Saving the world, living better, & ranked-choice voting

     "Saving The World, With Or Without Sarcasm"

     In my last previous attempt, I slipped into sarcasm without realizing it.  So I probably didn't raise awareness in anyone except, later, myself.


     Since then I've been thinking of what happens aside from just "raising awareness", and thought of one thing that could happen.  I could drive my car less and generally live less wastefully.  So there you have it -- if anyone does that, it helps to save the world.  And one person could be an example for others.


     "N Ways To Live Better (In The Sight Of 'God')"

     (1)  "Pray a lot."  This is what is taught in church.  I don't really know whether it works, except that I suppose any thoughtfulness would help, and prayer could be thoughtful.  It seems to work for others, but I put it in quotes because I don't use that method, except in the sense that "Everyone prays all the time."

     (2)  Do a right thing, even if it's not politically feasible.  For example, pollute less, because it's the right thing to do, even though you think the vast majority of people are going to pollute the planet to death anyway.  If everyone stops at whatever they think is a political infeasibility, then it's a pretty sure thing that we'll make a bad world.  But if some few people do the right thing, there's always the possibility that others might follow the example, either soon or late, but eventually, and many may learn from the situation, later.

     (3)  Do a right thing, even if the world is coming to an end anyway, and no-one appreciates what you're doing, and there's no god.  This is a spiritual path.  I could say it has its own reward; however, a spiritual path can be right whether it has a reward or not.


     "Ranked-Choice Voting" (a.k.a. instant runoff elections)

     Ranked-choice voting is so good it is like a miracle.  It allows us (as voters) to do right things which are politically infeasible, and thereby change the system (or change society) such that they become politically feasible, soon or late.

     The basic idea (which is all I know) of ranked-choice voting is that if you want to vote for the dark horse candidate (or dark horse proposal) that you really want, you can, and you can also vote a second choice.  Then if your first choice doesn't win, your second choice vote is counted as a vote.

     In the example that follows, if you lean to the Republican party, then swap the words "Democratic" and "Republican".

     An example:  Suppose Ralph Nader were running for President as a 3rd-party candidate.    So, supposing I think I'd rather have him as President than the other candidates, then I vote for Ralph Nader and that would be my first choice vote.  My second choice vote could be the front-runner of the Democratic party candidates.  One likely result of this, in a ranked-choice voting system, is that lots of people would do that, and the nation would come to realize that Ralph is the first choice of, say, 20 or 30% of the population -- something that is not realized yet because, in the current way of voting the people don't bother with the dark horse because they think it would just spoil the election such that the Republic candidate would win, which they don't want, so they cast a "safe" vote which is for the Democratic party candidate.  A second likely result of this is that the Democratic party candidate would probably win (because what would have been spoiler votes are replaced by votes for the Democratic party candidate).  A third likely result is that, over time, people would realize that's happening and start rallying behind people they really want, such as, say, a Ralph Nader, so that eventually we'd have a President like him instead of the usual corporation-sponsored major-party candidate.

     (Ralph Nader isn't really my favorite candidate, but I use him as an example because he was an actual 3rd-party candidate.)

Love

A child in a family felt that his parents loved him unconditionally.

There's a song with a lyric "your love never fails". But a human love could "fail". A parent's love could someday fail, just because humans are generally subject to failure.

In the song, it is God's love that never fails.

The child or a parent feels what love is, and guesses that that love could conceivably end, or "fail". He may eventually imagine, or postulate, a more constant love. To give it a name, he could call it God's love.

The important thing about love, and about God as I imagine it, is not protection. It is not survival, nor everlasting life, nor any material success. The important thing about love is that one knows one is loved or has been loved or will be loved, or that oneself does love. Even just having been loved is worth a lot.

If the love and the loving entity fade away and there is no survival, that is less important than the fact that one was loved, or even that one has loved.

The beautiful world, and even all earthly pleasures, matter less than love. When in old age one half of a long-happily-married couple dies, the other is desolate. The world is still the same objectively on the outside, but the feeling is all different or absent.

So, for common human existence, sometimes there is desolation. But it is possible to realize that a love once loved is forever. (At the least, it "exists" in a multi-dimensional universe that encompasses all "times".) It is possible that there is an everlasting love, and if one knows an everlasting love then that's what really matters, even if all other good things end.

The usual name for everlasting love is God's love.

Conjugating Verbs, Sort Of

"Conjugating A Verb"

This is not exactly about conjugating a verb. But I don't know the right name for it.

In high school Spanish class we conjugated a verb in a tense by listing the forms for 1st-person-singular, 2nd-person-singular, and so on through 3rd-person-plural.

Here I want to list verb, past, and past participle:

stink, stank, stunk

borrow, borrowed, borrowed

drink, drank, drunk
(I drink a glass of water, I drank a glass of water, I have drunk a glass of water. I think that's correct.)

sink, sank, sunk
I sink, I sank, I have sunk.

sing, sang, sung

think, thank, thunk
But no.
think, thought, thought

Think is an irregular verb. That's one more little thing that makes English more difficult.

Let's reinvent that verb:
think, thank, thunk
I think of it, I thank of it, I have thunk of it.

But the problem with that is: "thank" is already taken. It means to thank a person, as in "Thank you".

But there's a work-around for that. One can rely on auxiliary verbs to express the various verb forms:

I think of it. I did think of it. I have think of it. (Or, I have thinked of it.)

Or maybe this:
I think of it. I did think of it. I have thunk of it.

Years ago I took a little beginner's correspondence course in Esperanto. It was 10 lessons. It was given to me, and my work checked, by another dance partner of one of my dance partners (20 years ago when I round-danced). So I know a little about Esperanto. Esperanto is an invented language (as distinct from most languages which come into being naturally without a deliberate, thorough, logical design). One of the main characteristics of Esperanto is the regularity of its forms such as grammar, spellings, verb forms, and so on. It has very few exceptions. It has very few, if any, irregular verbs. I still have an old weatherbeaten Esperanto-English paperback dictionary he gave me, the pages all separated from the binding by now. Esperanto grammar is so simple that it's listed as "The Sixteen Rules of Esperanto Grammar" in the front of this dictionary. Verb forms are also simpler than in English. On page 30 of the dictionary it shows:
mi amas (I love), mi amis (I loved), but no pas participle on that page. All verbs have -as for present tense, and -is for past tense. Page 11 says to avoid compound tenses where possible. See, Esperanto makes an effort to keep things simple. However, participles in Esperanto do exist and they all end in "a". On page 10 I figure out that "I have loved" would be "Mi estas ama".

If English were regular, as Esperanto is regular, then instead of "think, thought, thought", or "think, thank, thunk", we might have something like this:
think, thinked, thinka
I think, I thinked, I have thinka
Or:
thinkas, thinkis, thinka
I thinkas, I thinkis, I have thinka.

Sunday, December 11, 2011 in California under a gray sky

I think that while I was out of the room one of our cats walked on the keyboard and published my post when all I had written in it was a title.

The sarcastic diatribes are from the cats. The nice posts are from me.

Some of you may be excited to know that California is not sunny all the time. Here near this part of the coast and further south in California, we go for about 10 years without much change in the weather. So we make the most of what little weather we do get. So, when we get a light rain, drivers lose control of their cars. Once during a light rain in Mountain View at the intersection of Middlefield and Moffett, I saw one driver do a complete 360 in the middle of an intersection. Then when the car came to a rest, the driver accelerated fast and did almost another 360 (went 3/4 the way around or more) and finally sped off, out of the middle of the intersection. During all that show (which I think was accidental), drivers at all four entrances to the intersection sat still in their cars watching and waiting for the intersection to be clear of this one car.

Today was mild, as are almost all days here in San Jose. Louise and I went to the Farmer's Market in Campbell.

I got a knife sharpened at that Farmer's Market. As usual I got beef at the Farmer's Market. It's the only source of humanely raised meat that I know close enough that I can buy it regularly.

I sampled olive oil. They didn't happen to have any from Palestine. The seller says it's hard to export it out of Palestine. He had oil from lots of other places. I didn't buy any olive oil today, because it's expensive.

I encountered a person in a Greenpeace vest. He told me that somewhere 300 football fields area of rainforest were being cleared per hour or per day, I forget which, and most of the material is used to make toilet paper and packaging for toys. Because of a Greenpeace protest, two large toy companies have switched to recycled packaging and at least one of them is down to zero deforestation, for packaging at least.

We got a few other things and left the Farmer's Market.

Louise went off with a friend, and will meet me later this afternoon to go to a movie. The movie is "In Time". Marguerite (my other daughter) has already seen it. Watching movies is one of my favorite things to do. After I first came to California I watched 2 or more per week. Now I see only 6 to 12 movies per year, and those are almost always with one or both of my daughters. One of the few I've seen without my daughters was Fahrenheit 911 which I watched 4 times. It's one of my favorite movies.

Today I don't walk for exercise. I rest from it about two days per week. I'm still gradually toughening my feet and joints, and often don't even get up to 3 miles per hour. Last night we (Louise & I) walked 70 minutes, which is the longest I had walked for a long time.

Louise flew in from Los Angeles where she goes to school, Friday night after her last test of the quarter which ended at 6pm. They have to be out of the dorm at 9pm the same day.

Yesterday I was one of three drivers for a jazz choir. We went from San Jose, early in the morning at eclipse time, up to Santa Rosa which is two hours away. We went to a jazz festival at which high school jazz choirs and jazz bands were performing. Our high school jazz choir is called the Treblemakers. Marguerite's a soprano in it. They have zero budget from the school district, have to do all their practicing on their own time (no school time allocated to it), and do it in a borrowed room (the drama room). They're very good though and won first place for choirs at this festival.

-John L.

Being Socially Relevant

During college a friend told me I should keep up with news and current events so that my thoughts and what I said would be socially relevant. I didn't much like the idea, but I have to admit it makes sense. (The reason I didn't much like it was that what I thought was relevant was that society was crap.)

In honor of his advice which does make sense after all, this month I decided to be socially relevant at least once. Or twice, but that's another story.

The "once" this month is that I voted and can share my thoughts about how I voted. I mean what could be more socially relevant than that, on an elemental, obvious level? (One could argue that voting is not relevant, but I'm being simple here; don't spoil it.) It even feels important in some kind of "Political" way, whatever that means. So here goes:

Step 1: When the sample-ballot-and-voter-information-pamphlet comes, save it well enough that I can find it when voting day comes.

Step 2: One should actually study it early, although I didn't.

Step 3: Sometime (for me, it was an hour or two before voting -- not recommended timing, but better than nothing), find that ballot-pamphlet and study it. Most of it didn't interest me. I decided I really ought to vote for the biggest race: the one for governor. I read the statements about the candidates -- not in the pamphlet -- it doesn't have that useful thing -- but online, preempting my daughter on the computer because I have this outstandingly good excuse to use the computer; it's for my civic duty.

Jerry Brown "reduced the `tax burden'". So what. It's not more or less tax that matters, it's what kind of taxation system that matters. And hardly anyone ever gets that deep in the discussion.

Chelene Nightingale "demanded secure borders & no amnesty" and has spoken at Tea Party events. I don't see anything good there. If they want security they should stop bombing the wrong countries by carelessness -- which makes lots of extra enemies and alienates friends -- a sure way to make your borders and everything else less secure. I don't know much about the Tea party, and don't want to, but I think they're supposed to be modeled after the Boston Tea Party in history which was about rebelling against an unjust taxation. That's okay but I think the modern so-called Tea Party just rebels against any taxation, without bothering to make distinctions, and I think that's just dumb.

Carlos Alvarez "led a protest to demand an end to Israel's massacre of Palestinians in Gaza. Organized a march of 4,000 people against the Iraq war." I can identify with both of those things.

Laura Wells "proposes a state bank for California" and "proposes an oil severance tax". I'm sure the oil severance tax is a good idea (it's a tax on taking or depleting a natural resource). The state bank for California is probably a good idea too: it might be a way to stabilize a banking system. Government does have some legitimate purposes, and regulating currency (closely related to banking) is probably one of them.

Meg Whitman -- I couldn't find a clear obvious statement about what she stands for. I had to scan her web page for a while. On education, it says she would put more control in the hands of local educators and parents ... and she would remove the state cap on the number of charter schools. But to my mind there's nothing obviously good about those things. Is she abandoning public education? Are charter schools better for society than are public schools? I myself would prefer to see more support for a good public education system.

Dale Ogden wants to "absolutely limit future spending increases". He just about lost me at that word "absolutely". I can't remember any occasion where the word "absolutely" was justified in any socially relevant discourse. Moving along, I see he's against increases in spending. But what kind of spending? All spending? From this short obvious bit that I read about him, he sounds like an airhead. Of course there should be some spending, and occasional increases or decreases in various kinds of spending.

That was the whole list of candidates for governor.

I had thought I might vote for Jerry Brown, though I couldn't say exactly why. Now, thanks to rational study, I can give my reason for my vote: I didn't vote for Jerry Brown because there was nothing obviously good about him. I voted for Carlos Alvarez because he did two good socially relevant things that hardly any candidates do.

Carlos Alvarez is against "the Iraq war". Starting the war in Iraq is the most obvious wrong that the United States has done in recent history.

Massacre'ing Palestinians in Gaza is a highly socially relevant issue and should be strongly opposed. (It's particularly socially relevant here in the U.S. because a portion of our taxes supports the Israeli brutality and virtually none of it benefits the Palestinians in any way -- yet there are more Palestinians than there are Israelis, and the Israelis don't need our money nearly so much as the Palestinians need us to stop giving it to the Israelis.)

I could have voted for Laura Wells. Why did I choose Carlos Alvarez over Laura Wells?

Laura Wells's proposals (state bank and oil severance tax) are sensible and down-to-earth. Such a candidate would even have a ghost of a chance of winning, as compared with Carlos Alvarez who had only half a ghost of a chance of winning.

The reason I favored Carlos Alvarez over Laura Wells is that war and massacres are a lot more important than are banks and taxes and even oil, and even pollution, and even (in my opinion) global pollution. War and massacres are more important than all these; because the Iraq war and the Israeli occupation of Palestine are so unjust, and our failure to oppose them is so bad, that all the world is worth a lot less because of it.

I'd rather vote for Carlos Alvarez, guessing that he'll probably lose, than vote for any of the other candidates, guessing that he or she would win. Without ranked choice voting, most of our votes don't really count meaningfully, but if I couldn't vote for a demand to end Israel's massacre'ing of Palestinians in Gaza, and if I couldn't vote against what this country did to Iraq, then my vote doesn't count for much anyway. I have no regrets at voting for Carlos Alvarez, win or lose. If our country goes down the tubes it won't be because of my vote for him. It'll be because of wrongful bombing by the U.S., of other parts of the world, actions which have to eventually come back and haunt or damage or destroy us.

The governor of California does not deploy bombs, but at least one governor of California went on to become President of the United States, an office which does have the power to deploy bombs.

Carlos Alvarez, even if he were eventually given that kind of power, is the candidate least likely to wrongfully bomb places in the world. But even without direct access to that kind of power, it is important to oppose big wrongs, and that opposition needs to occur anywhere in society, at the grassroots level and at leadership levels.

Not bombing wrongfully, not supporting wrongful bombing, and opposing wrongful bombing, all comprise the one most important issue, at virtually all levels of society today in the United States. Wrongful bombing is the one most important issue of our time, and that wrongful, unjust, cruel act will continue to be repeated until enough of us actively oppose it.

Step 4: Look at the rest of the ballot. I thought I might vote for lots of Democrats (as I have a very low opinion of what the Republican officials have been doing and saying this past decade), but then I remembered having written to one or more congresspeople and senators, saying to them: I won't vote for anyone who I think might support Israel's illegal settlements in Occupied Palestine. So, I left virtually all the candidate races blank, but I did vote for Carlos Alvarez. I strongly doubt that he would support Israel's illegal settlements in Occupied Palestine.

Issues (or "Measures"):

a parcel tax to support education: yes. It's a tax on land, which is a natural resource which no individual creates. It's the right thing to tax. And it's good to spend tax dollars on public education.

a "marijuana business tax" -- hmm. Why would a business tax, on any business, be a good idea, unless that business were depleting or taking natural resources away from the general public? I'd be inclined to vote no, but I don't understand the issue enough, so I leave it blank.

legalize marijuana -- yes. I am so sick of living in a society that subsidizes tobacco and imprisons marijuana smokers. It's been obvious for a very long time that tobacco (or nicotine in tobacco) is very addictive, and also I feel sure enough that it is harmful. One thing I've noticed about marijuana is that what's commonly said against it doesn't make much sense (particularly in light of the same people not saying as much against tobacco or alcohol).

suspend implementation of air pollution control law requiring major sources of emissions to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, until unemployment drops to 5.5 percent or less for full year:

That one is so long, I gave it its own paragraph just to state the question. When I read "suspend implementation of air pollution control", I was already inclined against it. But I couldn't be sure, at that point, because given what laws are, there might be some good reason for suspending the "implementation" of one. But when I read "until unemployment drops to 5.5 percent", it was all over. It is the wrong way to mix issues. It isn't right to allow unchecked pollution just so people can have "jobs". Instead, people should think outside that box, and think: healthier people could have better jobs, more jobs, and more meaningful jobs, in industries that don't pollute much at all. And they could breathe cleaner air, at home, at work, and while travelling.

Whoever thought "jobs" could only be gotten by polluting had a bad idea to begin with. Maybe we'd be better off if there were a lot fewer of _those_ kinds of jobs; because what good is a job, if the one thing that we know about it is that it is directly correlated with more pollution? That direct correlation is what's implied in the statement of the Measure. I voted against that Measure.

a parcel tax to pay for medical checkups, immunizations, and "early detection" (of illnesses, presumably), etc. Yes. A parcel tax is the right kind of taxation system, and public health is a correct pursuit of society and its government. I leave aside the question of whether immunizations as they exist today may sometimes be hazardous. Overall the whole goal, even just the immunization part of it, is good and right.

increase motor vehicle registration fee by $10, and spend the money on maintenance of roads and pollution mitigation projects etc. Yes. "Vehicles" as they exist today are a slow poison to everyone who lives near them. Because they pollute everyone's air (a natural resource that is inherited by all), of course they should be taxed and the proceeds should go to benefit the population at large.

Step 5: Leave blank all those issues and races for which I don't have a clear reason or at least a strong opinion. One of the best things about my ballots, virtually every time I vote, is that I leave most of my ignorance off the ballot, thereby increasing the effects of the votes of people who know more about those issues or those candidates than I do. It's my civic duty NOT to vote about things I cannot hope to make a wise decision about.

Step 6: Find the right polling place. The voter pamphlet tells the address. Upon going there, I find it's in a rather obscure corner and hard to find. So when you vote, allow some extra time to find the polling place, in case your polling place is not easy to find. On the other hand, if you are one of those people who vote about lots of things you don't understand, then take your time, and leave for the polls at the last minute possible. Everyone who thinks seriously about the issues will thank you for your overall carelessness, but only if you happen to arrive at the polls just after they close.

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Listing The Good Things

This week I thought of listing the good things in my life. Here are a few:

Annual family camping trips to the Rocky Mountains when I was small

Christmas when I was small

Learning how to play chess (when I was 9)

The first two years of college (1971-1973)

The first week of college (1971)

Some of the reading, writing, running, and trumpet playing

Reading to, and taking care of, my two children when they were very small

Explaining things -- an example is when I was helping my fellow students add fractions in grade school.

About this list: I have found it difficult to make a good "list of good things". There's always something about it that is problematic -- either I have to leave out something because it cannot be revealed, or I will offend people I don't want to offend (indirectly).

For a long time in my life I have had a short list of bad things in my life which I have always thought were very important. I still think that way, but this week I tried this experiment in which I write down good things.

I like to arrange concepts. Usually that takes the form of prose writing, and is like a short rough essay. The concepts may be bad things, good things, technical things, or some kind of reasoning or solutions. I usually begin after encountering something provocative, such as someone's email post, or an injustice, and I write an email about it.