to 2007, represented as much as half of all of WaMu’s loan originations. In 2006 alone, Washington Mutual originated more than $42.6 billion in Option ARM loans and sold or securitized at least $115 billion to investors, including sales to the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac). In addition, WaMu greatly increased its origination and securitization of high risk home equity loan products. By 2007, home equity loans made up $63.5 billion or 27% of its home loan portfolio, a 130% increase from 2003.

At the same time that WaMu was implementing its high risk lending strategy, WaMu and Long Beach engaged in a host of shoddy lending practices that produced billions of dollars in high risk, poor quality mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Those practices included qualifying high risk borrowers for larger loans than they could afford; steering borrowers from conventional mortgages to higher risk loan products; accepting loan applications without verifying the borrower’s income; using loans with low, short term “teaser” rates that could lead to payment shock when higher interest rates took effect later on; promoting negatively amortizing loans in which many borrowers increased rather than paid down their debt; and authorizing loans with multiple layers of risk. In addition, WaMu and Long Beach failed to enforce compliance with their own lending standards; allowed excessive loan error and exception rates; exercised weak oversight over the third party mortgage brokers who supplied half or more of their loans; and tolerated the issuance of loans with fraudulent or erroneous borrower information. They also designed compensation incentives that rewarded loan personnel for issuing a large volume of higher risk loans, valuing speed and volume over loan quality.

As a result, WaMu, and particularly its Long Beach subsidiary, became known by industry insiders for its failed mortgages and poorly performing RMBS securities. Among sophisticated investors, its securitizations were understood to be some of the worst performing in the marketplace. Inside the bank, WaMu’s President Steve Rotella described Long Beach as “terrible” and “a mess,” with default rates that were “ugly.” WaMu’s high risk lending operation was also problem-plagued. WaMu management was provided with compelling evidence of deficient lending practices in internal emails, audit reports, and reviews. Internal reviews of two high volume WaMu loan centers, for example, described “extensive fraud” by employees who “willfully” circumvented bank policies. A WaMu review of internal controls to stop fraudulent loans from being sold to investors described them as “ineffective.” On at least one occasion, senior managers knowingly sold delinquency-prone loans to investors. Aside from Long Beach, WaMu’s President described WaMu’s prime home loan business as the “worst managed business” he had seen in his career.

Documents obtained by the Subcommittee reveal that WaMu launched its high risk lending strategy primarily because higher risk loans and mortgage backed securities could be sold for higher prices on Wall Street. They garnered higher prices, because higher risk meant the securities paid a higher coupon rate than other comparably rated securities, and investors paid a higher price to buy them. Selling or securitizing the loans also removed them from WaMu’s books and appeared to insulate the bank from risk.

The Subcommittee investigation indicates that unacceptable lending and securitization practices were not restricted to Washington Mutual, but were present at a host of financial institutions that originated, sold, and securitized billions of dollars in high risk, poor quality home loans that inundated U.S. financial markets. Many of the resulting securities ultimately plummeted in value, leaving banks and investors with huge losses that helped send the economy into a downward spiral. These lenders were not the victims of the financial crisis; the high risk loans they issued were the fuel that ignited the financial crisis.”

Dave