Going To The Dogs

I thought I had heard of every type of crime, until today. It seems a woman named Jennifer Thomas in nearby Woodland, Washington claims her pet bulldog, Jagger has been kidnapped and held for ransom. But it's not just money the dog nappers (I wonder if that is word?) want. They demand both $1000 and the owner's prescription medications. Jennifer was in an accident that left her in a wheelchair and dependent on the medicine the dog nappers want.

Hmmm Well, this is all according to Jennifer's claims. She also said the thieves will torture her dog to death and send her a video of it if she reports the threat (she obviously has reported it to police and the media because I know about it to report this to you ... and I don't nap dogs for money and drugs). It makes me wonder a bit, not that I might be kidnapped, because no one would bother and no one would pay a ransom. In kidnap priority I am way below dogs like Jagger.

But I wonder about the perpetrators (if this story is real and not just in the imagination of Jennifer). How stupid must they be? Or perhaps they are just drug addicts acting irrationally in response to the need for a fix. It's weird someone would risk going to jail for stealing a dog, threatening to torture the dog and trying to extort money from the owner. Don't they have a ski mask and a gun they can use to rob a bank?

If caught and convicted the dog nappers will be sent to prison, but how will they explain their incarceration to the other thugs inside? There is a priority of respect one gets from the type of crime he or she committed that led to the incarceration of the convict. For example, the murderer is taken more seriously than the person who molested a child (who usually are molested themselves by some of the other prisoners as a sign of disdain for the crime they committed, since even prisoners don't like that kind of crime and have some crimes listed as unacceptable).

I wonder what the other cons will think of the dog nap, ransom and extort for drugs who took Jagger from Jennifer. They may see it as more equivalent to child molesting than as a "real crime". So what kind of crime are the dog nappers committing against Jennifer? Is it a crime of desperation for money, drugs or both? Is it a crime of stupidity
(amateur wanna be criminals trying to commit a lame crime)?

Or perhaps kids attempting a bad joke toward Jennifer? It just makes me want to bite somebody (but then that's a lame crime too)...

Changing Moral Codes

I read a commentary today and it had ideas I wanted to pass on to you. So here goes. Essentially, it involves moral thinking, specifically how troubled young people are today at thinking and talking about moral issues they face. University of Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith led a research team that conducted in-depth interviews with 230 young adults from across America that asked them open ended questions about right and wrong, about moral dilemmas and about the meaning of life.

Almost all of the young people, aged 18-23, failed to say anything sensible on these matters. The study's author said, "When asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two thirds of the young people either couldn't answer the question or described problems that are not moral at all, like whether they could afford to rent a certain apartment or whether they had enough quarters to feed the meter at a parking spot."

Kind of sad to see them so lacking in any cultural tie to a set of ethics. Smith said that most of them hadn't even given serious thought to some of the principal ethical questions they would face in life. "When asked about wrong or evil, they could generally agree that rape and murder are wrong. But, aside from these extreme cases, moral thinking didn't enter the picture, even when considering things like drunken driving, cheating in school or cheating on a partner.", said Smith

A typical response to the questions was that they hadn't thought about it before or that the answer depended on what the person being asked felt (what in the 1960's was termed "situational ethics"). The conclusion of the study is that for most young people believe that what is right or wrong is not determined by the moral code of the culture, but rather by the individual choosing what he or she thinks best. The "Who am I to say what's right? It is up to the individual" was a typical response from among those people interviewed.

So are young people just doing what makes them feel good or makes them happy instead of learning the society's code of ethics and applying those? As Smith said, "They have not been given the resources by schools, institutions and families to cultivate their moral intuitions, to think more broadly about moral obligations." But that would be the fault of society for trivializing itself to them and for not inculcating them.

I wonder if in fact this generation has not learned the culture's ethics, that for them, the moral precepts of the past have become separated from moral sources, and instead are replaced by the individual doing what "feels" good. This would imply the individuals have replaced the society's models with the individual model for moral choices. Morality has always been inherited and shared, but is it true that now the younger generation thinks of ethics as something that emerges in the privacy of his or her own heart? If that is true, it is a moral dilemma for us all.

Death Of Breakfast

Did you eat breakfast today? Most people eat or drink something in the morning that one could define as breakfast, but most of us don't eat the old style heavy breakfast meals that the generation of physical workers did. Work today doesn't require consuming a large volume of food and calories to keep us going because most of those who work today are working at white collar or service industry jobs. What we eat for breakfast has changed as fast as your changing technologies.

I can't speak for other cultures on this, but I would think that the west is not the only one that has a smaller, less nutritious breakfast meal as the standard today. In the west, most people no longer eat the old style breakfast meal of stacks of pancakes, sausages, toast and jam, coffee and orange juice. They don't have the time to cook it or eat it, don't need it to function at work or school and have been bombarded with quick fix smaller plate alternatives.

I think that along with tea, juice or coffee, cereal might be the most popular breakfast food today. It's light, easy to prepare and eat and so sugary and addictive it's like having dessert for the morning meal. We get addicted to those cereal meals by our childhood fascination with the, TV advertisers endless sugary cereals to kids as they watch their morning cartoons on TV. That translates later in life to their eating phony "fiber", "natural", "multigrain" or other alleged "healthy cereal" that are, in reality, just a variation of the non nutritious, sugary cereal of their childhood.

If the breakfast diner doesn't like cereal there is usually a substitute made of a bagel, donut or sweet roll, or fruit in place of the cereal. Consistency in the breakfast meal is the norm. We seem to eat mostly the same few things for breakfast each day. The only time we have an old style "big breakfast" is on weekends (when we have the time for it) or when eating breakfast out.

I wonder if breakfast is not just down sizing, but disappearing for many. Some people actually drink a cola or other soft drink each morning and call it breakfast. They seem to function as alertly and efficiently at school or at work as those who eat a bigger breakfast. This makes me think the old adage about how eating a good breakfast makes us do better at school or work to be a myth. Whatever, breakfast is now the least important meal to most westerners. It may eventually become as unpopular as wearing a wrist watch is today.

Chasing Hotel Buffets

You know what is happening more and more in American hotels and motels? Partly because of the bad economic times today, more and more people are stealing breakfast and lunches, dining for free at the hotels by pretending to be paying hotel guests. They simply walk into the free breakfast or lunch buffets at the hotel and chow down, sometimes also even taking doggie bags of food home with them. Forget wedding crashing! Now it is hotel free buffet crashing.

Many U.S. hotels do not ask the guests to show their hotel key or key card before sitting down to the buffet. It is at those that most of the buffet crashings occur. In the past this "don't ask " policy has been effective, given most people are not dishonest. The theory of the hotel that doesn't ask for proof before feeding has always been not to "offend" the guest by requiring he or she show that they are registered and paying guests of the hotel.

In the past in most hotels that offer free breakfast buffets, this has been only a small problem for years. But economic times are tougher now, people in the U.S are used to getting freebies from the government, and the people who buffet crash are hungry and sometimes too lazy to work to support and feed themselves. They're trying to beat the system and save a buck because most hotel policy about buffet crashers is to not cause a scene when they are discover non guests stealing hotel food. The first time the hotel will generally look the other way, but now with the problem growing and cheaters dining regularly on the buffet crash circuit, the second and third time they are asked to leave or the police are called to arrest them.

Bizarre stories of people wandering in off the streets to gorge on free food and then filling Tupperware dishes with leftovers is not uncommon now. Also some genuine hotel guests from other nearby hotels who prefer the buffet of a second hotel, can now be found eating at the other hotel's buffet instead of their own hotel's. Some hotel buffets are beginning to resemble food kitchens for the homeless.

But I think the bad economy isn't really the fault. Instead, it is probably the excuse people use to steal, a way of lessening guilt about what they are doing when taking the food. In fact, they may be too lazy, too cheap or too dishonest to not buffet crash until forced to stop. Hmmmm This is making me hungry....I wonder which hotels near me have a free buffet with blueberry pancakes..

The Best Temperature

It seems to me that the reaction people have to temperature is as much a relative as a physical one. It must be, because two different people entering two showers flowing water that is the same temperature are as likely to have opposite reactions to whether it feels hot or cold. I think most people anticipate whether they will be hot or cold and convince themselves they are right about it. That's why they like hot or cold more or less. (Put me down for liking cold temperatures far more).

My E mail friends in hot and humid Indonesia, for instance, will say it's "cold" if the temperature drops below 22 C or so, as it rarely does there. But those I know who live in Finland will go out in short pants and T shirts to celebrate the hot spell when it is 22 C. There is a physical conditioning to temperature that allows us to fool ourselves and imagine hot and cold differently than others. I'm sure that the Indonesian who complained about it being cold at 22C would change his or her perspective and think that temperature hot if he or she moved to and lived in Finland long enough to re-condition to the temperatures there.

So how come we can't adjust as easily to things other than temperature? We adjust to temperature but not, for instance, to personal dislikes. I hate to dance and refuse to do it, so that's why there is not adjustment to it. If I am out and people are dancing I'll watch, but never dance. No matter how many times I am there I won't dance because I already have determined that dancing is not interesting. You may hate sports or a particular sport and refuse to watch it. If so, no matter how many times "the game is on TV" and you are in the room where it is showing, you won't watch. Temperature is an external stimuli. We can't refuse to adjust to it, but much of what we do is under our own internal controls. Those things that give us a choice in adjusting we don't adjust to well at all.

Age or experience also often keeps us from adapting to new things or differences. Older people invariably are "old fashioned" because they simply reject any accommodation to newness...unless (as in the case of adapting to temperature) they are forced to adapt. When we are used to an experience we have had regularly over time, we more often resist change because we see change as a threat to the comfort we take in what we already like. On the other hand, the younger or less experienced person is much less set in a routine and the less likely to resist adaptation to the new. It's why Lady Gaga is the flavor of the month for the young while Frank Sinatra is the flavor of life for older adults.

Anyway....it's getting hot in here. I will open the window and enjoy the snow.

China Censors Video Games

Chinese Premier Hu recently warned his political party of danger from the west. Uh, not military danger, but rather the danger of video games. Yes, video games are now seen as a threat to the dictatorship in China. He announced in a speech that was publicized widely by the Chinese press that "international hostile forces use thought and culture to Westernize and split China."

I guess he is right if you define "hostile forces" as the movement to more freedom in China and "westernizing and splitting China" as allowing ideas to enter China without censorship by the government. The Chinese dictators have always censored speech and ideas, even the most innocent music (they once banned a syrupy Backstreet Boys tune). But the fact that non political video games is on their list shows they are losing the battle between dictatorship and democracy.

Since opening the country to capitalism, China has tried bring economic gains without the political and personal freedoms that are attached to them. That can be achieved for awhile, but as the economy grows more and more, democratic cultural and personal freedoms are put on display, and the dictators will gradually lose control. Through massive government investment in China and attempts to censor anything that is contrary to the Communist party line, the dictators think they can control the culture in China and steer it to acceptance of the dictatorship. It is doubtful that will work. Essentially, the dictators have to either reassert total control over the population and deny any freedom at all, which endangers the economic growth, or they can continue to open China to whatever cultural contamination (the freedom) that comes into China along with the economic benefits.

Recently the dictators banned about 2/3 of the Western and Chinese created copies of Western entertainment shows on Chinese TV (silly, harmless stuff like American Idol style shows) because it was claimed that they are "excessive entertainment and a trend toward low taste. They are probably right on both counts. Western TV shows are mostly mind mumbing drivel. But people everywhere do want to decide themselves whether to watch that mess or find more enlightening alternatives.

In fact, this nervous reaction against harmless western influences shows that the Chinese government is worried that the "Arab Spring" revolutions might eventually spread to China, endangering their control and eventually mean they would be overthrown and replaced with some form of less restrictive government. The Chinese dictators have always believed that the citizens can be controlled by controlling the culture. But is it possible to control that now, in the age of multi communication devices that spew forth any idea one is curious to see or read about?

Too, the dictators think they can solve China's domestic problems by manipulating the culture and information it allows the residents to hear. But the manipulation and control is also why China is such a non creative society that produces little cultural products (art, literature etc.) that other societies want. No doubt lessening the control today in China would regenerate today the once great cultural contributions China gave the world, pre Communism. But then, dictators are only really concerned about keeping control, not strengthening the cultural identity of the nation.

So the struggle between economic prosperity and freedom versus dictatorship is heating up in China. Has the government opened the door too widely to close it again? We may find out sooner than later.

Napping, Napping, Napping, Gently At My Door

I like to take naps whenever I feel the need. I haven't yet napped while writing here, but it might be a good idea for both of us if I did. I could wake refreshed and you might not receive the nonsense I write because I will have forgotten what I was writing about in the first place. This is proof that naps are a good thing for both of us.

I think the reason I take naps is because my sleep apnea only allows me about 5 hours sleep each night. So I need to nap in order to make up for the lack of sleep. The sleep experts term my kinds of naps, which range from 10 minutes to about 40, as "power naps". I like this term because I am mad for power, not only when awake, but when asleep. That power nap is a one that is used to compensate for sleep deprivation (I wish they would call it "power sleep deprivation" so I could be even more powerful).

Power naps are those which end before the onset of a deep sleep. This keeps the person who is power napping from sleeping deeply, which would interfere with his or her normal bedtime sleep. It also allows the napper to feel refreshed, almost as if mimicking a deep sleep. I write all of this so you will know I am a power napper, who is sleep deprived and therefore, not responsible for the stupidity you read from me. I take my power napping to be sort of like the insanity plea that a mass murderer uses to escape punishment. Gee, I really am not guilty of stupidity!

I also like the association with the famous people who also power napped. This probably won't rehab my bad reputation, weak character and general indolence, but it surely makes me feel better about myself. Winston Churchill was a power napper. Hmmm Maybe I am as good as Winston was. Well, I think I am showing another of my deficits, that of irrationality and inability to make analogies or sound conclusions. Winston would probably slap me for even suggesting we are alike. If I were lucky he would be too tired to slap and, instead, just take a power nap.

Other famous people who regularly power napped every day just like me (yes I know, but were altogether superior to me) include former President Lyndon Johnson; Napoleon Bonaparte; former President John Kennedy; the world's great inventor, Thomas Edison; painter Salvador Dali; and one of my least favorite presidents, Ronald Reagan.

You may be tired now and need a night. I just hope after reading this drivel your nap doesn't turn into a nightmare.